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Insider buying information is also very informative to understand market sector movement. We update database information every week and I constantly mine the database looking for the huge winner that can reward both me and my newsletter readers.

Insider buying information could be even more powerful when you can combine insider buying information with valuation or strategy screening, which exactly what we do at BlastInvest with this powerful internal relational database.

However, I found the free or cheap screening tools out there in the web are not impressive. But certainly there are some excellent stock gurus there and there are valuable investing or stock pick information there. Value Investor Club seems to reject beginners or amateurs and they only want gurus (maybe Wall Street Gurus) offering stock tips to each other.

I myself certainly disagree with approaches of Valueforum or Value Investor Club.

1. Insider purchasing power Information

Insiders are company's CEO, Chairman, theatre directors, executive vice president of various departments.

Insider information top my list for obvious reasons. Insiders have lots of reasons to sell their shares: purchasing power a house, huge vacation expense, etc. However, there is usually only one reason when insiders buy their company's shares with their personal money: the insiders take on faith the stock price are two-for-a-penny and they can make money by purchase their own stocks.

Insider marketing information is also very informative to understand market sector movement. Many time I looked at the insider hire purchase information from sector point of view. Certain sector during unavoidable period of time constantly had insider sale function from different companies of the same sector, which could indicate a sector wide undervaluation or bullishness. That was exactly what I found in late 2003 and early 2004 when I found insiders of lots of oil and natural gas companies constantly buy their stocks. Eventually I picked two oil and gas stocks in late 2003 and early 2004 Whiting Petroleum (ticker WLL) and Chesapeake Energy (Ticker CHK) from insider sale information and they have been huge success for my premium investment newsletter bedlam Investor Real-time Plus (BIRTP) and rewarded myself financially very significantly.

2. Guru Watch

It is decisively worth the effort to track stock picks or ideas from legendary gurus such as Warren Buffet, Eddie Lambert, Jim Rogers, etc.

Wall Street Journal is great source of investment and financial information. My 2003 stock pick PetroChina (PTR) was from an element of Wall Street Journal, which published news of Warren smorgasbord marketing PTR. I immediately into PTR stock on the same day that I read the literary production and profited handsomely from this pick.

Warren scourge is the best value investor in the world and you can not subsidize to ignore him. One way to track Warren Buffet picks is to go to Yahoo Finance and then read news headlines under stock ticker of BRK-A.

Recently, internet information grew so large and I be certain it is now much easier to track gurus from web rather than reading newspapers or magazines. An easier way to track guru picks is to use tracking services offered in the web. Here I highly recommend the tracking service provided by Gurufocus.com. Gurufocus tracks approximately all the value-oriented Wall Street gurus. Their list of gurus is huge, Warren Buffet, Edward Lambert, George Soros, etc. They even publish a newsletter tip you the latest guru buy and sell actions. Their service is great and best yet, it is all free!

3. Software Screening Tool

BlastInvest operates internally a Mysql based relational database storing nearby seven thousand stocks with all kinds of valuation metrics and tools that I can do for Benjamin Graham NCAV ranking, return on equity modeling, low pe or low price to sale screening, etc. We update database information every week and I constantly mine the database looking for the huge winner that can reward both me and my newsletter readers.

Insider shopping information could be even more powerful when you can mix up insider buy information with valuation or strategy screening, which exactly what we do at BlastInvest with this powerful internal relational database.

However, I found the free or trumpery screening tools out there in the web are not impressive. Validea.com tool is nice, but it lacks the powerful feature that I want. Yahoo tool or MSN tool works, but still they are not for power value investors. Therefore, I may rank my internal screening tool very high for getting stock leads, you may be dissappointed if you do not have ford or can not pay for those powerful tools at reasonable cost.

4. Online Message advisory body Networking

Stock message the boards are wild and you may be surprised that I put this as one of top sources of information for getting stock leads. Well indeed, I got tips and found very solid stock leads from internet message boards.

Actually, I started myself as quite wild BBS stock guru many years ago up to I started blastinvest.com newsletter business. Lots of Chinese American friends who frequently visit big online BBS (mitbbs.com, or goofiz.com) would know my past track record very well. My past BBS investment performance why yes beat performance of most if not all of the value mutual funds hands down. My past history certainly can tell you something on the nature and quality of message boards. Sure, most of BBS members probably are not investing gurus, and some folks in the stock forum may well be dangerous stock promoters or hypers. But sure thing there are some excellent stock gurus there and there are valuable investing or stock pick information there. So just be leaving out nothing and do your homework when you use information from online stock boards.

Two of the well known value investing forums in US are Valueforum and Value Investor Club. Unfortunately, Valueforum is fee based message directory and you can not post any messages without paying fee. Value Investor Club seems to reject beginners or amateurs and they only want gurus (maybe Wall Street Gurus) offering stock tips to each other.

I myself yep disagree with fairway of Valueforum or Value Investor Club. That is why Blastinvest LLC recently launched a free forum dedicated for individual value investors: value-investing-forum.com. For more information on why you should participate in a forum regardless whether you are a value investing tyro or a savvy value investor, please go over big here: http://value-investing-forum.com/viewtopic.php?t=483

5. Traditional Newspapers and Magazines

This group includes Investor's industry Daily, Forbes, Fortune, Barrons, etc, I read them all from time to time.

If you live near New York city and tune in to Bloomberg radio, you are going to hear nuclear fission of ads such as "Barrons, the best source of stock investing information".

However, my rating on their long suit of giving me stock leads or ideas are poorer than more channels. The stock picks published in the public media are pretty mediocre.

Of course, I still trust they are very useful information to understand economics and to know what Wall Street gurus are doing or thinking. So they may not be worth subscription fee for you to pay, they are forsooth worth your time to visit public library once a while to read them.

Someone who reads the blog sent me this email:

Hi Geoff,

My question for you is about the recent market correction. I know you might not be comfortable talking about any stocks you bought, but I'd love to hear anything you can say about how you approached Mr. Market's most recent mood swing; what kind of actions did you take? Did you stick to pre-researched stocks on a watch list or did you go into overdrive with researching new businesses? I guess my question is mostly about mindset and preparedness. How do you prepare for this, and what does your thought process look like while it's happening?

Thanks,
Mike

I answered Mike’s question over at GuruFocus.

In my article, I talk about 12 stocks I’d consider buying:

1. Omnicom (OMC)

2. Regis (RGS)

3. Fair Isaac (FICO)

4. Moody’s (MCO)

5. Dun & Bradstreet (DNB)

6. Birner Dental (BDMS)

7. VCA Antech (WOOF)

8. Prestige Brands (PBH)

9. Carnival (CCL)

10. Dreamworks (DWA)

11. Nintendo (NTDOY)

12. CEC Entertainment (CEC)

Talk to Geoff About Stocks He’d Consider Buying

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