No matter whether you are just getting into investing, or if you have been participating in it for a long time already, there will always be go-to resources that can help you along the way in your journey. Fortunately, it turns out you don't need a Bloomberg Terminal, nor do you really need to know how to engineer models, to find good opportunities when you are investing for the long-run. There is a range of resources available that you can access with relative ease. They might be free resources, subscriptions, or one-off costs, and your preferred resource may be a book, a website, or a podcast. One day, this blog will probably be on peoples' list of preferred resources, however, in the interim I have pulled together a handful of my preferred resources that have in one way or another helped me, or that I use frequently.
The Intelligent Investor
Kicking this list off is Benjamin Graham's classic, almost Biblical, written resource for investing. First published in 1973, revisions and updated versions have been made to the text bringing it into the modern era. Regardless, it remains committed to its original principles and philosophy. A foundation for financial literacy, this book teaches approaches like value investing, and warns against chasing trends or hype, while contrasting approaches to stock picking between the 'defensive' investor and the 'enterprising' investor. I first read this book at university, and I keep coming back to it to ground my approach and reorientate during tricky times for markets. There are lots of books on investing, and each of them will promise different things that you have to know, or they will push some kind of 'secret' to investing. I have read my fair share of these books and maybe some of them have good points, however, if you spend all your money on investment books you will no money to invest. These other books also are not essential. There is only one book that a retail investor needs, and it is this one.
Investor's Chronicle (IC)
Published by the FT Group, this weekly publication never fails as a source of inspiration for industries, markets, stocks and funds to either put on a watchlist or investigate for purchasing now. Several years ago some would criticise this publication for being too UK-focused, however, in recent times there are undoubtedly more US-equities being covered by this magazine; one article from February was literally titled: The Best US drinks stocks to invest in.
Whether I take IC's advice or share tips off the bat is of course a big 'no'. The articles, naturally, only provide one person's view of the sky. While IC's views are often incredibly interesting, bringing together markets, politics, and economics, everyone should scrutinise everything, everywhere, all the time, and make up their mind. My love of IC, essentially, rests with access to a set of potentially good ideas, from which point I can do my own research before deciding which ideas might be best for me.
Motley Fool Money (Podcast)
Purely for its convenience and consistently relevant content, the Motley Fool Money podcast takes current affairs and illustrates how it's relevant to the markets and investors. Like Investor's Chronicle, I'm not going to take all of their statements at face value, however, their twice-weekly releases are more than enough to push me in various directions and are great indicators of the most pressing issues of a given week. The facts and insights they drop, too, are often those you'd miss in the busyness of your week. For example, as a UK-based person, it's more likely than not that in 2023 I was unlikely to just come across the news that Costco was starting to offer telemedicine to its members. The Motley Fool Money podcast had me covered.
It would be great if episodes were more frequent, but for something I can just drop into via Spotify and listen to on my commute, I can't complain.
MorningStar If I want a speedy snapshot of a company, that I may be interested in but don't have much familiarity with, then MorningStar is usually a good place to start. MorningStar is a huge font of knowledge covering over 620,000 investments, and presents information in highly digestible formats. The insights are not as good as those one could gain from reading the annual reports of a company, and it isn't as visually appealing as something like Simply Wall Street. Nevertheless, as a free resource, it is reliable, trustworthy, and saves me a lot of time in the early stages of research or considering a stock.
Annual Reports
The most insightful, and essential, resource is a company's annual reports. Before I buy any stock, I want to know the narrative of the company's previous five years. Annual reports provide the key metrics, testimonies, and justifications straight from the horse's mouth. Understanding how these have evolved gives unrivaled insights into a company that I might invest in. One can outsource research to a firm like MorningStar, Simply Wall Street, or The Motley Fool, however, while their statements might be useful, their advantage of speed and ease sacrifices the particular nuance of your own research. The tricky part is figuring out what you are looking for in these reports.
Conveniently, The Intelligent Investor has a set of principles and metrics one can use to evaluate annual reports. For example, whether the revenue growth rate of the company is sustainable; whether the company is a serial acquirer of other companies; whether management achieves what it says it wants to do; is its P/E ratio reasonable, etc. I try to find these when I read through annual reports. The ease with which one can find this information varies from company to company.
In making a template for this information, which I use when scanning through annual reports, I have made this process faster and more efficient. Nevertheless, at the heart of reading annual reports is the need for an eye for detail to catch the facts and nuances that may otherwise go unnoticed.
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