Investorial

google-finance-screenshot.thumbnail.jpg"/>I previously wrote about a data problem I noticed with Google Finance’s display of a stock’s timeframe. Turns out it was a designed feature! I’ve since leveraged Google Finance as a starting point to look at my watch list. However, I remain skeptical of Google’s ability to integrate data.

Today, I was looking at a Google Finance stock quote. Even though I have previously blogged negatively about Tim Horton’s IPO, there is no question in my mind that Tim Horton’s is still the strongest franchise name that Canada can offer. I have Tim Hortons (THI) in my watch-list for a possible entry point in the future. Take a look at the bigger screenshot after the jump to see the errors Google Finance displayed for me. (more…)

Do you own stock options that are also under water? Tech employees from the dot com bubble era may never get to exercise their options (if their companies still exist!). I have never been a fan of stock options, and prefer my bonuses in the form of a real bonus compensation or a transparent shares grant.

While most may still think that stock options can foster worker alignment with company goals, it’s worthy for investors to note why most corporations prefer stock option compensation — because it means they don’t have to be held accountable for it! Confused? Then you must definitely read Forbes’ latest article debunking the big lies about stock options. (more…)

I miss Herb Greenberg’s articles. If you didn’t know, he’s on summer vacation at the moment. I wanted to dissect the good, the bad and the ugly about the investment media out there in part because of heroes like him doing his part fighting for, and educating the un-informed masses.

I bookmarked 2 recent Greenberg articles and just re-read them tonight. Thought I’d share with you some of my thoughts about the good media out there! (Unless you think I’m always being critical, and cynical) The first must-read is an educational piece about how to not get blindsided by earnings reports. These quarterly dances can really get the best of investors who are not watching out for the following:

1. What goes in, doesn’t come out
2. Melting margins
3. Signing up customers at any cost
4. Quarter-end announcements

For more details on these suspicious events that can skew earnings reports. Be sure to check out Herb’s post. The ending sentence “When it comes to earnings, it’s quality, not quantity, that counts.” are truly words to live by for investors.

My next selection could also be my favourite Greenberg article for this year so far. (more…)

google.com/finance/images/logo_finance.gif"/>We all know Google for the information blackhole that it wants to be. Google sucks up all indexable knowledge from webpages, books, videos, your desktop and whatever media / database that it can get its hands on. However, Google is also the company who while claiming to “do no evil”, willingly censors information in order to break into the China markets. You can see what I mean by searching for “tiananmen” in Google Images here and its China counterpart here.

I’m not here to argue whether Google is a saint or a devil in disguise, or whether its merely doing no evil according to local contexts. But it begs the question of what Google Finance (a relatively new Google service) does with its data? Beyond the much raved about gimmicky interface, the bottom line for researching using Google is the integrity of its data. Here’s a case (with screenshots) proving that Google Finance is showing the wrong incomplete data, or is it consciously participating in censoring activity? (more…)

Earnings is the number that keeps CFOs awake at night. Nightmares of backlashing shareholders dance in their heads, in fear of a time when that number should ever prove dissappointing.

I’ll preface by saying that I’m not an accountant, and would welcome any comments by people commanding such expertise. Numbers can’t lie, but the game’s stakeholders may use them as tools to mislead and distract from the real issues. Here’s an example of a company creatively presenting earnings figures. (more…)

I’ve always maintained that I am not into day-trading. Nor am I turned on by technical analysis, candles, charts. That doesn’t mean the craft or principles do not have merit; only that I prefer to invest my money in a manner that I can understand! I evoke the following Warren Buffett quotes only as a way to poke fun at myself!

“I realized technical analysis didn’t work when I turned the charts upside down and didn’t get a different answer”

“If past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians.”

Still, I found it interesting to read Trader Mike as he gave us a glimpse of of the tools he used and how he worked. It would not be right for me to dismiss trading if I had not bothered to learn more about it. Having said that, no more opinions on this post. I simply thought that any fundamentalist readers passing by may find it interesting to learn about what lurked on “the other side”

I received a private alpha invitation to check out SocialPicks, a new Web 2.0 / Social Web application seeking to be the new way for people to share stock picks and research. Users can get investment ideas from friends, see who else follow their advices, and see everyone’s performance over time. Members can also recommend stocks, and let your track record speak for themselves.

InvestorGeeks had previously blogged a positive informative preview of the service so I will defer to it rather than rehash all the details. You’ve come here for the Investorial point-of-view and that’s what I aim to deliver! (more…)

Let me preface the remainder of this article by saying that calling this study inept is indeed generous. Does anybody feel like they are being fattened up for the slaughter like those brokers that screamed “tech stocks forever” in late 2001?

I read a recent Financial Post article that is helping to keep the well oiled financial marketing machine running. What’s selling like hotcakes off the shelves? One only has to look at the artificially propped up TSX composite index to realize that trusts (especially oil income trusts) are the ’special du jour’. First the article attempts to provide damage control.

The recent headlines generated by business income trusts cutting payouts have led some investors to a simplified view of the world of payouts: Trusts’ distributions bad, common-share dividends good. Right?

Wrong, according to Scotia Capital’s trust analysts. They compared the payout history of business trusts against common equities since January, 2002, using the members of the Scotia Capital business trust index and all stocks in the S&P/TSX composite index.

First, have you ever known trust analysts to signal that trusts are bad during its boom? Second, that’s only 4 years worth of data! If we looked at the stock market narrowly from 1997 to 2001, everything was smelling like roses too! Using trending data to glorify study results means that the underlying fundamentals are disregarded; thrown out the window in favour of what’s looking good. (more…)