Where do I prospect for companies?

Investment Analysis Clubs Saul’s Investing Discussions
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I’m curious to know where you prospect for these companies?

Hi Okapimoon,

Great question.

As you probably noted from my list of stocks in post #3, some 15 of my 25 stocks were MF SA and MF RB picks (mostly RB, actually), although I have to admit that I had invested in 4 of them before they were picked by MF RB. I really prefer to invest in MF picks because the discussion boards and continuing coverage is incredibly important to me, so those are truly my favorite places to prospect.

I got Arcam (which is currently a 9-bagger for me in a year) from a Seeking Alpha article on 3-D printing stocks. Random article.

I got Solazyme, I think, from a newsletter called Game Changers published by Street Authority (which I no longer take by the way), added to by articles on Seeking Alpha.

I got Yahoo, before its RB recommendation, and TMUS, from a newsletter called Stock of the Month, also published by Street Authority. Note that these newsletters from Street Authority have no discussion boards and no real ongoing support, such as you find on MF.

I got INVN and AMBA before their MF selections, as well as UBNT, AFOP and SYNA, all from Zack’s Home Run Investor. Be aware that the guy writing the newsletter doesn’t seem to know much about what the companies actually do, just that the analysts are raising estimates on them (which is Zack’s thing). He’s used to doing short term trading, and it shows. Most of the companies don’t interest me at all, and you really need to research them yourself, but I did find the above stocks some months ago (nothing of interest lately).

I got PSIX from the free Vista Partners Newsletter. I believe it’s a actually paid recommendations by the companies. I’m not sure how I got on their mailing list. They seem to be somewhat selective but most of their companies are start-ups that I wouldn’t touch. I just got lucky with PSIX.

I got the idea for my little positions in DPZ and NGVC from articles on a free MF board called Pencil’s Palace.

I hope that this helps.

Saul

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Hic Okapimoon,

I like the Investors Business Daily as a place for finding stock ideas. You can get a free trial subscription to check them out.

Jeb
SWIR Ticker Guide

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Okapimoon,

I’ve also gotten ideas from articles in the NY Times or the BBC (on my computer) random posts on MF, especially on RB New Stock Ideas, but actually on all the boards where people mention some company they are interested in. The places I mentioned are the most common ones, especially, as you see, the MF recommendations.

Saul

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Thanks Saul & Jeb,

Not that I have lots of either time for prospecting, or, plenty of room in my portfolio for many additions… but one always hopes to keep an eye out for intriguing new ideas before they’re widely known and loved.

I also found (and bought) Arcam (before I started following you Saul) on Seeking Alpha, but because I had a news alert set for DDD which brought Arcam to my attention.

And Jeb, I did previously subscribe to Investor’s Business Daily and really enjoyed it (and do still have one or two companies (FCFS, TRMB) I bought as a result of learning about them there). However, I also tried to follow CANSLIM, which I was quite poor at. I also still have one stock I found reading Barron’s (DOV).

However, I too, prefer to keep most of my stocks within the MF world so I am not alone in keeping watch over them and have a good lot of help from both advisors and on the boards.

I let my IBD subscription go, not because I stopped trying to make quick momentum gains by following IBD (and my results improved vastly when I did!) but simply, to rein in my expenditures! Perhaps when I’ve doubled my portfolio value one or two or three times, I’ll treat myself to another IBD subscription (along with premium graphs, which I also used to subscribe too!) as well as the Wall Street Journal I recently let go!

But still… there’s a little adventurer inside that always wants to be ready to go out into the wilds and just keep my eyes and ears open and go looking for the unknown…

Thanks for the ideas! (and the reminders) of sources for investigation.

okapimoon

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