ACE - Stock Selection Guide

Monitor's Annual Report on Individual Stocks

Helpful Hints: Annual Report

Most information needed for the annual report comes from Value Line, online sources, and your most current and prior Stock Selection Guides. Of the online sources, the 10-K report is the most helpful. The 10-K report is the annual report that companies file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. It provides a comprehensive overview of the business and is available within 90 days of the end of the company's fiscal year. To access the 10-K report, go to http://www.edgar-online.com/brand/yahoo/search/?sym=____. Note: After the = sign, enter the ticker of the company's report you need. An example: To retrieve the 10-Q report for Pfizer (ticker is PFE) type in the following address: http://www.edgar-online.com/brand/yahoo/search/?sym=PFE

The heading material, monthly information, and quarterly information are very similar to the information you provided in the quarterly report. There are two small changes. First, the question-which quarter-disappears from the heading since it obviously is the fourth quarter. Second, question 1E on judgment in projected future sales and earnings growth is dropped from the quarterly information section.

Information needed to complete the annual information section of the form comes from your updated Stock Selection Guide and Value Line. The questions ask you to make judgments about your stock. To make sound judgments, you will have to study your stock constantly, keeping up-to-date on developments in the company, the industry, and the economy as a whole. You should also study your company's annual report, watching for trends that could give you advance warning of a downturn or provide you with reassurance that all is going well (the form, How to Analyze an Income Statement and Balance Sheet, will help you to identify the important information to watch). If you use Toolkit or similar software, use PERT to help monitor movements in your stock. Don't be alarmed if you find making judgments difficult-everybody does! (If making judgments were easy, all analysts would agree and no one would ever buy a stock that went anywhere but up.) However, the longer you study your stock and the more familiar you become with the tools available to you, the easier the task becomes.