Full of Bull (Updated Edition): Unscramble Wall Street Doubletalk to Protect and Build Your Portfolio

5. Evaluating Companies as Investment Candidates

Evaluating companies as investment candidates should be a fairly straightforward activity. You do not have to be a rocket scientist. Be perspicacious. Get a feel for the character and profile of the corporation and its business operations. Keep your antenna tuned. Opportunities to pick up information and impressions of a company arise all the time. Start with the positives. There are several ideal corporate attributes that indicate probable future achievement: uniqueness, focus, strong leadership, healthy finances, blue-chip customers, conservative accounting, and consistency. There is no such thing as the perfect company that demonstrates all these attributes. But the more of these attributes ...