Saturday, July 20, 2013

A Starter for Financial Analysis

Hope+for+the+planet
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Have you ever wondered how an analyst comes up with a fair value of a stock? I don’t know either. That’s why I started to study Financial Statement analysis. Oh yes, I am an accountant by profession and I do analysis every single day of my life. However, the analysis I am doing is quite different from the analysis being performed in the stock market. Part of my routine each day is to analyze the accounts of the companies I am handling. The analysis is confine within the boundaries of the companies I am handling and rarely do I consider the macro perspective of a company. Thus it is imperative for me to sharpen my skills, broaden my knowledge and take the necessary actions to become successful in stock market investing.

Financial analysis is the process of examining a company’s performance in the context of its industry and economic environment in order to arrive at a decision or recommendation.

An investor who buys stocks in the stock market is called an equity investor. In the same way, if an investor buys a stock in a private company (not listed in the stock market), he is still called an equity investor. The common denominator in this type of investors is that they are buying stocks of a company. Before buying a stock, an investor engages the services of a financial analyst to determine the price he shall pay for the shares. The analyst shall look at the capability of the company to pay dividends and grow its operations profitably.

A debt investor on the other hand is someone who lent his money to a corporation with the intention of getting back the principal plus interest. He is concerned on the capability of the company to repay its principal and plus the interest.

Nokia+5800+XpressMusic
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Whether you are a debt investor or an equity investor, you should make your due diligence before coming up with a decision. Part of the due diligence you are going to make is evaluating the financial statements of the company. The financial statements are composed of the following: Balance Sheet, Income Statement, Cashflow Statement, Statement of Changes in Equity and the notes to the financial statements. Every year, a company must submit the audited financial statements to the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE). In the Philippines, a publicly listed company must submit the Audited Annual Financial Statements and Quarterly Financial Reports. In addition, a publicly listed company must submit Corporate Governance Report, Quarterly Public Ownership Report, Quarterly Top 100 Stockholders, Statement of Changes in Beneficial Ownership of Securities, Changes in Shareholdings of Director and other information required by PSE. These financial reports and other information can be found in PSE (www.pse.com.ph) or company’s website. This information will form as the foundation of your research and analysis of a company.

Outside information are as necessary as the basic data provided by the PSE in order to arrive at a recommendation or decision.  These include the economy, industry, and comparable peer companies. For Philippine stocks, it is very common to compare a company against its regional peers (Asia).  Economic statistics can be gathered from the websites of various government agencies while industry date can be taken from industry publications.


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