Which kind of investor this desk serves

Which kind of trader this desk serves answers the trading styles. This page answers the investing ones. Each kind of investor gets one bullet, the screens named, and one plain verdict.

At a glance

• What the desk holds. A nightly read on about 1,000 US listed stocks, published each weekday evening after the close.
• What it does with them. It places each name against the others at seven time frames. It publishes a short list each evening in Trade Cards.
• What it never holds. Dividends, yields, payout records, company accounts, fund holdings and fund prices.
• What it never does. It never calls a share cheap or dear. It never says what a price will do next.
• Who it fits best. Somebody buying and selling single US shares in their own account.
• Key difference. The desk ranks and restates single stocks. It knows nothing about your savings, your income or your tax position.

How to read each entry

• What you get. The screens on this desk that carry something for that kind of investor.
• What is missing. The data the desk does not hold, said plainly.
• Verdict. One of three words: well served, partly served, or not served.

A verdict is about fit with this desk. It says nothing about whether that way of investing works.

The six kinds

• Long term buy and hold. This means owning shares for years rather than weeks. You get the longer time frames on Rank by Timeframe, out to about six months. Price Chart carries five years of bars. Book History tracks how the published list has changed. Public Filings and Earnings Radar carry the filings and the report dates. What is missing is company accounts, dividends and any read on value. Verdict: partly served.
• Retired, or close to it. Whether anything here suits you is not something this desk can judge. It does not know your age, your income, your tax position or what else you own. It ranks names and restates public data, and that is all it does. What it does offer is the longer time frames, Book History, Public Filings and Earnings Radar. What is missing is any measure of income, and any read on a reader's own circumstances. Verdict: partly served. The desk publishes one signal for every reader and judges no single situation.
• Dividend and income investors. This means owning shares for the cash they pay out. You get nothing built for it. The desk carries no dividend, no yield and no payout record on any screen. Price Chart is adjusted for splits and is not adjusted for dividends, so a long history reads a little low. Verdict: not served.
• Index and fund investors. This means owning trackers and funds rather than single companies. The books this firm publishes never hold a fund. The nightly scan does rank about eighty funds among its thousand names, and their sector column reads Unclassified. Nothing here reads through to what a fund contains. You can still look up one company held inside a fund, one name at a time. Verdict: not served.
• Value investors. This means judging a company by what it is worth against what it costs. You get price to earnings and market value columns on Market Scan. Public Filings reproduces what insiders and large managers disclosed. Company Events carries what a company has filed lately. What is missing is the accounts themselves. There is no revenue, no margin, no debt, no cash flow and no ratio beyond those two columns. Verdict: partly served.
• Growth investors. This means backing companies whose sales and profits are climbing. You get those same two columns, plus Earnings Radar. Earnings Radar carries the analysts' own estimate for a coming quarter. It also shows how the last four reports landed against the estimate that stood before each. What is missing is a growth screen. The nightly ranking sorts names against each other and is not built on sales or profit growth. Verdict: partly served.

New to this, and you have invested a little already

Start with Your first ten minutes. It walks the first screens in the order they are meant to be read. Nothing above needs to be settled before you open it.

Frequently asked questions

Does the desk show dividends or yield? No. There is no dividend figure, no yield and no payout history on any screen. Price Chart is adjusted for splits only. A long price history therefore sits a little below a total return.

I own index funds, does this apply to me? Not to the funds themselves. The desk reads single US listed companies, and the books it publishes never hold a fund or a tracker. You can look up one company held inside a fund, one name at a time. The fund itself is outside what this desk covers.

Is this appropriate for a retiree? The desk cannot answer that. It does not know your age, your income, your tax position or what else you own. What it does is rank single US stocks and restate public market data. Whether that belongs anywhere near your savings is your judgement to make.

Is there a dividend or income version? No. There is one nightly read on single US stocks, and it carries no payout data of any kind.

Where are the company accounts? They are not here. The desk carries filing dates, report dates, and price to earnings and market value on the scan. It holds no financial statements.

Related panes

• Which kind of trader this desk serves, the same answer for the trading styles.
• Your first ten minutes, the walk for a new account.
• What this desk can and cannot tell you, the limits stated once.
• Market Scan, where the two company columns are printed.
• Earnings Radar and Public Filings, the two screens carrying company disclosures.
• Price Chart, five years of split adjusted bars.