Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2005 02:26:59 CST
From: "dapperdobbs" 
Newsgroups: misc.invest.financial-plan
Subject: Re: DRIP Plans
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Patrick Holzer wrote:

> 1) research - Where to start.  Is there a publication (online/print)
> in which I can analyze companys' data like revenues,P/E ratios, P/S
> ratios, historial dividend payments and such?  I'd like to start
> paring down the available companies and being able to look at the data
> and doing my own reaearch is of greatest interest to me.  What
> publications would I use to do this?

Go to the library and ask for Value Line Investment Survey - the one
that covers 1700 stocks. There you can read up on the industry groups
(98 of them), and on the stocks VL assigns to them, with 15 some odd
years of earnings history, PE's, dividends, ROE, debt, share count, and
more. Otherwise, try Yahoo finance or the NASDAQ web page, and plug in
some parameters for their stock screeners. When doing your own
analysis, knowing what to look for is important - I always recommend
"The Intelligent Investor" (easily available). If you plan to build up
a portfolio over the years, you might want to go with a discount broker
as opposed to holding the certificates yourself, since it facilitates
buying and selling - but check to make sure the broker won't charge you
quarterly fees for holding your account there.