Kick The Tires
By: Al Thomas

Before you buy another car you walk around the lot, kick the tires, slam the doors and look at the mileage indicator. That's an odometer. I know. That is about all the "research" you can do other than what the car salesman tells you and I hope you know better than to believe him.

The same goes for buying stocks or mutual funds. All the brokerage companies tell you to do your research before you buy. Kick the tires. Slam the doors. Look at the odometer. But how do you do this and can you really get the true story about any equity because you can't take it for a test drive and you don't want to believe any broker. Wall Street wants you to read the prospectus, study the annual report, find out about management, learn the P/E ratios, see that their sales and earnings are increasing and on and on and on gathering statistics until your head hurts.

OK, now you have all that information, but what do you have?

The Annual Report. The title ought to give you a clue. Much of the information in it is already a year old and much older depending upon when you are looking at it.

The Prospectus. Did you know that this comp ...

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