Intrigued about investing?
First it is important to understand the definition of Value Investing. Investopedia defines it as “the strategy of selecting stocks that trade for less than their intrinsic values. Value investors actively seek stocks of companies that they believe the market has undervalued. They believe the market overreacts to good and bad news, resulting in stock price movements that do not correspond with the company’s long-term fundamentals. The result is an opportunity for value investors to profit by buying when the price is deflated. Typically, value investors select stocks with lower-than-average price-to-book or price-to-earnings ratios and/or high dividend yields.” Sounds pretty simple in theory but it takes work to select stocks with this strategy. The following ten websites should prove useful to investors as well as those just curious about investing in general.
1. The Motley Fool: http://www.fool.com/?source=iflsittph0000001
Global Alexa Rating: 950
The Motley Fool is a great tool for investors as it delves into much more than just value investing. It was founded in 1993 by David and Tom Gardner to provide financial solutions for investors of every kind. They have a number of products and services, some of which are free while others are fee-based and some are online resources while others are offline. They also offer subscription newsletter services. The site is loaded with tools on how to invest and provides investing commentary on Basics, ETFs, Options, Small-Cap, Dividends & Income, High Growth, Vlue, Mutual Funds and International. The Value tab under Investing Commentary is the area regarding value investing specifically.
2. Investopedia: http://www.investopedia.com/university/stockpicking/stockpicking3.asp
Global Alexa Rating: 1,067
The link given above is for an article regarding value investing as a stock-picking strategy. It is a well-written article with links written into all the various terms in the article so that if one is unfamiliar it can be followed for further explanation. Investopedia lives up to its name because it is a veritable encyclopedia of investment terms, strategies and much more. They offer free newsletters, free annual reports and free tools. A great tool is their stock simulator in which users can actually learn by doing with a free account that starts with $100,000 so that an investor can test out strategies without risking any money. This is just a simulation so unfortunately you don’t get to keep any of the money as it wasn’t real to begin with.
3. ValueWalk: http://www.valuewalk.com/
Global Alexa Rating: 11,147
ValueWalk began in January, 2010 dedicated to value investing but has since grown in scope to include breaking financial news related to more than just value investing. They offer a free daily newsletter and when you sign up for it you also receive a free copy of their “The Great Little Ebook on Value Investing.” The site is loaded with fantastic articles and a resource page on quite a few financial gurus included Warren Buffett that gives a ton of information as well as a link to see their current portfolio and latest buys and sells. The book section gives lists from many gurus as to those they recommend reading. Anyone that believes that to be successful one simply has to emulate a successful person will absolutely adore this website. Warren Buffett’s net worth grew by an average of $37 million a day in 2013. Think about that for a moment.
4. GuruFocus: http://www.gurufocus.com/
Global Alexa Rating: 24,941
GuruFocus is loaded with stock information, insider trade information, tutorials and top ranked articles. They have a nice section on GuruFocus strategies and how they have performed versus the S&P 500. There is a link on the main page at this time to receive free a 12-page Warren Buffet Portfolio Report. The site is well organized into Screeners, Gurus, Insiders, Market, Articles, Portfolios and a Forum. They also offer even more with a premium membership which costs $299 per year with a 30-day money back guarantee. The tutorials section is a great place to get started as it explains how to use GuruFocus and a number of do-it-yourself guides to investing.
5. The Reformed Broker: http://www.thereformedbroker.com/
Global Alexa Rating: 65,362
The Reformed Broker is a blog about financial markets and the economy by Joshua Brown, a New York City-based investment advisor for high net worth individuals, charitable foundations, retirements and corporations. It does not do forecasts but does give running commentary on market-related insights and thoughts about events currently unfolding. He also offers for sale his book, “Backstage Wall Street” which can be found at Amazon. He recommends StockTwits and provides a link for joining for free. All of his blog articles for 2013 are currently in the archives section of the site.
6. The Pattern Site: Bulkowski’s Value Investing – http://thepatternsite.com/ValueInvesting.html
Global Alexa Rating: 82,996
Thomas Bulkowski is a successful investor – so successful that he was able to retire at age 36! His website “The Pattern Site” goes into a number of pattern indicators including candle patterns, busted patterns and event patterns and using various patterns for value investing. On the page linked above readers can see what he has to say about various value investing techniques including price to cash flow, price to earnings, price to sales and no dividends. There are lots of tools available including tutorials. He has written a number of books and there are links on the site to Amazon for purchasing them – and Amazon will pay him a referral fee if you click through his site thus allowing readers to help support the website.
7. Abnormal Returns: http://abnormalreturns.com/
Global Alexa Rating: 128,349
Abnormal Returns has been posting financial blogs for over 7 years and is a fore-cast free investment blog that investors find quite useful. There are usually both a quote of the day and a chart of the day each day as well as commentary about strategies, companies, finance, funds and the economy. There is also a link to Tadas Viskanta’s book, “Abnormal Returns: Winning Strategies from the Frontlines of the Investment Blogosphere.” Tadas Viskanta is a private investor with more than 20 years of professional experience in the financial markets. He also includes a link to StockTwits.
8. Old School Value: http://www.oldschoolvalue.com/
Global Alexa Rating: 172,950
Sometimes we can learn more from failures than we do from successes. Old School Value was began in 2007 by Jae Jun who started investing in 2005 with absolutely no formal financial or business training and promptly lost more than half of his $5,000 investment. He decided to begin sharing and teaching what he ended up learning. Besides helping investors by offering a Stock Analyzer, they use the profits to support Compassion and sponsor 8 children so far with a goal of one day sponsoring 1,000 children around the world. The site includes a number of stock analysis tutorials, investing tutorials, free calculators and predefined value screens. The stock analyzer ranges from $19.99/month to $31.50/month depending on the term purchased. The financial data comes via a third party to Morningstar’s dedicated professional data feed. There are plenty of free tools right on the site though so look at those first.
9. Value Investing News: http://www.valueinvestingnews.com/
Global Alexa Rating: 381,279
Value Investing News has all kinds of news relevant to value investing. It is easy to navigate with drop down menus for the top stories of the day, week, month, year and for all time. There is also a tools area that can be quite useful. The main page includes the latest value investing video and most read stories. Towards the bottom of the page is an Explore section that includes a link to a Value Investing Forum. There is also a forum and the ability to join them and submit stories to the website.
10. The Graham Investor: http://www.grahaminvestor.com/
Global Alexa Rating: 691,064
Benjamin Graham is considered the original Intelligent Investor as he contributed enormously to the subjects of Value Investing and Security Analysis before his death in 1976. Warren Buffet is one of his best-known disciples and we all know how successful he is. The website includes news feeds, the ability to get a GI quote (20 minute delay), tons of articles, a number of value investing screens for finding undervalued stocks, charts and blogs. Users can subscribe to The Graham Investor (TGI) for news and updates. The site has archives going back to January of 2006.
Every once in a while it is difficult to compile a list of just ten worthy websites and this is one of those times. There are so many wonderful websites devoted to value investing in stocks. Although its Alexa traffic rating is well over 1 million, the Graham and Doddsville site simply must be mentioned as well. At http://www.grahamanddoddsville.net/ it includes a number of value investing resources including links to some of the sites given in this list and tons of other useful sites and blogs. The more one knows, the better so be sure to fully understand this strategy before investing.
