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There is no doubt that investors need a regular source of information to help them match the professionals. To this end, I devised and developed REFS, in conjunction with publishers, HS Financial Publishing (formerly Hemmington Scott).
Company REFS is the full name of the product; the acronym REFS stands for Really Essential Financial Statistics. The publication is available both monthly and quarterly and provides private and institutional investors with the financial statistics and other information about companies that they really need to know. There is a full-page entry for all quoted UK companies other than investment trusts, and a half-page entry for all AIM companies.
The full-page entry includes:
There are also five-year details of
Another panel shows the normalised EPS consensus forecast, together with details of the individual brokers' contributions to it and their buy, sell or hold recommendations. A further panel analyses the company's gearing in detail and shows interest and dividend cover, together with the quick and current ratios. Share capital is set out clearly, together with details of the directors' holdings and an indication of whether they have sold or bought during the last six months. There is also a chart of the share price, relative strength and EPS growth coupled with the share price's highs and lows and the average PER over the last five years. A further panel analyses the company's turnover and profit both geographically and by activity and the outlook statement shows the last few price-sensitive comments by the chairman. There is also an extensive panel showing the pertinent points from newsflow over the previous year.
The company entry contains so much information that it is impossible to do it justice by words alone.
Typical recent full-page entry: NEXT, December 2001
Note: this file is in Adobe PDF format. Click here to download Adobe Acrobat.
Although the company entry is comprehensive, REFS provides much more. A tables volume shows, index by index, the contenders for promotion and demotion, shares with the highest and lowest relative strength, highest yields, lowest PEGs, highest and lowest PERs, best cash flows, best returns on capital employed, best price-to-book values and much more.
Example of tables showing the shares with the Lowest PEGs
Note: this file is in Adobe PDF format. Click here to download Adobe Acrobat.
In addition, there is an analysis of each sector showing how the detailed statistics of each company compares with the other companies in its peer group and with the sector and the market averages.
Example of a page of Sector listing - General Retailers, December 2001
Note: this file is in Adobe PDF format. Click here to download Adobe Acrobat.
There are also details of the last six months of directors' dealings showing the shares bought or sold together with the position of the director in question and his or her residual shareholding.
Sample page of Directors' dealings
Note: this file is in Adobe PDF format. Click here to download Adobe Acrobat.
Another section shows CEO changes during the preceding twelve months...
Sample page of CEO changes
Note: this file is in Adobe PDF format. Click here to download Adobe Acrobat.
...and another shows, index by index, monthly changes to brokers' consensus forecasts in order of magnitude.
Sample page of Monthly changes to brokers' consensus changes
Note: this file is in Adobe PDF format. Click here to download Adobe Acrobat.
I could go on and on but, as I devised the product and have an ongoing influence on its design and content, I have to admit that I am very biased indeed. REFS has transformed my own investment performance and Hemmington Scott now has scores of unsolicited testimonials from private investors who are delighted with it.
Recent testimonials for Company REFS
In mid 1998, the quarterly version cost £295 per annum and the monthly version £675. If you want to obtain the details, order through the website or contact the publisher, HS Financial Publishing, on Tel 020 7278 7769, Fax 020 7278 9808.
A CD version is available quarterly or monthly for the same cost as described above. CD REFS is absolutely invaluable for speedy effective searches for shares that satisfy a mix of your own tailor-made criteria.
REFS Online has all the searching and filtering capability of CD REFS plus the added advantage of being right up to date. Each REFS page is fully updated after the close of business every working day and is available via the website www.companyrefs.com. The annual cost is £675.
In October 1997 TipTracker, the newsletter that independently monitored the performance and strategies of tipsheets, magazines and City pages, came to an interesting conclusion. For the 21 months from January 1996 to September 1997, it concluded that my column in the Financial Mail on Sunday had the best performance of +46% against the next best of 32% by a random portfolio in Scotland on Sunday. After that came a growth portfolio managed by an imaginary Hebridian monk using REFS and building a growth portfolio based on the principles outlined in Beyond the Zulu Principle. The words 'Hebridian monk' are meant to imply that the person in question was isolated from the rest of the world and used no initiative whatsoever and slavishly followed the systems outlined in my book. The best newsletter showed a return of just over 21%.
For the 27 months from January 1996 to March 1998 (when TipTracker ceased publication) my column's performance of 87.9% was well ahead of the market's 54.3%. No other newspaper or newsletter managed to beat the market during the period.
Details of the Tiptracker League Tables
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