Incredibly enough, I’ve added nearly $150k to my investment accounts across my IRAs, 401ks, and taxable accounts. While I’m still not sure if taking the “select companies” vs index fund route makes a lot of sense, I know I end up putting more money into investments when I feel like I have some control over the fate of my networth, and at the very least, an opportunity to learn more about business and how public markets work.
Of all the finance sites I use, my favorite is Wikinvest (soon to be SigFig, which I received an Alpha invite to this week.) Wikinvest is awesome because, as seen above, it offers a really easy way to track your stocks (and ETFs), including information on P/E, Rev Growth, P/S, etc. These are probably fairly basic things to look at when deciding to purchase a stock. Above, you will see the six stocks I own with the lowest P/Es (and how many shares I own of each).
It’s fun to look at how AAPL, while $493.42 a share, still has a relatively low P/E and its revenue growth was 67.6%! Now, I wish there was more data here regarding what that revenue growth represents (Qtr over Qtr? YoY?) but regardless, this data shows that AAPL stock, despite being pricey per share, may be worth a lot more than some other stocks. I’m still concerned AAPL will lose value (can it sustain such growth) but seeing that it made $3.60 per share vs say, GE’s $1.35 per share makes me feel confident in a long-term AAPL investment. As you can see, I’ve made $15k on AAPL (on paper) with just 79.94 shares.
Let’s sort by my stocks owned by P/E in the other direction. AMZN has the highest P/E — 135! Compared to AAPL, it’s Revenue Growth was only 40.6%. Even Google, which has a P/E of 20.50 (not too bad, but still higher than AAPL) only increased 29.3%. But it also has a P/S of $5.20, which is better than AAPL. This is where my knowledge lacks and I don’t fully understand the factors which make that possible, or our P/S is determined. More research on my end is required.
In a related note, I am annoyed that I have .44 shares of FTR. That happened when VZ split with them. .44 shares is pointless, to sell them will cost $8 (more than they are worth) and they just clutter up my account. Looking at FTR, however, they seem to have a 79.7% revenue growth, I wonder if I should just purchase $100 worth of FTR shares and see if they can run up enough where I can sell the stock so it doesn’t clutter my portfolio and I don’t lose $8 on it.
In case you’re wondering, in my taxable account, here are the stocks and ETFs which have been performing best so far:
Her Ever Cent Counts,
I am a 16 year old guy who lives in Singapore, i go to the Singapore American School. Currently im taking a Finance & Investing class and lately we've been discussing the topic of investing and making money. As i am participating and trading in a made up stock market through an iphone application i never really did any research on the stock i was buying, which i realized was dangerous. I loved how you researched your stocks through wikiinvest and i have done the same thing as you and put my "stocks" into the wikiinvest so i can keep track of how the stock is doing. Though im not an experienced investor at all the subject of investing interests me and i was just wondering if you have any tips which could help me invest it stocks or even assist me in understanding stocks. Keep blogging !!! 🙂