Software for value investors
Posted on February 3, 2009 by Richard Beddard
Filed Under Investing, Ramblings |
This is a biased review. I love this software.
Let’s start this review at the beginning of my investing week, which, curiously, starts on Friday at about 5.30pm.
Sharescope
That’s when the day’s share prices are ready for download into Sharescope1, a program that helps with financial analysis, charting, and portfolio management. I probably use less than 1% of it, mainly the export function.
In Sharescope, you can organise company information into tables. I keep a table that lists all the companies on the main market and AIM, and fundamental data too numerous to mention. The critical information is the company’s earnings per share for the past nine years and two dates: the date of its last full year results, and the date of its last annual report. I export the table as a comma separated file, and import it into Excel.
Microsoft Excel
There are other fine spreadsheets, but Microsoft Office is our default at work and Excel 2007 has beautiful colour schemes, which makes me sound like a bimbo, but I look at this spreadsheet a lot.
My sheet calculates the long-term price earnings ratios of the all the companies, and divides them into three categories: Cheap companies that have ltpe ratios under 16, borderline companies with ltpe ratios between 16 and 20 and expensive companies with ltpe ratios over 20. I pay little attention to the last group, but research any companies that are:
- In or near my buy-zone, and…
- Have published their annual report in the last week.
These are the companies I usually write about, with the help of Evernote.
Evernote
But, first, I should mention Adobe Reader the software I use to read and store the annual reports. I drag them, my spreadsheets, and virtually everything else I record about a company, from bits of their websites to snapshots of written notes in a paper notebook, into Evernote. It’s a database that allows you to categorise information so I can see every note relating to a company, or every note relating to an article I’m writing with a single click. Evernote’s web service sucks all that information into the Evernote site where I can see it, and synchronises it with the Evernote installation on my home computer.
So to stop me working, my work computer must blow up, my home computer must blow up, and the internet must blow up. No more ‘the dog ate my homework’.
Word
Although you can type directly into Evernote, I like to write in Word, mainly because of the grammar checker. I only feel like I’ve finished an article once it’s reported the number of words and the reading age. They say Word’s bloated, but you can take all the stuff you don’t use off the toolbar. This is all I need:
I store the finished articles in Evernote, of course.
Outlook
OK, Outlook is bloated, but I’m stuck with it. I prefer GMail.
Windows calculator
Indispensible, unless you have a real calculator at hand.
Google Chrome
A lighter, faster, simpler browser.
Footnotes:
- Sharescope Gold – the basic edition. More pricey editions have real-time prices.
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