Years ago, I found myself the COO of a company in the quick
service restaurant industry. The board of directors charged
me with the responsibility to make that company
grow—quickly but within reason. We knew that the
quickest and best way to do that was by making competitive,
but sensible acquisitions; so I researched, negotiated and
bought as many other similarly franchised outlets as I
could; until the board said "stop....now work on
assimilating them."
Approaching these acquisitions I learned a few things about
buying other companies. The first key success variable was
how to value a prospective acquisition. This involved
everything from observations, discussions with others,
obtaining objective advice and research, to the direct,
face-to-face negotiation with the seller. A most important
facet of the analyses involved conducting comparisons
between the subject acquisition and others available
regionally. This meant conducting endless, time-consuming
comparisons, analyses and research of competition, other
options, financial projections and so on.
I was thinking about this time-consuming, mind-numbing,
floundering about in the stock data quagmire the other day,
in relation to the task of managing one's own financial
portfolio. If you're going to buy stock in one company
versus another, isn't this almost the same as me making
those acquisitions in the past...as if you were buying the
company? How do you make those decisions? Do you rely on
the advice of others, or do you figure out what to do by
yourself? Or do you just wallow about in this sea of data,
not really knowing what to do?
If you rely strictly on the advice of others, isn't that
the same as me not visiting those restaurant outlets, or
having them 'mystery shopped', or visiting there
anonymously? How do you really know for sure if you're
getting accurate, truly objective advice? If you are being
given specific advice, aren't others being given the same?
If this is so, won't that help force the stock's price up
by way of demand? Does that cause you to lose your edge?
But if you're doing your own research and you have some
'secret weapons' or tools to help you, won't that allow you
to find the best opportunities that others don't have or
yet even know about?
One such investor, Ian Campbell liked to manage his own
stock portfolio. But he found it painfully time-consuming
to do the analyses, pouring over piles of charts, other web
sites, trying to make sense of all the inputs for so many
different companies. Moreover, in many cases, the
information he wanted and needed was not there. He reasoned
that there must be thousands of investment advisers and
other investors who like him desired a solution. Campbell
has developed a website (stock researchdd.com) focused on
Small Cap Canadian Mining and Oil & Gas stocks. Among the
many things you can do with his website, is the comparison
of the companies embedded there. For instance, users can
compare companies in more than 40 different ways:
everything from 'Trailing 90 Day Volatility' on a daily
basis; to 'Interest Bearing Debt/TTM After-tax Cash Flow';
on a trailing 12 month's basis. Each comparison table is
automatically generated when selected by a subscriber.
Companies are ranked in the comparison table in either
ascending or descending order depending on the
characteristic the subscriber selected.
Using the drop-down menu in the website's Main Navigation
bar, company comparisons can be immediately generated at
any segregation level a member chooses. For example,
selecting Company Research -> Mining -> Gold -> Producer ->
Mexico from the drop-down menus will result in all
companies who produce gold as their main output, and who
operate principally in Mexico, being compared by whichever
characteristics the member-subscriber then selects. The
significance of each comparator is stated, along with how
it has been calculated originally.
This is amazing stuff. I sure wish I had a web site like
this when I was figuring out which companies to buy back in
the day. If you want to feel comfortable and secure that
you have the very best information available to make your
own buy or sell decisions, this should probably be a part
of your own stock research tool kit.
© Roy MacNaughton, 2008
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To learn more about this unique site for researching
stocks, go to: http://www.stockresearchdd.com
Roy MacNaughton is a writer and a niche marketing coach.
He's a seasoned marketer, with more than 30 years of
international experience, in six countries, including nine
years online. Check his blog at:
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