Features
A Special Welcome to NAIC/BI Investors
by Cy Lynch, Chief Education Officer Page 1 of 1
Welcome, NAIC/BetterInvesting members. We invite you to explore our site. Like you, most of us here cut our teeth as investors using George Nicholson's guidance on stock analysis and NAIC's Stock Selection Guide (SSG). Many of us belong to investment clubs and hope to favorably influence the investing success of not only our own portfolios -- but friends and family, too. At MANIFEST, we're big believers in Nicholson's "Grand Experiment" begun with that first investment club back around 1940. This article provides a summary of tools and resources at MANIFEST and a roadmap for exploring.
Relax, Explore and Enjoy!
This article introduces what we offer and provides a roadmap for exploring. You will likely feel comfortably at home with our basic concepts, though some terms may be less familiar. Create a free trial account and review our Glossary if you find you need help with terms used at the site.
Our mission is to hone your investment skills while making your investing experience easier and less stressful than ever before. Relax and take things at your own pace. There's no need to try and digest everything at once. In a nutshell, MANIFEST is all about simplicity, education and community.
Keeping it Simple
All of our tools leverage Nicholson's elegantly simple stock study approach: find stocks in good companies selling at good values. The first cover story for our monthly e-newsletter, Expected Returns, Can Investing Really Be This Simple? explains our belief that there are two key characteristics of any investment: Projected Return & Quality, concepts familiar to SSG users. This focus cuts through the confusion, hype and noise that the press and pundits bombard us with.
At the core of our portfolio design and management is the belief that investment decisions should be based on their potential impact on your overall portfolio return and quality. This concept may be less familiar to you, but like our laser-like focus on return and quality, it's consistent with NAIC methodology and well-grounded in our heritage as Nicholson adherents.
I've modeled this approach, Portfolio-Centered Decision-Making, using NAIC tools in my semi-monthly column in Better Investing magazine, "Growth Stock Outlook." Purpose Driven Investing explains how we go even further, using "dashboards" and "windshields" to monitor and maintain our portfolio "engines."
Start exploring our tools by entering your own portfolio (or that of your club) in one of our dashboards. Rites of Spring provides a hands-on discussion of how to use that dashboard.
Our stock reports, called Fundamental Forecasts, let you drill down further into your holdings. These Forecasts, provided for 2600+ companies, dovetail perfectly with the SSG by also presenting a stock's projected annual return (PAR) over the next five years. They present an Expected Income Statement, which measure a company's growth by revenue (sales) growth and use forecast sales growth, combined with forecast profitability, to drive our projected annual return for the stock.
That approach is familiar to users of the SSG's "Preferred Procedure" which really was preferred in NAIC's early days. Another recent cover story, Muskrat Pageantry provides a perspective on how our emphasis on sales growth and Expected Income Statement are solidly rooted in NAIC/Nicholson's heritage.
What can we learn from the Wall Street Rhinos? Might understanding them make us better investors?
Ever wonder why a stock having a "beautiful" SSG with railroad tracks depicted in Section 1 languishes in price as fundamentals deteriorate shortly after your purchase at a what appeared to be a great value? O Captain, My Captain discusses how our tools help you avoid this blindspot by using more windshield.
Our Fundamental Forecasts build on the quality evaluation you make in Sections 1 and 2 of the SSG with our Quality Rating (QR). The QR grades each stock on a scale of 0 to 100 based on: 1) financial strength, 2) earnings per share (EPS) stability, 3) projected sales growth relative to the industry and 4) projected profitability relative to the industry. This makes it easy to compare one company's quality with that of another. Quality – Excellence Measured provides further overview of the QR concept.
Note too, that our stock study and portfolio management tools are color-coded to make it easy to interpret them at a glance. Projected return is in our suggested target range when it's shown in bold, green type. Excellent QRs are shown in bold blue, good QRs in green, neutral in black and poor in red. A legend reflecting this color-coding is shown on each page along with the tool you are using.
Our StockSearch function is a simple, yet powerful way for you to find new stocks to study as potential additions to, or replacements for, your current holdings. Going well beyond screening tools found elsewhere, StockSearch allows you to screen for projected return among various other criteria. Our Mutual Fund reports have a unique, forward-looking approach, using dashboards of the fund's holdings to let you evaluate funds on their potential future return, instead of just past history.
Clear, Consistent and Continuing Education
You don't have to "do this" alone.
I've already cited examples of how we guide you with periodic "Online Exclusive" features like this one and in our monthly e-newsletter, Expected Returns. In addition to a cover story covering general investing topics of interest (usually with a focus of illustrating one or more of our tools), each issue includes a stock feature called "Solomon's Select," a mutual fund feature, our "Sweet Sixteen" (16 currently attractive stocks for you to consider) and updates on our "Tin Cup Portfolio."
Create a free trial account and view the current issue and all past issues archived by both issue and by article type.
Part of education is demonstration, which we provide through various "tracking" portfolios which we follow. The longest standing is the Tin Cup Portfolio covered monthly in Expected Returns. We also track current holdings of past "Solomon Select" features and periodically provide reports on its performance relative to the market.
Community Brings It Together
You need never invest or learn alone. We believe that our subscribers include some of the best investors you'll find anywhere.
Create your free trial account, and then ask questions, swap stock ideas and analysis and participate in interactive learning with your fellow subscribers on our MANIFEST forum.
Delve deeper into our stock study approach in our "Continuous Classroom" series. We just concluded a study of II-VI Inc. (IIVI), and we invite you to join in our ongoing session studying eBay Inc. (EBAY).
Welcome aboard. Investing really can be easier, and far less stressful than many hold it out to be. If you have any questions, please send us an e-mail to support@manifestinvesting.com. Even better, post your question on our MANIFEST Forum to access the wisdom of our thousands of subscribers and enable others to benefit from your inquiry. We're glad that you're here.
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