Where do I Find Accurate Financial Data?

Value Line Investment Survey compiles sales/share, EPS, and share price highs and lows in their Ratings and Reports section. They do not cover all the publicly traded companies (>10,000). However, they do cover approximately 3,600 publicly traded companies. The companies they cover are listed alphabetically in the Summary and Index sections of Value Line Standard and Expanded Edition. This document is printed every week and placed in front of the accumulated Ratings and Reports, which is printed on a quarterly basis. Use the Index and Summary section to locate where the company’s financial data can be found in the Ratings and Reports section.

If you cannot find the company you are researching in the Summary and Index section of the Standard or Expanded Edition, then Value Line does not cover the company.

If you want growth data of a company that is not covered by Value Line you will have to go to the company’s website to obtain the required data. This will require normalizing the data with respect to shares outstanding. What does this mean? Sales/share and EPS will change significantly from year-to-year if the number of outstanding shares has changed over the same time period. Your growth graph will not be accurate if the plotted data has not been normalized (divided by current shares outstanding).

In summary, you must estimate sales/share and EPS growth rates yourself because of the nonstandard methods of estimating rates. This will require plotting financial data on semi-log graph paper. To print out blank 8.5 by 11 inch semi-log graph paper that has that has established growth rates plotted on it, go to www.ayionline.com. One can obtain sales/share and EPS data from Value Line Investment Survey at the library for free. Ask your librarian to help you locate the Summary and Index and the Ratings and Reports sections of Value Line.

Do not trust growth estimates that are not generated by you personally. I have seen growth estimates vary from 71.1 to 10 percent for a company. Which estimate do you base an investment decision on? Base your decision on your own estimate.