How to read the financial pages

1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14  15  16  17  18  19  20   

8. Anticipating company results

Companies report results twice a year - interim results for the first 6 months of their financial year, then preliminary results for the whole financial year which subsequently appear in fleshed-out form in the company's Annual Report & Accounts.

As an investor, your preparation for company results needs to start before they are announced. For each stock in your portfolio, and for others you are watching, you need to know:

1. What date the results are announced
   • Usually companies publish their results within three months of their financial year end, but some produce the figures quicker than others.
   • The easiest way to find out is to visit www.hemscott.com/equities/, find the company you're interested in and click 'key dates'.
   • The Saturday edition of the FT lists the companies due to announce results in the following week and comments on what broker analysts are expecting.
2. What the City expects

   Every company has one or more analysts from a City broker or research house following its stock and trying to work out what results it will produce.

   • The analysts research the industry, look at the company's products and services, its margins, its client base, the results its competitors have produced, and they estimate the pre-tax profits and earnings per share for the coming year.
   • They will usually give the stock a 'buy', 'sell' or 'hold' rating and state the price at which they think the shares represent good value.

Unfortunately, most brokers' research is only available to clients of the broking house. To see it, you'll have to rely on second hand summaries in Investors Chronicle, Shares, Investor's Week and specialist monthly directories like Barra's Global Estimates and REFS. A typical summary might be:

Source: Shares magazine 13th July 2000

Investor's Week and Investors Chronicle provide a page of brokers' recommendations each week.

1. What are the financial pages? 2. What to look for 3. Business news 4. Share prices in newspapers 5. Investment trust prices 6. Share prices on the internet and television 7. Commentary on share price movements 8. Anticipating company results 9. Finding company results 10. Interpreting company results 11. Takeovers and mergers 12. Indices 13. Sectors 14. Directors dealings 15. Unit trust information 16. Government bonds 17. Corporate bonds 18. Economic data - who needs it? 19. Key economic indicators 20. Conclusion

• How to Read the Financial Pages
• Eat The Rich