Most colleges subscribe to various databases. If you're paying for college (grad school, etc), whether for yourself or someone else, fees for these databases are included in your tuition.
Two databases in particular, Lexis Nexis and Proquest, give you access to many financial/investing publications. These include, but are by no means limited to, Barron's, Business Week, The Economist, Forbes, Kiplinger's, Money, and The Wall Street Journal.
If you subscribe to any of these separately, and you're paying for college, you're paying twice. If you're paying for college and don't read any of these, maybe you should, since you're paying for them anyway.
It's true that the database versions don't have pictures and if you want to read them without a computer you have to print them out. The databases also, with some exceptions, don't provide you with the various online features of the publications. Nevertheless, it's certainly worth it if you save $100 a year (a Barron's subscription, for example) or more, don't you think?
It's easy to find out what you're already paying for. Just visit your (or your kid's, spouse's, etc) college library website and poke around. You might discover a lot of useful publications that you're already paying for. Most libraries now have proxy servers, so you don't even have to leave your home. If you're not the student, you might need a little help (to connect you probably need a student id, or password).
Some college libraries have access to an even broader array of financial publications. For example, through mine I can use Morningstar, Standard & Poor's NetAdvantage, and ValueLine, among many others. I wouldn't pay for these separately (I can't afford it), but since they're already included in my tuition, it feels like I'm wasting money if I don't use them.
So go explore. You might find that you can save money by canceling your subscriptions or discover that you have access to something you've wanted to use but didn't want to spend money on.
Many public libraries have some or all of these resources available for their patrons, and many now have online database access from home. For example, the New York City Public Library has access to all of the resources listed above.
Pay a visit your local public library. You'll be amazed at what resources are available (and you're already paying for through taxes).
2/3/08
Ethical Investing Blog Carnival
This is the first of what (I hope) will be many blog carnivals on the subject of ethical investing. To me it seems there is a paucity of blog writing on this important issue. The blog carnival's purpose is to encourage more bloggers to write on the subject, and to assemble these posts in one convenient place for readers.
Below are three excellent submissions that were accepted, out of a much greater number (many submissions were off topic).
Hung Nguyen presents Socially Responsible Investment: Can it beat traditional mutual funds? posted at Meaningful Issues in Today's World, looks "at socially responsible investing (SRI). The idea is that by investing in socially responsible companies that you can improve your return. I quickly review the book The SRI Advantage and then look into the problems of SRI and why I won't invest in it."
Socks First presents CSR, Creative Capitalism and the Recession, exploring the following questions: "What's the future of corporate social responsibility? That's the unanswered question with the prospect of a bad US recession looming, threatening to take the world with it. Will companies continue to embrace it when they are battling for survival? Or will changing market conditions redefine corporate social responsibility."
Edith presents Prosperity is a Flow posted at Stewart Hsu, in a thoughtful post saying,"Money, like love, is meant to be circulated. See the value in having a conscious awareness of this balance between giving and receiving."
Below are three excellent submissions that were accepted, out of a much greater number (many submissions were off topic).
Hung Nguyen presents Socially Responsible Investment: Can it beat traditional mutual funds? posted at Meaningful Issues in Today's World, looks "at socially responsible investing (SRI). The idea is that by investing in socially responsible companies that you can improve your return. I quickly review the book The SRI Advantage and then look into the problems of SRI and why I won't invest in it."
Socks First presents CSR, Creative Capitalism and the Recession, exploring the following questions: "What's the future of corporate social responsibility? That's the unanswered question with the prospect of a bad US recession looming, threatening to take the world with it. Will companies continue to embrace it when they are battling for survival? Or will changing market conditions redefine corporate social responsibility."
Edith presents Prosperity is a Flow posted at Stewart Hsu, in a thoughtful post saying,"Money, like love, is meant to be circulated. See the value in having a conscious awareness of this balance between giving and receiving."
That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of Slackerwealth's Ethical Investing Carnival using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page. Topics have to pertain to ethical investing. This could include, but isn't limited to, discussions of environmentally friendly, people friendly, animal friendly investments; what makes an investment "ethical," can it be profitable?, what commonly called "ethical" investments are anything but that?, is investing in the so called "vice" industry necessary unethical?, etc.
2/2/08
This Week's Random Stock List and a Response to Comment
Here's this week's random stock list with closing prices as of Friday 2/1/08. More about the experiment here.
No matter what I do, Curiousjoe suggests, since my picks are random, their performance will mirror some market index, whether small cap, large cap, etc.
This makes for an uninteresting experiment, because whatever index the picks mirror, the performance will have to do with business cycles. Let's say the picks mirror a small cap index. The random stocks will do well in periods when small caps do well, and poorly when small caps do poorly, etc.
I agree with the above, but not entirely.
First, it's perfectly fine if the random stocks mirror an index. Indeed, they should. My hypothesis, originally stated, was "Over time stocks as a group tend to go up. You pick enough stocks, and your performance shouldn't be bad." I could have been more clear. This includes stock index performance. In fact, that's what it is.
Second, the experiment isn't about evaluating a random stock picking strategy. That is, I'm not saying "picking stocks randomly will beat the market" or anything of the sort. Most likely, as implied above, results should mirror the performance of market, or some large portion of it. The experiment's purpose is to be "one measure against which gurus and newsletters will be compared." That is, if picking stocks randomly does better than a newsletter people pay for, maybe that newsletter isn't worth it.
But here there may be the objection already mentioned: it will depend on business cycles.
I have two responses to this.
One, so what? Stock gurus and newsletters should account for business cycles in their picks. They pick stocks from all market segments, so why shouldn't I? (If certain newsletters expressly limit themselves to particular market segments I'll make sure not to use that fact against them). [For further research: are paid stock recommendations small cap biased?]
Two, to the extent the first response is inadequate, I've decided to measure the performance of the picks in a few different ways. These are as follows, and I might add more along the way depending on whether I think of something useful:
1. Same dollar amount in each stock when picked. For example, $100 per stock. Taking this week's list, for instance, this would amount to 3.519 shares of Dean Foods and 15.82 shares of MoneyGram. This will most likely have a small cap bias.
2. Dollar amount by market cap. I'd have to set the parameters, but large cap stocks would presumably affect the portfolio's performance more than small caps.
3. Averaging the performance of each stock relative to its starting price. For example, suppose I'll have 3 picks (instead of the 520 per year). Let's say one went up 50%, the other down 35%, and the last finished up 3%. Using this measure, I'll say the random picks' performance was up 6%. What bias here? Does it depend on the business cycle? While most picks will probably be small caps, there will be large and mid caps.
4. Just list how many went up and how many went down. Probably small cap bias.
I'm open to suggestions.
- Dean Foods (DF) $28.42
- MoneyGram International, Inc. (MGI) $6.32
- Esterline Technologies Corp. (ESL) $47.22
- Fuel Systems Solutions, Inc. (FSYS) $13.03
- Daktronics, Inc. (DAKT) $20.78
- Stantec Inc. (SXC) $33.24
- Vestin Realty Mortgage II, Inc. REIT (VRTB) $9.7
- CSK Auto Corp. (CAO) $8.98
- Commerce Group, Inc. (CGI) $36.25
- Epicept Corp. (EPCT) $1.45
No matter what I do, Curiousjoe suggests, since my picks are random, their performance will mirror some market index, whether small cap, large cap, etc.
This makes for an uninteresting experiment, because whatever index the picks mirror, the performance will have to do with business cycles. Let's say the picks mirror a small cap index. The random stocks will do well in periods when small caps do well, and poorly when small caps do poorly, etc.
I agree with the above, but not entirely.
First, it's perfectly fine if the random stocks mirror an index. Indeed, they should. My hypothesis, originally stated, was "Over time stocks as a group tend to go up. You pick enough stocks, and your performance shouldn't be bad." I could have been more clear. This includes stock index performance. In fact, that's what it is.
Second, the experiment isn't about evaluating a random stock picking strategy. That is, I'm not saying "picking stocks randomly will beat the market" or anything of the sort. Most likely, as implied above, results should mirror the performance of market, or some large portion of it. The experiment's purpose is to be "one measure against which gurus and newsletters will be compared." That is, if picking stocks randomly does better than a newsletter people pay for, maybe that newsletter isn't worth it.
But here there may be the objection already mentioned: it will depend on business cycles.
I have two responses to this.
One, so what? Stock gurus and newsletters should account for business cycles in their picks. They pick stocks from all market segments, so why shouldn't I? (If certain newsletters expressly limit themselves to particular market segments I'll make sure not to use that fact against them). [For further research: are paid stock recommendations small cap biased?]
Two, to the extent the first response is inadequate, I've decided to measure the performance of the picks in a few different ways. These are as follows, and I might add more along the way depending on whether I think of something useful:
1. Same dollar amount in each stock when picked. For example, $100 per stock. Taking this week's list, for instance, this would amount to 3.519 shares of Dean Foods and 15.82 shares of MoneyGram. This will most likely have a small cap bias.
2. Dollar amount by market cap. I'd have to set the parameters, but large cap stocks would presumably affect the portfolio's performance more than small caps.
3. Averaging the performance of each stock relative to its starting price. For example, suppose I'll have 3 picks (instead of the 520 per year). Let's say one went up 50%, the other down 35%, and the last finished up 3%. Using this measure, I'll say the random picks' performance was up 6%. What bias here? Does it depend on the business cycle? While most picks will probably be small caps, there will be large and mid caps.
4. Just list how many went up and how many went down. Probably small cap bias.
I'm open to suggestions.
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