Tips for Researching & Analyzing Stocks Mississippi

So you've got a good tip on a stock - what next? Well, you could simply buy the stock and see what happens, hoping that your source was right. But that's not the most prudent way to build a high-quality portfolio. Perhaps you'd better do some research first, in order to understand the company and its prospects.

Noted fund manager Peter Lynch is fond of pointing out that most Americans spend more time picking out a new refrigerator than they do on selecting new holdings for their portfolios. The funny thing is - your new refrigerator may cost you a cool grand and last ten years before it gives out, but a thousand bucks in your portfolio might be worth three or four thousand dollars in that same ten years - if you just set aside a fraction of the time and energy to understand your stocks as well as you know your refrigerator. Otherwise, it may only be worth an old refrigerator 10 years later.

Back in the good old days, researching a stock meant calling or writing away to a company to ask for their investor information packet, going to the library, or asking your broker for a research report. Often, the data was months old, but that was as timely as it could get.

Today, you've got megabytes of research, news, data and analyses right at your fingertips on the Internet - often available instantaneously as soon as it's published. Funny thing, though, all that online data hasn't really changed much for the long-term investor.

Click here to read the rest of the article at YoungMoney.com.