hat

ShareSoc
INVESTOR ACADEMY

Fundamental Data

When considering a potential investment, one of the first things you should do is examine its historic and forecast financial performance. You can either do this from scratch, referring back to historical company reports, and research notes (or your own model) for forecast data, or use digests of that data which are available from a number of sources. The latter approach can save you a lot of time, and make it practical to compare and screen large numbers of potential investments – but do bear in mind the old IT adage: GIGO – Garbage In Garbage Out. The data these sites provide is subject to error and interpretation of financial results, so it is often advisable to do your own checks referring back to the original source before taking a final investment decision.

On this page we catalogue a number of websites and products that provide fundamental data on companies for investors, and help you to analyse that data. Subscription sites with a fee are signified ($$). Discounts on the these fees (listed here) are available to ShareSoc full members in many cases. Please contact our office for details. Click on the logos or titles below to visit the sites described.

Digital Look is a free site that offers a simple digest of financial data concerning companies. It also allows you to set up portfolios, screen for companies meeting selected criteria and offers a range of other features. Some of our members find that this is all they need.

 

ShareScope/SharePad

($$) These are two similar tools from Ionic Information Ltd. ShareScope offers an installable Windows client, whereas SharePad is browser based and accessible on a range of devices including mobiles and tablets. Again, they are widely used by ShareSoc members. They are excellent for managing portfolios of investments and allow you to segment and group those portfolios. They also offer good fundamental data, generally going back 10 years and good analysis of that data, with numerous important metrics calculated.

In addition, they offer screening tools and, for an additonal fee, real-time price data, including level-2, is also available.

($$) Stockopedia is a very comprehensive site for fundamental data analysis, used by many ShareSoc members. A key strength is its StockReport, which provides a summary overview of the target company’s fundamental data, with a large range of powerful metrics, exposing financial strength and weaknesses. Stockopedia has also developed a proprietary ranking system (the StockRank™) designed to help you select companies that are most likely to outperform, based on quantitative statistical analysis of financial metrics that have indicated outperformance, historically.

In addition to the StockReport™, Stockopedia offers a powerful range of tools, include stock screeners with a wide range of built in screens and the ability to construct your own screens. It also offers the ability to compare several companies and to set up portfolios for analysis and monitoring.

As well as data on UK companies, for an additional subscription, Stockopedia provides data for a series of other stock markets too, including European and North American markets.

Their site offers good educational materials explaining how its various features work and the academic basis behind the quantitative analysis the site performs.

Morningstar, in a similar manner to DigitalLook, offers a range of free fundamental data. Morningstar is particularly strong in providing data on funds, as well as on trading companies. It is also useful in providing historic trade data on share transactions in a particular stock (useful for checking whether a price you’re being offered by your broker compares favourably with prices paid or achieved by other investors in the recent past).

There is also a premium version ($$) of Morningstar data, which includes more analysis and details of individual broker forecasts for companies.