New Year: Practice Some Analysis

It’s a new year and time for those resolutions! :wink: I’d like to suggest practicing some company analysis with us over on the Analysis Club Board.

Back in April, I set out to analyze a random company each week so that I could get some practice, get more comfortable with the process, and eventually become proficient and efficient at it. I originally started in the Rulebreakers service, and then moved to a free board by request. We’ve made some changes to try to be as accommodating as possible: we now analyze a company for 2-week periods instead of one each week; every other period is a “free choice” where each person picks whatever company they want; and the randomly-chosen companies for the other periods are now being picked from the (publicly-available) personal portfolios of lead TMF advisors as a sort of proxy for official TMF recs (since this is all on a free board).

At one point there was a fair amount of participation, but it has dwindled and I’ve really struggled to get more people involved. I think it’s a great skill for all of us to develop, and it’s a lot easier than people think. For folks who don’t do much of their own analysis, I know the idea may seem intimidating, but it’s honestly surprising how quickly you’ll become comfortable with it. And that wasn’t just my experience: I think anyone who has started out new on the board will confirm that you pick up the skill pretty quickly. Right now, Matt (CMFCochrane) is the local superstar :wink:

By coincidence, today is the beginning of a new analysis period. The randomly chosen company is Nordson (NDSN), which came from Tom Gardner’s personal portfolio. We’ll each analyze it on our own (at our own pace, at whatever level we’re at) and then share our thoughts in two weeks as we finalize them. It’s all about learning and improving together: this stuff is a lot more fun as a group. Think of it as showing up to a guitar club where everyone’s at different levels (including very beginners), but are all there to have fun, play, learn and improve. That’s the spirit of the Analysis Club board, and everyone is very welcome.

Here’s the post kicking off today’s analysis period:
http://discussion.fool.com/next-pick-nordson-ndsn-32054026.aspx

Please feel free to post any questions or comments over there.

Thanks!
Neil

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