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Value and growth investors seldom agree on what's important for evaluating a stock. But here are seven questions every investor, regardless of persuasion, should ask before plunking down money:
1.What does the company do?
Do you know what your company actually does for a living? Is it in a hot growth sector or in a saturated industry whose best growth days are long gone? Or does it make those proverbial buggy whips?
That first question is not as silly as it sounds. Sometimes we become so focused on analyzing the numbers that we forget about the big picture.
You probably know what the company does if you're looking at the likes of Wal-Mart Stores (WMT, news, msgs) or Google (GOOG, news, msgs). But it's a different story when you start examining at lesser-known names. For example, what do Icon (ICLR, news, msgs) and Knoll (KNL, news, msgs) do for a living?
You can find out in a New York minute by checking MSN Money's Company Report pages. Though only one paragraph, each report describes a company's products and/or services in pretty good detail, and it's written in understandable English.
The reports give you more than enough information to gain a feel for the company's products and/or services. For instance, Icon provides outsourced clinical-trial services to pharmaceutical companies, and Knoll makes office furniture.
What do you do with that wisdom? It depends. If you were looking for hot growth stocks, you would probably find Icon of interest but drop Knoll like a hot potato.
On the other hand, value investors, knowing that the market ignores unglamorous industries, seek out stocks such as Knoll in hopes of finding an undervalued gem.
2.How many widgets is it selling?
Companies are in business to sell products and/or services. We're talking big numbers here. Most publicly traded corporations rack up sales running into the hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
However, as an investor, you often encounter companies with a supposedly hot product on the drawing board but with little or no sales. When you buy such companies, you're buying the "story," which may or may not come to pass. That's risky business.
Risk-averse investors should stick with companies racking up at least $500 million in annual sales. Does that limit the field too much? Not really. When I checked recently, more than 1,700 U.S.-based stocks fit the bill.
More-adventurous investors can go lower, but the risk meter goes off the chart when you get below $100 million in 12 months of sales. At the very least, disqualify stocks with less than $10 million in sales in the most recent quarter.
You can find the past four quarters' figures (look for "last 12 months") on each Company Report page, and you'll spot the quarterly figures on the Highlights report in the page's Financial Results section.
You can't apply minimum-sales criteria to banks and similar institutions, because their income comes from interest earned, which usually doesn't show up in the sales totals.
3.Just how profitable is the company?
For stocks, profitability means more than not losing money. Here's why.
Consider two hypothetical companies, company A and company B, both selling widgets for $100 each. After considering all expenses, company A makes $50 on each widget sold, while company B makes $25 per widget. If they both sell a million widgets a year, company A's profit totals $50 million compared with company B's $25 million.
Thus, each year, company A has $25 million more extra cash than company B. It can use that cash to develop new widgets, build more factories, pay dividends, etc. There is no way that company B can keep up with company A's spending without going outside to raise more cash, either by borrowing or by selling more shares. Both alternatives diminish shareholders' earnings.
Obviously, you'd be better off owning stock in company A than in company B, but how do you know which is which?
4.That's where profitability measures come into play.
Return on equity, or ROE, the ratio of a company's 12-month net income to its shareholder equity (book value), is the most widely used profitability gauge. But relying on ROE has a downside. The way the math works, all else being equal, the higher the debt, the higher the ROE.
By contrast, you calculate return on assets, or ROA, by dividing net income by total assets, which includes liabilities. Consequently, all else being equal, the lower the debt, the higher the ROA.
You can see ROAs in the Investment Returns section of the Key Ratios report (under Financial Results). Look for companies with ROAs above 10%. Avoid ROAs below 5%.
Growth investors should pay most attention to the trailing-12-months ROA. However, because value stock candidates may have recently stumbled, value investors should focus on the five-year-average profitability figures.
Cash flow measures the amount of money that moved into or out of a company's bank accounts during a reporting period.
Cash flow is a better profit measure than earnings because it's harder to finagle bank balances than numbers like depreciation schedules that figure into earnings. In fact, many companies that report positive earnings are actually losing money when you count the cash.
Operating cash flow measures the cash flow attributable to the company's main business. You can find it on either the quarterly or annual cash flow statement (see Statements under Financial Results). However, the quarterly statements are timelier. That said, be aware that the quarterly cash flow columns reflect the year-to-date (cumulative) totals, not the individual quarters' results.
You want companies with cash flowing in, not out. So look for positive numbers in the Net Cash from Operating Activities row. Though any positive number is OK, it's best if the operating cash flow exceeds the net income (top line) for the same period.
5.Is the company submerged in debt?
High debt is not always a bad thing. For instance, there's nothing wrong with a company borrowing at 6% if it can put the funds to work earning 12%. Nevertheless, the higher the debt, the more susceptible a company is to rising interest rates. Rising rates result in higher debt-service costs, which subtract from earnings.
The financial leverage ratio (total assets divided by shareholders' equity) is an all-purpose debt gauge. A company with no debt would have a financial leverage ratio of 1, and the higher the ratio, the more debt.
As a rule of thumb, avoid companies with leverage ratios above 5, which is the average of S&P 500 Index ($INX) stocks, and lower is better.
You can't apply the leverage ratio -- or any other debt measure, for that matter -- to banks or other financial organizations. For them, borrowed cash is their inventory. Financial companies always carry high debt compared with companies in other industries.
6.Any bad news lately?
Negative news, such as an earnings shortfall, problems with a new product or an accounting restatement, not only pressure a company's share price but often portend even more such news on the way.
Bad news is the death knell for growth stocks, and growth investors should avoid all such stocks.
Even value types, who seek out stocks beaten down by bad news, should wait on the sidelines until they're reasonably sure that there is no more to come.
Is cash flowing in or out?
Think months, not weeks.
Take a look at the company's latest doings by selecting Recent News at the left of a stock's quote page.
7.Which way are forecasts moving?
There is much to be gained by paying attention to analysts' earnings forecasts.
MSN Money displays consensus earnings forecasts for most stocks. These are the average forecasts from all analysts covering a stock. The consensus numbers tend to move in trends. Why? I'm not sure. One reason may be that after one analyst makes a significant change, others re-examine their models and then revise their estimates in the same direction.
Changes in consensus earnings forecasts move stock prices. A positive forecast trend moves prices up and vice versa.
You can use the Consensus EPS Trend report (under Earnings Estimates) to see current, next-quarter and fiscal-year estimates going back 90 days. Focus on the fiscal-year data and ignore 1-cent changes. Avoid negatively trending stocks -- that is, stocks for which the latest fiscal-year estimates are more than 2 cents below the figures of 90 days ago.
Answering these seven questions will help you make better investing decisions, but they are just a start. Dig deeply and learn all you can. The more you know about your stocks, the better your results.
At the time of publication, Harry Domash owned or controlled shares of the following company mentioned in this column: Icon.
把钱投入股市有可能让你受到意外的打击，要避免这种情况就应该做出正确的分析。
价值投资者和成长型投资者对用什么来评估一支股票最重要这一点总是各持已见，但这里所说的七个问题是每个投资者，不管他相不相信，都应该在买股之前问的问题。
一、这个公司是做什么的？
你知道这个公司是做什么来赚钱的吗？它是属于高发展行业还是饱和行业(最好的发展时期早已过去)？或者它做的产品按谚语来说是“赶马车的鞭子”（指完全落伍的行业）？
第一个问题并不象咋听之下这么愚蠢，有时我们会太注重分析数据而忘了最重要的事。
如果你在关注的是类似于沃尔玛或是google的股票，你可能知道这些公司是干什么的，但如果你现在开始查看一些不太熟悉的名字，那情况就大不相同了，比如Icon和Knoll公司的股票，你知道它们是做什么的吗？
你可以用一分钟的时间，通过查看MSN财经上的公司报告网页得出答案。虽然只有一页，但报告已很详细地说明了公司的产品或服务，用浅显易懂的英语。
报告能给你足够的信息让你对公司的产品或服务有所了解。例如，Icon为制药企业提供临床试验外包服务，Knoll制造办公家具。
了解了这些后你会怎么做呢？这就不一定了。如果你在寻找高成长性的股票，你可能会对Icon很感兴趣而把Knoll当烫手山芋。
而另一方面，价值投资者知道市场会忽视一些平凡的行业，所以他们会挑选象Knoll这样的股票，以希望找到一颗被低估的宝石。
二、这个公司的主营产品销售有多少？
公司的业务就是销售产品或服务。我们这里所说的是一个很大的数字，大部分上市企业的年销售额会达到几亿美元。
但是，作为一个投资者，你有时候会遇到一些公司，描述它们生产一种应该很受欢迎的产品，但实际上销售很少或者根本没有销售。当你买这类公司时，你买的是一个“故事”，可能会成现实也可能不会。这是很冒险的事。
想规避风险的投资者应该坚持选择年销售超过5亿美元的公司。这个要求下是不是可供选择的股票太少了？不是的，按最近的情况看，有超过1700家美国公司的股票符合这个要求。
比较激进的投资者可以把这个数字定得低一些， 但是12个月的销售额低于1亿美元的公司风险就很难预测了。不过说到底，至少至少，不能选择最近一个季度的销售额低于1000万美元的公司股票。
你可以在每个公司报告网页上找到前四个季度的数据（查找“最近十二个月”），在“财务状况”的“重要报告”中可以看到每个季度的数据。
不过这个最小销售额标准不适用于银行或类似公司，因为他们的主要收入来自利息收入，通常不在销售额中体现出来。
三、这个公司有多赚钱？
对于股票来说，盈利性比不亏损重要得多，为什么呢？
假定有两个公司，A公司和B公司，都以100美元一件的价格销售产品。除去所有成本后，A公司每件产品可得到50美元利润，而B公司只能得到20美元利润。如果它们一年都销售100万件产品，A公司利润是5000万美元而B公司只有2500万美元。
因此，每年A公司比B公司多得到2500万美元的现金，它可以用这些现金去开发新产品，建更多的工厂，支付股息等等。而B公司完全不能跟A公司一样花钱，B公司要得到更多现金，只能靠借款或出售股票，这两者都会使股票持有者的收益减少。
显然，你买A公司的股票比买B公司好。但是你怎么知道哪个公司是A公司，哪个公司是B公司呢？这里，盈利性指标就有作用了。
净资产收益率，又称ROE，指公司十二个月的净收入与股东权益（帐面价值）的比率，是用得最多的盈利性指标。但是依赖ROE会有不足。从数学角度来说，假设其它条件一样，负债越多，ROE越高。
相反，我们来计算资产收益率，又称ROA，指净收入除以总资产（包括负债）。结果是：假设其它条件一样，负债越少，ROA越高。
你可以在“投资收益”栏的主要比率报告中找到ROA（在财务状况下面）。寻找ROA高于10%的公司，避开ROA低于5%的公司。
注重增长的投资者最关注的是最近12个月的ROA，但因为价值型股票有可能目前情况并不好，所以价值投资者应该关注五年平均盈利数据。
四、公司的现金流是流入还是流出？
现金流衡量的是一个公司在报告期内从公司银行帐户中流入或流出的金额。
现金流是一个比收益更好的衡量利润的指标，因为在银行存款数目上造假比在另一些计入收益的数目，如折旧表上造假要难。事实上，如果你计算一下现金，一些报告上说很赚钱的公司实际上是亏损的。
经营性现金流衡量的是因公司主营业务需要引起的现金流动。你可以找到季度或年现金流量表（在财务状况下面有“流量表”）。但是季度性的流量表更及时，要知道它表明的季度现金流量是指从年初至今的累计值，而不只是这个季度的状况。
你肯定希望公司的现金是流入而不是流出的，所以在经营性收入里找一下现金净额的正值。虽然任何正值都是好的，但如果经营性现金流在同一时期超过净收入（在表的第一行）是最好的。
五、公司是否陷入债务中？
高负债并不总是坏事。比如说，如果一个公司借了6%利率的贷款用于生产，可以获得12%的收益，这样的负债就完全不是坏事。但是，负债越多，越容易受到利益上涨的影响。利率上涨会导致利息成本上升，收益减少。
“财务杠杆比率”（总资产除以股东权益）是一个通用的债务指标。一个没有债务的公司财务杠杆比率为1，比率越高，负债越多。
凭经验来看，要避开比率高于5的公司，这是500种标准普尔指数股票的平均值，然后越低越好。
财务杠杆比率或是其它负债指标都不适用于银行或其它金融企业。对它们来说，借钱是它们的投资。金融企业的负债总是比其它行业的公司高。
六、公司最近有什么坏消息吗？
负面消息，比如收入下滑、新产品遇到问题或会计报表修改，不仅仅会对公司的股价带来压力，而且常�；嵩な咀徘懊婊褂懈嗾庋南⒊鱿�。
坏消息对成长型股票来说是丧钟，所以注重成长性的投资者要避开所有这类股票。
即使是喜欢从被坏消息打击的股票中选股的价值投资者，都应该保持旁观，直到确信这种坏消息不会再来。
考虑几个月内的消息，而不是几个星期内。
可以通过股票报价页面的“最新消息”栏看一下公司最近发生做的事。
七、预计公司会往哪个方向发展？
关心分析师对收益的预测，你可以得到很多信息。
MSN财经上对大部分股票的收益都有一个预测，这是所有分析师对这个股票预测的平均值。这个数值往往会朝一个方向发展。为什么？我也不确定。也许原因之一是一位分析师得出一个明显的变化后，其他人会重新检查他们的分析模型，然后向同一个方向修正他们的估计。
你可以用“每股盈利趋势预测报告”（在收益预测下）看一下90天来分析师对目前、下季度和会计年度的预测。把注意力放在会计年度每股盈利数据，不要在意一美分的变化。避开盈利趋势向下的股票--也就是最近的年度每股盈利预测比90天前的数据降低2美分以上的股票。
总结：问这七个问题可以帮助你更好地作出投资决定，但这只是一个开始。尽你可能地深挖下去，了解更多。对股票了解越多，你能得到的结果越好。
