TradingView is primarily designed for technical analysis, but it has features that will appeal to all types of investors. You’ll get custom scripts for chart enhancement and topic-specific chats for discussions. There’s a professional data feed for easy analysis of prices, volume, and historical asset data, along with access to company fundamentals, enabling efficient screening and tracking of companies that meet user criteria.

Let’s take a closer look at how all this fits together.

Who Is It For?

Charting can be intimidating. When I first started looking into charts, I was overwhelmed… It took me a while to understand what all the different bits meant and how to make use of those. I needed something that would get me started, and would allow me to improve my skills as I improved.

TradingView acted exactly like that.

I see TradingView as a useful tool for both novice and experienced traders. It supports a wide range of asset classes, from stocks to crypto, amongst others.

Long-term investors often dismiss technical analysis and therefore might be of the opinion that tools like TradingView won’t be helpful to them. However, I think it’s still worth considering using it since you could take advantage of some degree of technical analysis in order to:

• Choose a good entry point for your investment, since it can really make a difference in your returns in the future;
• Choose appropriate stop-loss amounts for your investment, in line with your risk appetite;
• Understand the long-term trends of each asset you’re thinking of buying, to make sure you’re not investing in a business that has been declining heavily for a number of years.

Those 3 points alone will make you a better investor and therefore avoid basic mistakes. While TradingView is primarily a technical analysis tool it still has quite a bit to offer the fundamental analyst.

Start using TradingView for free

What Do I Get With TradingView?

Charting

This is where you will spend most of your time. At first glance, TradingView’s charts look simple. Don’t let that fool you. Once you input a specific asset name or ticker into their search bar and select it, the initial graph is just a quick overview. You need to click on their “Full-featured chart” button in order to get access to all its features.

Here is what it looks like:

There is a lot to unpack here. The default graph is a candle graph. It comes with the trading volume at the bottom by default, though you can add more indicators to it.

The free plan only allows one indicator, but with the other plans, you can add more. Check out their pricing to find out more.

At the top, we can pick the type of graph we want to see, the time intervals, indicators, alerts, and financial data. These are the basic tools for us to analyze the graph. I would like to highlight their indicators’ functionality. Besides the dozens of built-in indicators, you can also access indicators created by the community, and see the underlying scripts. This community aspect is a great way to learn how other more experienced traders have created their indicators, and what they are good for.

Now back to the previous image above. On the left-hand side are tools you can use to enhance a graph with annotations. That could be a trend line, a text note, a Fibonacci retracement, etc. There are dozens of useful annotations you can use.

On the right-hand side, we can build and access a watch list of assets, set up alerts, see raw data, and observe community features such as ideas shared by others, public and private chats, etc. There is also real-time news on each of the selected tickers, and a preview of its fundamentals and technical analysis.

Finally, at the bottom, we can access the stock screener, test trading strategies, and connect our broker account with TradingView, so that we can buy/sell assets from it.

As a reference point, my absolute basic chart layout includes volume indicators, MACD, RSI, accumulation/distribution, and the 50-day moving average. Here is how it looks:

Sometimes, though, we want to see more than one chart at the same time. It might be because we want to look at different timeframes or compare charts of different assets.

Having separate tabs isn’t really practical, and it’s somewhat discouraged by TradingView since they limit the number of allowed tabs open. But fear not, TradingView allows a split-screen with up to 8 charts in one window. However, that might not make sense if your screen size is small, but with a large enough external monitor, it can be handy to keep an eye on several charts at the same time.

It took me a while to discover this feature, but it’s definitely a bit plus for me.

Screeners

We all know a few stocks or cryptocurrencies by heart, right? In TradingView, we can manually look for them, but ultimately we need a tool to filter through the thousands of assets out there based on our criteria. This is what screeners do.

TradingView comes with 3 screeners: stocks, forex, and cryptocurrencies. The stock filter also allows us to choose ETFs on top of common and preferred stocks, which not all screeners do.

There are endless filtering options. The top-level filter is the country, which impacts the exchanges we use. Then, besides the traditional filters on fundamental data, like market capitalization, for example, there are filters based on technical indicators too. We could filter stocks with an oversold RSI indicator, as an example, if we’re looking for a sign of a potential rebound.

Screeners also include TradingView’s rating, which varies from strong sell to strong buy. Those ratings are measured based on a number of technical indicators and are very prominent in the technical details section of individual stocks. More on this in the technical analysis section below.

Finally, we can also choose from dozens and dozens of column types, which again enhances the data with pretty much every information we need. It’s possible to either use their table interface or alternatively download the resulting screener data as a CSV.

Overall, I find the screeners quite powerful, especially when combined with the chart view for quick access.

Server-Side Alerts

So now you’re following a bunch of assets, like stocks. That’s great but equally stressful. How do we keep track of all those support and resistance levels? What if we turn around and miss a good buy opportunity?

TradingView solves this with server-side alerts. With this feature, we can set up price alerts on individual assets and get notified on any of their platforms when the current price hits that defined amount.

Each alert is highly configurable. We can:

• Setup on-off alerts or recurring ones;
• Choose a specific price or a % move;
• Set up a webhook and have an external application act on it too, but that might require some development effort.

I use alerts all the time, in particular when I identified specific entry or exit points.

However, be mindful that all plans have a hard limit on the number of alerts you can set up, and until when they will last.

Ideas and Community

Did you ever feel like you would like to double-check your assumptions with someone more experienced, in order to validate them? Or check what others are using in their technical analysis?

The best way to improve is by learning with others. TradingView allows us to do that via their Ideas feature. It is a way for us to share our assumptions with other traders, and get feedback from them. We can also explore literally thousands of ideas from other traders and investors, and learn from them. If their ideas are consistently playing out as they expect, you got yourself a mentor you can learn from.

This was key when I started trading. I read books and did some rudimentary analysis, but I missed a lot of nuances that made my trades less successful. The practical aspect of it was important, and to see what others did too. I needed a community of traders to learn from.

Besides technical analysis, ideas in TradingView can be used for other purposes. It’s possible to create ideas around risk management, trading plans, short/long positions, and so on. Each asset has top authors and top ideas associated with them, which makes it easier to choose whom to follow for the best content. Here is an example:

Despite this being a great tool, it has its drawbacks as well. On one hand, it’s great to have access to millions of other traders and investors and learn from their ideas and chats. But on the other hand, the curation is not quite up-to-scratch, meaning you’ll find a few trolls along the way.

This is actually an aspect I think TradingView should improve because it can be such a powerful tool for people to learn how to use technical analysis in their favor. So far, I have managed to ignore trolls and other users that actively mislead with their ideas, but it takes some knowledge to be able to differentiate between a genuine idea and one that’s not worth looking into.

Scripts

The default indicators are not enough for you, you say? Then, this feature is for you. TradingView developed its own scripting language, called Pine Script, that allows us to create custom indicators and plot them in our charts.

Since TradingView focuses on the social aspect of trading, you can also share your custom-built indicators with the community and get feedback on them. When looking for indicators in the full-featured chart page, you will see both the built-in ones and the ones created by the community, in the public library.

I haven’t tried this feature myself, but I’ve used custom-built indicators by other traders.

Markets

With TradingView, we have access to a broad set of market data on stocks, futures, commodities, forex, CFDs, and cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin. Most of the major indices are covered and there are over 50+ exchanges and data feeds available for us to slice into custom time intervals as needed. On top of that, TradingView also exposes fundamental and economic data, which is quite useful to investors.

Here is an example widget that shows data on several different markets and indexes:

The market data is pretty comprehensive and I haven’t seen anything glaringly missing.

Broker Integrations

Be mindful that TradingView is not a trading platform per se. They do support a number of brokers that you can connect to it in order to perform buy/sell orders, but if your broker is not supported, you might not be able to perform live trading on the platform.

As of September 2021, these are the brokers supported. As you can see, many of the most popular online brokers are not on the list, meaning that you cannot (yet) directly integrate them with Tradingview.

• TradeStation
• OANDA
• FOREXcom
• FXCM
• Alpaca
• Gemini
• AMP
• CQG FCMs (full list)
• iBroker
• Saxo Group
• Tradovate
• HitBTC
• WH Selfinvest
• Alor
• IronBeam
• Tiger Brokers
• Capitalcom
• Currencycom
• Chaka
• Tickmill
• Global Prime.

Fundamentals

Even though TradingView is more geared towards technical analysis, it also includes a number of features and data on company fundamentals.

Their data enables insights into how companies are doing beyond just their stock price.

It is also possible to plot fundamental data on any chart, which allows investors to chart relevant financial data against stock prices and do their analysis. In practical terms, that means it’s possible to see, in a chart, the correlation between metrics like revenue and stock price.

Technical Indicator Gauge

Technical analysis is at the core of what TradingView offers. For every ticker, they keep track of several oscillators, moving averages, and pivots. That, together with timeframes, allows them to offer a quick preview of each company’s stock price.

They are then able to display real-time ratings for the selected timeframes for each asset. Those ratings are Strong Sell, Sell, Neutral, Buy, and Strong Buy.

They use several moving averages, both simple and exponential, and oscillators such as the Relative Strength Index (RSI), MACD, Stochastic %K, amongst others.

TradingView Pricing

While the basic features of TradingView are free to use, they do offer three upgrade plans for advanced users: Pro, Pro+, and Premium.

It’s great that they have a free version. It allows people to look around and see what their product can offer. However, it’s quite limited and I wouldn’t be able to use it for any serious trading.

Then, the two pro plans: Pro and Pro+. The main difference between those is the number of things you can use. For example, with Pro+, you can use TradingView on more devices, save more chart layouts, use more indicators per chart, more alerts, etc.

Finally, the Premium plan includes absolutely everything. Up to 25 indicators per chart, up to 8 charts in one window, 400 server-side alerts, second-based intervals, and much more.

The annual fee is cheaper than the monthly fee, which is pretty standard, and both the pro and pro+ look very reasonably priced given what the tool enables us to do.

TradingView’s Competitors

There are lots of competitor charting tools out there, probably starting with your broker’s systems. But not all charting tools are created equal.

Most competitors fall into two categories: application-based tools and web-based tools. I have split them into two because their feature set and pricing models differ quite substantially, and it’s easier to understand the differences this way.

Application-Based Tools

In this category, most competitors are not web-based, meaning they require the user to install an application on the computer in order to trade. Here is how they compare:

Unless you’re trading something very specific like FOREX, or have any special needs that TradingView doesn’t support, I would recommend you choose TradingView. The cost of the other systems can be orders of magnitude higher than TradingView.

Web-Based Tools

In the list below, I’m comparing web-based applications with TradingView. This is a more like-for-like comparison:

As you can see from the table above, TrendSpider is the tool that comes closer, closely followed by Finviz and then Stockcharts.

If you want to learn more about Finviz, here is our comprehensive review. Compare TradingView to the tool that comes closest feature-wise: TrendSpider vs TradingView.

Also worth mentioning is Yahoo! Finance, which is free for the most part and includes lots of information on fundamentals, but also has an advanced charting capacity for technical analysis. It’s a good way to get started, but definitely not as feature-rich as its competitors.

Final Thoughts on TradingView

TradingView has been an essential tool in my toolbox. I don’t trade through it, because my broker isn’t supported, but its superior features allow me to do all my analysis before I execute orders on my broker’s website. It is reliable, comprehensive, and has most of what I need day-to-day when trading.

Given the relatively low price, I think this is a no-brainer, despite the few issues I highlighted above.

Start using TradingView for free

FAQs

Here are a number of FAQs that summarize some of the points made throughout this article.

TradingView Review

Our rating: 4.3/5

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The post TradingView Review: Is It the Best Stock Charting Tool in 2024? appeared first on FinMasters.

What Is Finviz?

Finviz is a comprehensive toolbox for investors and traders with a focus on US markets. This stock market portal offers many features, from stock screeners news feeds, portfolio management, stock charts, and more.

Finviz’s mission is to provide leading financial research, analysis, and visualization to its users.

Given the amount of information available, the website is remarkably easy to use. Although it looks dated from a user interface perspective, it loads quite fast, which is great if you’re constantly trying to find information to act on.

Finviz’s stock screener is one of the most popular screeners available today. In fact, Finviz is used extensively by beginner and professional traders, including investment firms.

Who Uses Finviz?

I know it sounds like a cliche, but Finviz can indeed be used by both beginners and experienced investors and traders. There are several reasons for this.

Finviz’s feature set includes both fundamentals and technical indicators. That means it does cater to a large audience.

It’s screener, for example, allows us to look for companies that meet certain criteria. Experienced traders might use it to search for companies that are about to make a technical move. For example, they could look for oversold stocks based on their RSI.

Experienced investors might also use its insider feature, for example, which tracks stock movements from executives at publicly listed companies. This might give them an indication if they are committed to the business by purchasing more stock or simply dumping their stock allocations and therefore give us a warning signal.

Furthermore, novice investors might use it to track their portfolios and check the news on their favorite stocks.

As per Finviz’s page, the tool is also used by professional investment bankers at reputable institutions such as Bank of America and Goldman Sachs, among others.

What Do I Get With Finviz’s Free Tier?

One thing that’s immediately obvious when browsing the free version of Finviz is that there are ads. That said, there are only a few, and it doesn’t really impact the experience that much.

It’s entirely understandable that they chose to include ads, as it’s hard to monetise such a comprehensive set of free features.

Below, we will go into detail on all the free features available on Finviz for free.

Homepage

The homepage on Finviz, although crowded, gives us a sneak peek of a few very interesting features.

It shows how major indices such as the DOW are performing. Below that, it shows the top gainers and losers of the day.

If you look closely, it shows a list of stocks where Finviz detected a technical signal worth noting. I find this feature fabulous, as it saves lots of time when looking for stocks with the right technical setup for a trade.

There’s a small map to the right with the several industries and sectors in the S&P 500 index. This vizualisation is a great way to assess how the markets are behaving.

There are a few more bits and pieces, but this is really just an entry point to more detailed features in Finviz.

Screener

This is by far one of the best stock screeners out there. It’s incredibly fast and powerful, and the different views over the results make it an invaluable tool for any serious trader or investor.

There are three types of filters: descriptive, fundamental and technical.

Descriptive Filters

The descriptive filters are the basic set of filters around exchanges, market cap, dividend yield, industry, country, etc. They are the first ones we use to narrow down the results page.

Fundamental Filters

The fundamentals’ filters go into detail about financials and derived ratios. It allows investors to filter tickers based on the basic P/E ratio, sales growth, margins, EPS growth and so forth. It also allows us to filter by insider and institutional ownership, and other metrics of importance to those doing fundamental analysis.

Technical Filters

Finally, there are also technical filters available. The majority of these filters are well known and include moving averages, RSI, volatility, and percentage change. However, some other filters are quite unique and powerful.

These include candlesticks and patterns.

It is possible to look for stocks with a known candlestick like a doji and inverted hammer, or even use your own custom candlesticks for Elite users.

Results Visualisation

Once we filter the stocks by any of the filters above, we can decide how we want to visualize the results.

Here, we can choose to see them in a number of ways by choosing one of the following tabs:

• Overview – this displays very basic information about each ticker, such as name, industry, sector and market cap;
• Valuation – this tab displays mostly derived ratios about each ticker, such as P/E and PEG ratios;
• Financial – this tab shows the most important financial indicators for each ticker, if available, such as gross margins, dividend yield, and profit margins;
• Ownership – in this tab, we can look for details on the number of outstanding shares, institutional ownership, and short ratio;
• Performance – it offers a good overview of the past performance of each ticker, together with some volatility and volume information;
• Technical – many of the raw technical indicators are shown on this tab, including 20, 50 and 200-day simple moving averages, 52-week lows/highs and RSI;
• Charts – if you’re looking for technical patterns, then this tab is for you. With it, you can quickly glance over the chats of all the tickers that match your search criteria in order to spot interesting trades. For the trained eye, this is a great way to analyze a large number of tickers and filter down to only a few tradable names;
• Ticker – a visual representation of tickers based on their performance. Hovering over each ticker shows a small chart with more detail;
• Basic – in this view, we see both a technical chart and a small table with fundamentals, both side-by-side, for each ticker;
• TA – similar to the view above, where we see a technical chart and a small table with technicals side-by-side, for each ticker;
• News – this view contains the same information as the Basic tab, plus specific news for each of the tickers;
• Snapshot – besides the information in the News view, this view also includes a description of the ticker and insider trading information;
• Custom – in this view, you can customize what you want to see and save the view for future uses.

As you can see, this is indeed a very powerful screener. The added search based on technical patterns and candles makes it a very valuable tool for traders.

News

The news section is split between news and blog posts. Both are from curated sources, which guarantees a certain degree of quality.

Although in this section you will find news for every company, you can also see news for a specific company when you search for it.

If you search for a stock like Apple (use its ticker AAPL in the search bar), you will see, among other things, news specific to Apple. This is great because you can keep track of what’s happening with the stocks you care about.

Maps

This is a wonderful feature in Finviz. Maps are a high-level visualization that shows the price change of stocks per sector and industry. Furthermore, the size of each box represents the market capitalization of those stocks, sectors, and industries relative to one another.

The image above is a representation of the S&P 500 index. Besides that, we can also see a World map with foreign ADR stocks listed on NYSE, NASDAQ and AMEX.

It is also possible to see the same map visualization with ETFs. In this case, instead of market cap, the size represents a 3-month average dollar volume.

Besides the map view, you can also change to a bubbles view, which plots the individual stocks by sector and their change over time. There are many filters on this chart, to narrow down the view.

I use this visualisation to understand how sectors are performing over time. This information is important to understand if markets are displaying weakness or strength as a whole.

Groups

Following on from maps, groups provide another holistic view of stocks by sector, market cap or industry. When looking at individual stocks and ETFs, it’s important to consider how their group is performing. That allows us to understand where assets are positioned in relation to their peers.

This view allows us to compare the valuation, performance and even charts of groups of stocks.

As an example, you can compare P/E ratios of all S&P500 sectors. Furthermore, you can see the performance of the different sectors over different periods of time.

This visualisation is extremely helpful to assess current market conditions across different industries and sectors, in order to understand trends in the markets.

It also allows us to drill down into individual stocks and ETFs by linking directly to the stock screener, activating the relevant filters.

Portfolio

Another interesting feature in Finviz is the Portfolio tool. With this tool, investors can build their portfolio by inserting which stocks and ETFs they bought or sold, when that happened and at what price.

Once we input that data, Finviz will keep track of our overall P&L and also individual changes in every ticker we add to our portfolio.

On top of that, Finviz will also display context-specific news for all tickers in our porfolio, grouped by day. This is a great way to keep track of important news related to the stocks and ETFs we purchase.

Insider

The insider trading feature keeps track of transactions executed by executives and directors at publicly listed companies.

This is a great way to assess how executives perceive their own companies’ stock. If too many executives at a company are selling their own stock in large proportions, that could be interpreted as a negative sign. However, if they are actually purchasing more stock, that could be seen as a bullish indicator.

As you can see above, Finviz uses color-coding to show which transactions are a sell transaction (in red), which ones are a buy transaction (in green), and which ones are an exercise in options (white).

This is a generic view, though. It includes all transactions regardless of the company. For insider movement on particular stocks, you can see that information when you click or search for a stock and go into the stock page. More details on that below.

Futures, Forex & Crypto

I have grouped these 3 categories because of their similarities in terms of interface. Let’s explore the 3.

The Futures feature shows a number of prices and charts covering futures in indices, energy, bonds, softs, metals, meats, grains and currencies.

For each type of futures contract, we can see quotes, their relative performance, and individual charts, which are static on the free tier, but interactive in the Elite tier.

The same applies to Forex. Finviz tracks the most relevant currency pairs like EUR/USD, GBP/USD and Gold. The functionality available is the same as above: we can see the quotes, relative performance and individual charts.

Finally, Finviz also tracks the most relevant cryptocurrencies available. In this feature, we can follow the price of Bitcoin (BTC), Litecoin (LTC), Ethereum (ETH), Ripple (XRP), Bitcoin Cash (BCH) against USD, EUR and BTC.

Search

We don’t normally go into too much detail as explaining the search functionality of tools. But with Finviz we feel we have to do it for one simple reason: Finviz’s search is incredibly fast. We can search a ticker, company name, or any particular profile and get an instantaneous list of results.

Clicking in a result gets us to the page of the profile we’re looking for instantaneously.

Assets Page

We can get to an asset page by either clicking on tickers throughout Finviz’s website or by searching for a ticker, company, or asset profile.

A profile page for a specific ticker includes a number of important data, which is tailored to the type of ticker you searched for.

Let’s go into detail about each section.

Technical Charts

The technical chart, which is static in the free version, but dynamic in the Elite tier.

For users in the Elite tier, this chart can be customized by type (candle, line, etc), the time frame can be changed and we can create alerts. It is also possible to change settings and publish custom charts.

Fundamentals

Fundamental data, which is a comprehensive table displaying all sorts of fundamentals for the company, some of which are color-coded so quickly glance at the health of certain indicators.

It is also possible to access public financial statements for each ticker, which is a basic link to MarketWatch.

Analysts Rating

Another key piece of information that Finviz displays are a sorted list of analysts’ ratings for the profile page you’re on.

As you can see above, the list is sorted by date and it includes the recommendation of a number of analysts, their name and the price target.

Although the list is static and doesn’t provide any analytics on top, it’s quite useful to determine current market sentiment.

Tailored News and Social Media Sentiment

Furthermore, there’s a list of news specific to the ticker we are on, sorted by date, from reputable news sources.

This is a great way to keep yourself up-to-date with what’s been written about this specific asset without all of the noise of generic news services.

Alongside it, it’s possible to see what other traders and investors are talking about on Stocktwits, which is a twitter-like social media service for markets.

Insider Trading

Finally, if you’re on a stock page, you will be able to see a list of insider trading according to public information available in the SEC filings. This is a good way to assess how top executives think of their stock by monitoring their sales and purchases of stock for the company they run.

What Do I Get With Finviz’s Elite Tier?

By now, you’re familiar with all the free features that Finviz offers. The list is huge, but make no mistake – Finviz’s strength lies with its Elite tier.

Besides a much better ad-free layout, Finviz Elite brings a large number of premium features that are a must for anyone that trades on a daily basis for a living.

Realtime Data and Extended Hours

When you trade for a living, access to real-time data is key. With Finviz Elite, you get access to real-time data for US markets.

That is visible in the homepage, the maps, charts, stock quote and the stock screener.

Besides, there is also access to extended hours sessions from 8:00AM, for those trading during extended hours.

Advanced Charts

In Finviz’s free tier, the charts are not interactive. In fact, they are simple pictures that convey some details, but are unusable for traders.

With Finviz Elite, charts are interactive and provide charting possibilities that are necessary for performing deep technical analysis.

For example, we have access to Intraday charts, indicators, overlays, drawing tools and performance comparison charts.

Backtests

Another important aspect of trading is to create and evaluate trading strategies before applying them with real money.

Finviz Elite allows us to backtest trading strategies that we can build from their 100+ indicators and 15+ years of historical data.

Correlations

One feature that’s not often seen is the ability to search for correlated or inversely correlated stocks.

This can be used to diversify risk, buy finding inversely correlated stocks, or alternate your positions within your portfolio.

Finviz features proprietary correlation algorithms optimized for financial markets.

Advanced Screener

On top of the many features available on Finviz’s stock screener, with the Elite plan we have access to even more features.

Some of those include the ability to export data, which is neat. Furthermore, we have access to advanced charts, custom filters and finally a statistics view.

With these features, the screener becomes even more powerful than in the free version.

Alerts and Notifications

Finally, one key feature for traders is the ability to receive alerts and notifications. This feature is included in the Elite plan.

We can get instant e-mail notifications for individual stocks and portfolios. For alerts, they are triggered by a number of events, including price, news, portfolio updates and ratings. 

On top of that, we can receive alerts on new stock tickers that fit in a screener criteria.

This feature is key in keeping on top of important pieces of information.

What Could Be Better in Finviz?

So far, we’ve looked into the many features Finviz includes in their product. But what is missing? And what could be better?

Let’s explore a few areas in which Finviz could improve.

Markets

If you’re looking for extensive market coverage, then you will be disappointed. Finviz only covers US markets, so if you’re looking for European or Asian data, you’re out of luck.

They do cover foreign companies, just as long as they trade in US markets. This might be ok for you, if you’re focused on US stocks, but traders looking for exposure to other markets will have to look for alternatives.

Futures

If you are expecting to trade futures, Finviz might not be the right platform for you. Finviz’s futures data has a 20 minute delay, which means you don’t get real-time information to assist you on your trades.

If you only use futures data to gage market sentiment, this might be enough for you. However, if you expect to make money from trading futures, this platform isn’t ideal.

Historical Data

Although Finviz provides historical data that goes back 16 years, that might not be enough if you’re backtesting a particular trading strategy that needs data from a specific period in time.

That said, for the majority of traders, 16 years of historical data is more than enough. If you’re looking to battle-test a trading strategy during the 2000 dot-comm bubble, you’re out of luck.

ETFs

I found it disappointing that there’s little information on ETFs in Finviz. It’s clearly tailored to stocks and most stock tickers are enhanced with many pieces of valuable information.

However, ETFs have very little details shown. We can’t see their holdings, for example, which is a shame.

Mobile

Finviz has no mobile app. On top of that, the website isn’t mobile friendly. This makes the experience of using Finviz on the go quite poor.

That said, most traders do run their business from desktop or laptop computers. But there’s always that time that we’re on the go and it would be useful to access the platform from a mobile device.

Visuals

Finally, although the looks aren’t everything, it’s quite obvious that Finviz could do with a face lift! The website looks old and dated. 

When compared with websites such as TradingView and TrendSpider, it doesn’t look as good. It’s fast, which is an advantage, but I think this is something Finviz should perhaps invest a little bit more into.

Finviz Pricing

The pricing model used by Finviz is quite simple. There are basically two plans to choose from: a free plan and a paid-for plan called Elite.

Within the paid-for plan Elite, you can choose to either pay monthly or annually. The annual subscription fee costs $299.50 and the monthly fee costs $39.50 per month.

As you can see, the annual subscription fee is much more appealing as it is $174.50 cheaper than the monthly one.

Finviz only accepts payments through Paypal. The reason for that is to make sure our credit card and personal information is as secure as possible.

Finally, there are no trial plans available, but the free version gives you access to most features anyway. The key differences between the plans are analysed in this blog post, but the most significant is to do with access to real-time data.

That means you can take your time analyzing the tool in their free plan until you’re ready to commit to the Elite plan.

Finviz Review – Final Thoughts

Up until now, Finviz has been a critical tool for us at FinMasters. In particular, it’s hard to find a better stock screener out there. Given its relatively cheap price compared to the value it yields, it’s a no brainer, and we recommend going for the Elite plan and unlock those extra features.

FAQs

Here are a number of FAQs that summarize some of the points made throughout this article.

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We prepared a list of the best books on real estate investing that will answer all these questions and more.

Best Real Estate Investing Books

We separated books into categories, each dealing with a different strategy of investing in real estate. We’ll recommend you two books for each of these categories:

• Mindset
• Property Flipping
• Rental Properties & Airbnb
• REIT Funds

The first two books on our list will make you think like a professional real estate investor. These books demystify the investment landscape and make sure you’re aware of the basic principles to become successful.

1. Rich Dad Poor Dad

by Robert T. Kiyosaki

A list of the best books on real estate investing would not be complete without this book. The book Rich Dad, Poor Dad is a best seller in investing and personal finance. One of the key lessons from the book is that we should have more assets and fewer liabilities.

As an example of an asset, it uses real estate investment which, if you do it right, generates consistent passive income. If you are introducing yourself to managing and investing your finances, this is a great book to start.

Read our full book review | Read key ideas on Blinkist →

2. The Millionaire Real Estate Investor

by Gary Keller

Do you think you can only get rich if you have a considerable amount of money to invest in real estate? Are you struggling to believe in yourself? Do you need an initial push to invest in real estate?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you should read this book which will help you with all these questions and teach you good principles you can apply in real estate investment.

Property flipping is a very popular way of making money with properties without holding them for the long run. The next two books on our list will give you a great framework to evaluate, buy, rehab, and sell residential properties and avoid typical mistakes that can be costly.

3. The Book on Flipping Houses

by J Scott

The Book on Flipping Houses: How to Buy, Rehab, and Resell Residential Properties is a no-fluff book with solid information about flipping houses. It covers the financial requirements, where and what to buy and how to find deals. Furthermore, it introduces a flip formula to ensure your investment is worth it, negotiating tips and due diligence.

If you are planning to buy a property and then sell it with profit in a short period instead of renting it, this book is a great investment.

7 Best Books on Real Estate Investing

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4. The Book on Estimating Rehab Costs

by J Scott

A lot of your profit flipping a house comes down to how much you spend in its renovation. It’s a scary topic and costs can vary widely. If you choose the wrong contractor or buy very expensive materials, it will take a big toll on your profits. It’s therefore important to strike a good balance in property renovation to keep costs under control.

The Book on Estimating Rehab Costs gives you the framework and methodology you need to invest in real estate rehab. After reading this book, you will be able to evaluate renovation costs.

If you have no knowledge of construction and contracting costs, the book will explain how you can react to quotes and be comfortable in managing them. However, if you are knowledgeable, then the book will give you a consistent and efficient method to renovate properties with investment in mind.

Buying properties to rent out long term or short term is an excellent way to generate meaningful passive income. The focus here is to buy properties at a price that makes sense, when taking into consideration the rent you will receive from it. The two books below are the best guides you’ll find on these subjects.

5. The Book on Rental Property Investing

by Brandon Turner

The Book on Rental Property Investing covers in detail all the decisions you need to make before investing in a property. On the location topic, it lists twelve parameters you should evaluate before deciding to invest.

For rental property success, it lists five key points that you can use as a process to invest in a property. However, it doesn’t enforce that process as the only way to invest in rental properties.

It also covers other strategies such as building wealth through single-family properties and it encourages the reader to choose the strategy that works best. The writer’s passion is quite visible, so you are likely to be inspired after reading this book.

6. The Turnkey Revolution

by Christopher D. Clothier 

The Turnkey Revolution is a how-to manual on buying turnkey rental properties. This eBook has practical explanations and examples, making it clearer to understand the concepts.

It covers the basics such as explaining what a turnkey rental property is and why you should invest. Furthermore, it covers more advanced topics like the steps to buying and guidance on decision making.

Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) are an alternative way to investing in real estate – without owning a property. REITs have lots of advantages, but it is a complex topic to master. The book below is a great choice to build a strong foundation in REITs.

7. The Intelligent REIT Investor

by Stephanie Krewson-Kelly and R. Brad Thomas

The Intelligent REIT Investor is an introductory book on REIT investment. The book starts with the basics, explaining what a REIT is and why you should invest in REITs. Furthermore, it goes into all the details of how to invest, how to analyze REIT performance, and describing the different types of REIT properties (health-care, office, residential, etc).

Conclusion

These are the best books on real estate investing in 2023 that you can read. There are different ways to do real estate investing, such as buy to let, buy to sell, or not owning properties but benefiting from their cash flow via REITs.

In our list, we covered the different possibilities and included books that give you the tools you need to be a successful investor.

These books enable investors to better understand real estate in order to make better investment decisions.

If you enjoyed this article about the best books on real estate investing and would like to be notified of new content going forward, please sign up for our newsletter.

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How Can I Buy SpaceX Stock?

SpaceX is still privately held, meaning its shares are not available on the stock market yet. But are there other ways to purchase SpaceX stock?

How to Buy SpaceX Stock?

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Invest Through a Pre-IPO Secondary Market

There is a secondary market for pre-IPO shares, and it is sometimes possible to purchase them. Online pre-IPO marketplaces may acquire shares from early investors or employees who have received shares through stock options.

You may be able to buy SpaceX shares through these marketplaces.

• Forge Global/Sharespost is the product of a merger between two major pre-IPO marketplaces. The minimum investment is $100,000. Some shares may have higher minimums. Potential buyers may need to pass a qualification process.  
• EquityZen acquires pre-IPO shares from early investors and employees and makes them available to qualified investors. There will be a qualification process and the minimum investment is $10,000, potentially higher for some shares.
• SecFi specializes in linking outside investors with employees who need to liquidate their stock options. ‎
• Nasdaq Private Market provides access to private company shares for investors who meet SEC accredited investor criteria.
• EquityBee is a private marketplace that allows investors to fund an employee’s stock options in exchange for a share in the proceeds from their eventual sale.

To use these platforms, you will have to register and open an account. You may need to meet a minimum level of income and investment experience to qualify, and there may be other criteria. There’s no guarantee that any marketplace will have SpaceX shares available.

Investing in pre-IPO shares is risky. An IPO may be postponed if market conditions are not appropriate. If there is no IPO you may not be able to sell your shares.

  See ALL the ways you can get in on pre-IPO investing: How to Buy Pre-IPO Stocks?

Invest in the IPO

If you can’t find pre-IPO shares for sale, you might consider investing in the IPO itself. Your entry price will be higher, but you’ll have a reasonable assurance that you’ll be able to sell your shares if you want to.

Several major brokers allow account holders to participate in IPOs. All of them have requirements that investors have to meet. You will have to answer questions to confirm that you comply with the rules on IPO investment.

• TD Ameritrade allows participation in IPOs if TD Ameritrade is part of the selling group. Participating account holders need a minimum balance of $250,000 or 30 trades in the last calendar year. 
• Fidelity allows participation for customers who are in the Premium or Private client groups or those who meet minimum household asset requirements. 
• Charles Schwab requires an account balance of $100,000 or a history with at least 36 trades.
• E*Trade does not restrict IPO participation by account balance or trading history. You will have to fill out a questionnaire from the underwriter of the IPO to determine your eligibility.

Most IPOs allocate only a small number of shares for retail investors. Even if you qualify you may not be able to buy the number of shares you want. You may not be able to buy shares at all.

Many IPO purchases come with a lock-up period, usually 90 or 180 days. You will not be able to sell your shares until this period expires.

Invest After the IPO

The most conservative way to buy SpaceX stock would be to wait for the IPO and buy the shares on the public post-IPO market. You can do this through any brokerage account.

You won’t get in at the low price offered by pre-IPO or IPO purchases, but it’s the simplest way to invest, and there’s still a substantial upside if the company succeeds.

For a point of comparison, Tesla shares at the IPO were priced at $17. The shares closed at $23.89 on their first day of public trading. At the time of this writing, they are worth over $580. That may not happen again, but you don’t need to buy at the IPO to earn a profit.

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When Will SpaceX Hold Its IPO

Most observers expect that SpaceX will eventually go public, though no registration statement has been filed and there is no indication of when an IPO might occur.

Unlike many private companies, SpaceX does not need to hold an IPO. The Company has shown a very high ability to attract private capital and seems able to finance its programs indefinitely without going public. Some investors report that Musk has told them not to expect a return for 15 years. A company that can attract financing on those terms is under no pressure to stage an IPO.

If market conditions remain strong, SpaceX could choose to hold an IPO within the next year or two. They could also spin off Starlink in an independent IPO, or they could simply carry on as a private company. CEO Musk has stated that Starlink will hold an IPO once the Company can predict its cash flow.

There’s no clear indication of imminent intent to stage an IPO. Anyone planning to buy SpaceX stock needs to be prepared to hold onto their investment for an extended period.

What Is SpaceX?

SPACEX: FAST FACTS
Industry	Aerospace, Communications
Key Products	Launch vehicles, rocket engines, Dragon capsules, Starlink
Key Services	Orbital rocket launch, satellite internet
Key Competitors	Blue Origin, Virgin Orbit, United Launch Alliance (ULA)
HQ	Hawthorne, California, United States
Founded	2002
Key People	Elon Musk (Founder and CEO), Gwynne Shotwell (President and COO)
Employees	10,000+
Website	www.spacex.com
Current Valuation	$127 billion
IPO Status	Private

SpaceX designs and manufactures advanced spacecraft, and launches them into… yes you guessed it… space.

The Company is considered the most advanced player in the civilian space industry.

SpaceX is well known for its grand plans to fly to the moon and to Mars and its fully reusable spaceship project, but it also has two working businesses.

• SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets provide affordable launch services for satellites weighing up to 200 kilos (440 pounds).
• The Starlink project aims to provide global broadband service through a network of low-orbit satellites. Starlink may be spun off in its own IPO.

SpaceX has also won contracts to work with NASA on the Artemis human lunar lander project, which aims to put humans back on the moon. The contract award has been challenged in court by rival Blue Origin.

Satellite launches compose the bulk of SpaceX revenue and are expected to bring in $1.6 billion in sales in 2021. Starlink entered beta testing in mid-2021 and could produce significant revenue in 2022. SpaceX has launched 1,740 Starlink satellites and the system will eventually deploy as many as 40,000 satellites.

While satellite launches are currently the main revenue generator, that’s a limited market and does not have large growth potential. Elon Musk himself has stated that satellite revenue will probably not exceed $3 billion a year. Starlink, on the other hand, has a much larger potential market.

SpaceX is developing a deep space transport system called Starship, which it will use to serve the Artemis contract. A Starship prototype is currently awaiting FAA approval for an orbital test.

SpaceX competes with Blue Origin (founded by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos), United Launch Alliance (formed by aerospace giants Boeing and Lockheed Martin), Virgin Orbit, and other mostly government-operated agencies like CNSA and NASA.

Are There Any Concerns About SpaceX?

SpaceX is in a risky and highly speculative business that requires enormous amounts of capital. An accident could have a serious impact on the Company’s viability, especially on a manned mission.

The Starlink project comes with its own set of concerns. The network could include up to 42,000 satellites, which raises possibilities of a collision, simple failure, or other problems.

The extremely high capital cost and operational costs of SpaceX could put the Company at risk in a less liberal funding environment. If markets sink or the economy becomes less vigorous financing could be harder to obtain.

Read our guide on pre-IPO investing for more information on how pre-IPO stocks work and the potential risks and rewards that they present.

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Conclusion

There are some ways to invest in private companies pre-IPO. Some ways are more difficult than others. But if you’re willing to do some digging, you might be able to purchase SpaceX stock before the company’s IPO.

SpaceX is a highly speculative investment with substantial risks. There’s no way to anticipate when an IPO will be held, so your funds could be tied up for some time. If the gamble pays off, the gains could be substantial.

If you want to stay up-to-date on when SpaceX goes public, sign up for our newsletter, and we will let you know!

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It’s safe to say that remote work is here to stay. Therefore, as investors, we should be looking for companies that will capitalize on this trend. Given the potential growth of remote work in the future, what companies out there provide the best services at this time? What are some remote work stocks worth considering for investment?

But first, let’s look at what data has to say about trends in working from home and whether this trend is bound to continue in the long term.

Remote Work Is a Growing Trend

The expectation is that remote work will continue to increase in popularity:

By 2025, an estimated 70% of the workforce will work remotely at least five days in a month.

As reported by FYI

In the near future, more companies will be willing to enable remote work:

43% of US employers said they plan to allow their employees to have more remote working opportunities in the next year.

As reported by FYI

As we’ve seen with the Coronavirus, remote work can be a great solution to keeping businesses working through turbulent times and minimizing disruption.

Furthermore, a lot of great books have been written on this subject. Basecamp’s founders have been particularly vocal about the benefits of remote work and have written one of my favorite books on this subject.

This trend opens up the need to have better tools to support remote workers. If we look at white-collar workers, they need access to tools and services in many areas to work remotely successfully. They need productivity tools, communication tools, project management tools, cloud storage solutions, cloud-based identity providers, cloud-based HR tools, and much, much more.

Benefits of Remote Work

If you’re not yet convinced that remote work is sustainable, let’s go over some recent statistics on its benefits to businesses and employees alike. Hopefully, this will convince you that this is a trend worth keeping an eye on.

Employee Retention

There are three key reasons people feel happier when working remotely: flexibility, no commute, and increased productivity. If employers can guarantee that, employees will stay with the company for longer than they would otherwise:

Remote workers are 13% more likely than on-site workers to say that they will stay in their current job for the next 5 years.

As reported by FYI’s remote work statistics

In a different survey, we see similar results:

54% of US companies surveyed said they offer their employees remote work to increase employee retention.

As reported by FYI’s remote work statistics

And this all results in happier employees:

Remote workers are happiest when they spend more than 76% of their time working remotely.

As seen in Buffer’s State of Remote Work report in 2020

Talent

When looking for talent, it’s no longer viable to stick to certain locations. Talent is global, so companies must adapt to it. Thus, hiring managers increasingly look at skill over location:

Managers favor skills over being in the office together. Two times as many hiring managers cite employees having the right skills as being more important than working in the same location as the rest of the team.

As reported by FYI’s remote work statistics

Productivity

There are a number of studies supporting this thesis: remote workers are more productive.

Employers of companies with remote policies believe that remote makes workers more productive. 72% of companies with remote work policies believe that remote work makes workers more productive.

As reported by FYI’s remote work statistics

Employees also feel the same too:

When asked “would you like to work remotely, at least some of the time, for the rest of your career?” 99% said they would.

As reported by FYI’s remote work statistics

Costs

It is also possible for companies to reduce fixed costs by allowing employees to work remotely:

Dell’s flexible program has saved it an average of $12 million annually since 2014 due to reduced office space requirements.

As reported by FYI’s remote work statistics

Remote Work Stocks for the Next Decade

By now, you should be convinced that remote work will become an even bigger part of our society in the future. This means that the demand for remote working tools will be even higher than it is now.

Given the potential growth of remote work in the future, what are some remote work stocks worth considering for investment?

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What remote work stocks will make the most out of this transition? Let’s look at some public companies whose services and products cater to remote workers.

Zoom (ZM)

Slack (CRM)

Dropbox (DBX)

Box (BOX)

Atlassian (TEAM)

Microsoft (MSFT)

Google (GOOGL)

Adobe (ADBE)

Okta (OKTA)

Cisco (CSCO)

DocuSign (DOCU)

Private Companies to Keep an Eye On

Remote work is still a relatively new trend. That means there are still a lot of privately owned, venture-backed companies out there creating great products for remote workers.

Not all of those companies will want to go public, but some might become remote work stocks. Therefore, it’s important to keep an eye on them in case they will in the future.

Some might offer a chance for early-stage investing via equity crowdfunding campaigns or private equity funds. Take a look at those options if you like early-stage investing.

Here is a small list of potential remote work stocks to take into account once their stock becomes available:

• Whereby, which also provides an easy to use video communication system;
• Evernote, a note-taking app that works on multiple devices;
• Notion, a popular all-in-one workspace for teams to collaborate;
• Todoist, a great task management system that focuses on clarity and calmness;
• Basecamp, one of the best project management tools out there.

There are many other tools and services out there, but I think those are worth mentioning, given they are industry-agnostic and therefore more likely to be used by more people.

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Conclusion

I hope this blog post gives you something to think about.

In the next 5 to 10 years, remote work will play a crucial role in how we work. Therefore, I think it’s a great opportunity to consider buying remote work stocks that will be the key enablers of remote work in the future.

The post Investing in Work From Home Stocks: The Stay at Home Revolution appeared first on FinMasters.

Here is a chart comparing two ETFs that track companies in the S&P500 index:

• iShares S&P 500 Growth ETF (IVW) in blue;
• iShares S&P 500 Value ETF (IVE) in red.

As you can see, in this index alone, value stocks have been lagging behind growth stocks since 2009. If we account for world stocks instead, it’s worse than that.

In this article, we will explore the question of value vs. growth in detail. We’ll rely on research publications to understand the underperformance and what to expect in the future.

Value vs. Growth Stocks

If you’ve been investing in stocks, you’ve likely heard this terminology. Value vs. growth is a hot topic among investors. But what does that even mean?

Proponents of value investing, like Warren Buffet, claim it’s the best way to invest your money. They look for undervalued companies in the market with solid fundamentals that will likely generate a good return in the long run.

On the other hand, growth investing means investing in growth companies – companies that exhibit signs of fast growth. Investors reinvest their profits more aggressively into the businesses to achieve faster growth. This requires investors that believe that future returns will be there at some point and therefore are willing to pay a premium for it and are ok with the lack of dividends.

What Is a Value Stock?

A classic measure of value uses something called the price-to-book ratio (P/B ratio).

By comparing the intrinsic value (objective value) and the market’s value of a company, investors can identify good buying and selling opportunities, which is the core of the value investing process.

A low P/B ratio means we’re looking at a potential value stock. A high P/B ratio means we’re probably looking at a growth stock.

Where we draw the line between the two depends on individual investment strategies and it’s not fixed. Some issuers of value ETFs choose certain metrics, which will likely be different from other issuers.

But there’s one significant issue with this type of measurement. It used to work well when the global economy was heavily reliant on manufacturing and the production of goods. But since then, we’ve moved heavily into a service economy, so P/B ratio alone can be misleading.

Why is that you may ask?

An article published in the Financial Analysts Journal, explains this issue:

For example, intangible investments (e.g., research and development, patents, intellectual property, and so forth) are presumably undertaken because they are expected to add to shareholder value. Yet these investments are treated as expenses and deducted from book value. This leads to many stocks being classified as growth stocks because they have tiny book values due to large investments in intangibles. Many of these stocks would be classified as value stocks if the expected capitalized value of the intangible investments added to the book value.

Reports of Value’s Death May Be Greatly Exaggerated^[1]

As you can see from above, there are many key activities companies are undertaking to add to shareholder value that are not considered in a simple P/B ratio.

Which Strategy Works Best: Value or Growth?

The correct answer is: it depends. It depends on the timeframe, economic cycles, and much more.

For example, as The Motley Fool reports:

Based on the study findings from Bank of America/Merrill Lynch over a 90-year period, growth stocks returned an average of 12.6% annually since 1926. However, value stocks generated an average return of 17% per year over the same timeframe… Value has outperformed Growth in roughly three out of every five years over this period.

Quote from Growth Stocks vs. Value Stocks: Over the Long Term, Your Best Bet Is…

However, if you look at the past 12 years, from 2007 to 2019, value stocks have actually underperformed growth stocks. And that underperformance has been very significant, with a drawdown of -39%. This is comparable to the tech bubble drawdown of the year 2000, which was -40%, but in a much shorter timeframe of 2.4 years, as mentioned in Table 2 of the Financial Analyst Jurnal article.

This long period of underperformance has led to countless articles stating that value investing is dead.

But is it really not worth investing in value stocks anymore? To answer that, we first need to understand what caused this underperformance.

Why Has Value Investing Been Underperforming Growth?

There are many different narratives used to try and explain this underperformance, as mentioned in this study. Let’s briefly cover them below.

Is Value Investing Ready to Outperform Growth?

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Crowded Trade

This narrative states that too many investors invested in value stocks. More people buying, directly or indirectly, pushes prices and valuations higher. As prices climb higher, expected returns become smaller.

However, we should have seen valuations of value companies approaching those of growth companies, not the opposite.

Technological Revolution

Technology is eating the world. You’ve probably come across that expression. This narrative suggests the technology revolution will reduce old businesses to irrelevance.

That said, no company stays at the top of their game forever. Furthermore, value companies are also revolutionizing their own businesses. Therefore, this alone can’t explain the underperformance.

Growth of Private Markets

Some defend that private equity firms buy undervalued stocks and take them out of public markets. This reduces the number of value opportunities out there and reduces their overall expected return.

Some stocks would fall into this category. However, we would likely see a price increase in those stocks before they become private, not cheaper.

Less Migration Between Value and Growth

Migration refers to companies being reclassified to value or growth, depending on their current situation. Some narratives suggest migration is slowing down. That’s because of the increase in monopolistic companies. Those monopolies prevent new companies from gaining market share.

If this narrative was correct, we should have seen fewer value stocks migrating than in the past, but the data doesn’t support that.

Intangibles

As mentioned above, we use the price-to-book ratio (P/B ratio) to find value stocks. That ratio doesn’t take into account intangibles such as research and development efforts.

As we move further into the services economy, intangibles are gaining importance. They enable companies to find new ways to generate cash flow.

Since the P/B ratio does not account for intangibles, companies might be misclassified. Some argue certain value stocks are being classified as growth because they have smaller assets on their balance sheets than they truly have.

If this is correct, we should see higher returns for valuation metrics that take into account intangibles.

Value Has Become Drastically Cheaper When Compared to Growth

According to this narrative, value stocks have become significantly cheaper compared to growth stocks.

If this is correct, the low valuation of value stocks vs. growth stocks will only be temporary. Unless something structurally has changed and the valuation gap continues to widen.

Is Value Investing Dead?

The popular narratives presented above offer some explanations for the lag of value stocks. For most of those narratives, the conclusion was clear:

We examine these explanations and find insufficient evidence to declare a structural break.

Reports of Value’s Death May Be Greatly Exaggerated^[1]

But there is one that does explain it. Here is an excerpt from the study:

In the most recent 12-year period, the revaluation component appears to be the key to understanding why growth stocks outperformed value stocks.

That is, every time value stocks lag growth stocks by a meaningful margin, a key driver of the lag is value stocks becoming cheaper relative to growth stocks.

At the current valuation level, growth stocks trade at about 8 times the valuations of value stocks. The relative valuation has been wider only in two episodes over the 56-year history of our analysis: the peak of the dot-com bubble and the nadir of the global financial crisis.

Reports of Value’s Death May Be Greatly Exaggerated^[1]

So the underperformance in value stocks is due to the over-performance of growth stocks. As growth stocks get more expensive, the valuation gap increases, making value stocks look cheaper.

Our evidence suggests that migration (e.g., individual value stocks becoming growth stocks) and profitability are not materially changed over the pre- and post-2007 periods. These two components are a net positive contributor to the value premium and we refer to them as structural alpha. The reason value has suffered a –39% drawdown is the collapse of relative valuations. Over the drawdown period, relative valuations have moved from the 22nd to the 97th percentile.

Reports of Value’s Death May Be Greatly Exaggerated^[1]

More interestingly, the 2 past occasions where this happened preceded a huge market correction. So what is next for value stocks?

What’s Next for Value Investing?

According to the Financial Analyst Journal article, we’re about to see value investing rebound:

With today’s value vs. growth valuation gap at an extreme (the 97th percentile of historical relative valuations), the stage is set for potentially historic outperformance of value relative to growth over the coming decade

Reports of Value’s Death May Be Greatly Exaggerated^[1]

However, there’s something to be aware of. Luck, good or bad, plays a role in investing. Even though the expected returns of value look favorable, there’s no guarantee that value will outperform growth in the short term.

But as a long-term investment strategy, value is still one of the best factors out there for investors to consider.

Conclusion

Value stocks seem very attractive, with valuations quite low compared to growth stocks. This, though, is no guarantee that value will outperform growth in the near future.

It will come down to when the valuation spread between value and growth stops widening. If that valuation spread narrows even slightly, we will see value stocks outperforming growth:

Even with a small mean reversion in relative valuations between growth and value, from 97th to the 95th percentile, value should outperform growth by 9% over the next year.

Reports of Value’s Death May Be Greatly Exaggerated^[1]

In addition to that:

Even if valuations [were] to stay at the current levels the model would expect to see positive 5.1% premium.

Reports of Value’s Death May Be Greatly Exaggerated^[1]

Historically speaking, on the other two occasions where we’ve seen this degree of underperformance, the market had a very large correction. 

It’s hard to tell if we’re going to see a very large correction. That said, we’re likely going to see value strategies rebound in the future. That will likely mean a period of over-performance.

 Even with the handful of large drawdowns over the 57-year sample period […], a value investor is still 4.8 times as wealthy as a growth investor.

Reports of Value’s Death May Be Greatly Exaggerated^[1]

If you like thematic investing, check out our comprehensive guide on 5G investing.

FAQs

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When we look at those financial reports, we see lots of buzzwords, though — things like balance sheets, income statements, earnings per share, and revenue, amongst others.

But how many of us really understand those terms and topics? And how much of it should we know?

For investors looking for long-term investments or those pursuing value investing and looking for bargains, picking the right companies is the key to success. However, many retail investors lack the skills to be able to interpret those financial numbers.

Best Financial Reporting Books

The five book recommendations below offer clear explanations of those financial statements. They offer key insights to analyze the data provided by listed companies, cut through the noise, and really understand their performance.

Each of these books does it with a slightly different angle, catering to different needs. However, they all allow investors to understand:

• The objective of financial reporting;
• What is financial analysis;
• What is financial reporting;
• The different types of financial statements;
• The purpose of the different financial statements;
• Step-by-step guides to understanding how to read and create financial reports.

Here is our list of the best financial reporting books with a brief summary of each.

---

1. Accounting Made Simple

by Mike Piper

This is a short book that presents a high-level introduction to accounting. The book is divided into two parts.

The first part talks about financial statements. It goes into detail about the accounting equation, balance sheets, income statements, statements of retained earnings, cash flow statements, and financial ratios. These are key concepts in order to be able to read any financial statement produced by listed companies.

Furthermore, the second part of the book explains Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). It details what GAAP is, the difference between debits and credits, cash versus accrual, depreciation of fixed assets and amortization of intangible assets.

This is a great introductory book that clarifies the terminology and the basic principles of accounting and financial analysis.

Read key ideas on Blinkist →

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2. Warren Buffett Accounting

by Stig Brodersen

Warren Buffett Accounting Book, by Stig Brodersen, teaches us four main lessons:

• Two methods for calculating the intrinsic value of a company;
• What is the discount rate and how does it work;
• Detailed instructions on how to read an income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement;
• How to calculate important ratios to properly value any business.

More than an accounting book, it offers an interesting take on how to understand financial reporting and analysis from the perspective of value investing. It not only teaches the basic principles but also explains them with examples.

Top 5 Financial Reporting Books for Investors

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3. Financial Shenanigans

by Howard M. Schilit, Jeremy Perler and Yoni Engelhart

Financial Shenanigans is a book that will give you the tools you need to spot deceptive financial reporting. 

This book will go through the most shocking frauds and financial reporting offenders in history and give investors the tools they need to spot these practices.

Readers will be able to:

• understand the tricks companies used to exaggerate revenue and earnings;
• how management manipulates cash flow;
• the usage of misleading metrics to fool investors about their financial performance; and
• how companies use acquisitions to masquerades a deterioration in their own business.

This is an advanced book that will give you tools to analyze companies at a much deeper level and therefore stay away from investments that could potentially bring you financial harm.

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4. Financial Intelligence

by Karen Berman

Financial Intelligence is an accessible, jargon-free book that allows investors to understand the nuances beyond the numbers in financial statements.

Furthermore, the book teaches the basics of finance together with stories of real companies.

Some of the topics covered include the peculiarities of income statements, how to read balance sheets, how to interpret cash reserves, learning what numbers really tell and how to calculate return on investment.

If you are either running a business or thinking of investing in one, this book is a must-have.

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5. Financial Statements

by Thomas Ittelson

Financial Statements, by Thomas Ittelson, is a step-by-step guide to understanding and creating financial reports.

This book was originally released in 2009, but there was a new release in 2020.

It’s a book that translates complicated financial topics in an accessible way for readers without a background in finance. The book focuses on how the three main accounting statements interact to offer a snapshot of the companies financial health.

The new release includes new topics around non-profit organization accounting and pricing theory for profitability.

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The post Top 5 Financial Reporting Books for Investors in 2023 appeared first on FinMasters.

Let’s look at TikTok’s stock and how you can invest in it.

Update: in Sept 2022, ByteDance CFO Julie Gao reiterated that the company has no plans to go public, making an IPO highly unlikely.

Update: in April 2023 the Financial Times cited an unnamed US tech investor as stating that a ByteDance IPO is not likely to happen soon: “TikTok has to be sorted out first… and everyone wants to see the Ant Financial problem resolved before any ByteDance IPO.”

What Is TikTok?

TikTok is a video-sharing social networking service. Its users use it to create short videos, between 15 seconds and 10 minutes.

This mobile app belongs to a company called ByteDance. ByteDance is a privately held Beijing-based company founded in 2012. ByteDance is currently valued at around $220 billion, a 25% drop over the last year.

TikTok is the international version of Douyin, which was launched in 2016 in the Chinese market. In 2017 it was branded TikTok and launched internationally outside China. Even though the apps are similar, they run on separate servers to comply with Chinese censorship restrictions.

An interesting feature of TikTok is that it uses artificial intelligence to analyze users’ interests and preferences and display personalized content to them.

Why Does TikTok Get So Much Attention?

Source: Business of Apps

In 2021, TikTok was the most downloaded app of the year beating Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger. TikTok is currently the 6th most popular social media app in the world and the second most popular video-specific app, behind only YouTube.

TikTok has also seen its share of controversies. The app was briefly banned in Pakistan and India. The Trump administration proposed a US ban for security reasons, though some observers believed that it was a consequence of pranks by TikTok users aimed at Trump, notably a mass purchasing of rally tickets by non-attendees in 2020.

The combination of popularity and controversy draws attention, and TikTok has become a highly recognizable brand for consumers and investors alike.

Is There a Stock Associated With TikTok?

TikTok is a product created by a Chinese company called ByteDance. ByteDance is still privately held, meaning its shares are not available on the stock market yet.

That said, ByteDance has received investment from SoftBank, a well-known investment firm. Softbank is keen to have a successful IPO amongst its investments, after Uber, Slack, and WeWork’s failures, and ByteDance will likely be their next bet. That means it’s reasonable to believe that ByteDance will go public at some point soon and therefore enable users to invest in TikTok.

How Can I Invest in TikTok?

ByteDance is a privately held company and its shares do not currently trade on any public exchange. Since it’s not possible to buy TikTok stock from the stock market, there might be other possibilities for investors to invest in ByteDance pre-IPO.

How to Buy TikTok Stock?

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Some platforms provide a secondary market for pre-IPO equity. The way it works is that shareholders of private companies can sell their stock options to investors. Most shareholders will probably be employees of these companies that want to get some liquidity for their illiquid company stock.

These marketplaces often impose investor qualifications, and there is no guarantee or assurance that they will have available shares in any given pre-IPO company.

• Forge Global merged with Sharespost in 2020. The combined company is now the world’s largest marketplace for private company shares. Investors must make a minimum purchase of $100,000 worth of shares. The minimum may be higher for some companies. Investors may need to meet qualification requirements.
• EquityZen acquires shares from early investors or from employees who have received stock as part of their compensation. They work with companies to assure that transactions will be recognized and sell the shares to investors who meet the revised SEC “accredited investor” criteria. There’s a minimum investment of $10,000, which may be higher for some companies.
• Nasdaq Private Market provides access to private-company shares for investors who meet the SEC’s accredited investor criteria.
• EquityBee is a private marketplace that allows investors to fund employee stock options in return for a share in the proceeds of an eventual sale.

Another possibility is investing in a private equity fund that invests in companies like ByteDance in venture capital rounds. Both EquityZen and AngelList provide such funds where investors can diversify their investments in early-stage or pre-IPO stage companies. By investing in these funds, investors get exposure to great early-stage companies pre-screened by professional investors.

These private equity funds usually require an investor to be a high-net-worth individual. That means only wealthy individuals can really invest in such funds.

  See ALL the ways you can get in on pre-IPO investing: How to Buy Pre-IPO Stocks?

Invest in the IPO

If pre-IPO shares are not available or if the minimum purchase or qualification requirements are prohibitive, you can consider investing in the IPO itself.

Most IPO underwriters allocate set numbers of shares to specific brokers for their clients. You’ll need an account with a broker that has a share allocation. You will tell your broker how many shares you want and they will tell you how many you can get. There is no assurance that you will be able to get a share allocation.

Many brokers have requirements for IPO participation, which you will have to meet.

• Charles Schwab requires a history of at least 36 trades and an account balance of $100,000 or above for IPO participation.
• E*Trade has no minimum account balance or trading history requirements for IPO participation. An eligibility questionnaire may be required by the underwriters of the IPO.
• Fidelity allows IPO participation for clients who meet a minimum household asset requirement or are in their Private and Premium client groups.
• TD Ameritrade offers participation in IPOs if they are part of the selling group. You will need a minimum account balance of $250,000 or 30 trades in the last calendar year to qualify for an IPO share allocation.

IPO shares may come with a lockup period, often 60 or 90 days. You will not be able to sell your shares until the lockup period expires.

IPO shares will cost more than pre-IPO shares. That cuts your potential gains, but you’ll also have less risk. If you buy at an IPO you know there will be a market for your shares when the lockup period expires, even if there’s no assurance of profit.

There is no assurance that a ByteDance IPO would happen on a US market. If you want to buy at a foreign IPO you will need to look into investing in foreign markets.

Invest After the IPO

The easiest and safest way to buy stock in ByteDance is to wait until after the IPO. You can use your usual broker and there won’t be any special requirements or lockup period. You’ll be able to sell whenever you want.

If you buy after the IPO you won’t get in as cheaply as you would with an IPO or pre-IPO purchase. On the other hand, you’ll be able to buy as few or as many shares as you want, and you’ll have a chance to observe the stock’s market reception before you pull the trigger. That’s especially important if the company makes its debut during a generally weak market.

Getting in before the IPO is not a guarantee of quick profit. Not all stocks spike in value after an IPO. Some, even shares in quality companies, may sputter or even drop immediately after the IPO.

If you buy after the IPO you won’t get the rock-bottom prices that you would get from a pre-IPO purchase or the somewhat higher price you’d pay for participating in the IPO. On the other hand, you will be able to gauge the market’s reception to the IPO before you buy. Not all IPOs soar out of the blocks. Some of them crash.

For long-term investors, the price difference between a pre-IPO and a post-IPO purchase may not be large enough to justify the greater complexity and risk of buying early. If you’re in that bracket, a post-IPO purchase is probably the best way to go.

Since it’s unlikely that there will be another funding round in the short-term, waiting for ByteDance to become public seems to be the simplest route to invest in TikTok.

Also, it’s worth keeping in mind that choosing stock on your own is not always a great idea, especially pre-IPO.

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Are There Any Issues With TikTok?

All investments involve risk, and pre-IPO investing is particularly risky. If you are considering an investment in TikTok, consider these and other risk factors.

• There may not be an IPO or an exit point. There is no way of knowing when or if ByteDance will have an IPO. If the company does not go public it could be difficult or impossible to sell shares.
• TikTok is controversial. TikTok has been temporarily banned in several major markets. Further bans could hava an impact on the company’s results.
• China/US friction. TikTok and ByteDance could be caught up in trade or political disputes between the US and China that could affect the company.
• Social media is a fast-changing, trend-driven business. Right now TikTok is the rising star but next year there could be a new one.
• Internal Chinese issues. Several Chinese tech companies have seen crackdowns from Chinese authorities. ByteDance could be next.

As with any investment, careful balancing or risks and potential rewards is essential.

Conclusion

ByteDance is the world’s most valuable VC-backed company by a wide margin. That alone is guaranteed to whet the appetities of investors. There’s still no indication that the company will go public any time soon, or at all. Under these circumstances investment would have to be considered highly speculative if it is possible at all.

FAQs

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What Are Commodities and Why Would You Invest in Commodities?

Commodities are an important part of industry and trade, and you’ll see them everywhere, from the fuel we use in your car to the food you buy in supermarkets to the raw material used to build pretty much anything in this world.

Perhaps some of the most well-known commodities out there are gold, silver, crude oil, natural gas, soybeans, and corn. Wikipedia has a comprehensive list of traded commodities for your reference.

Some of these commodities, like gold, act as a hedge against the stock market. One of the most successful investors in the world called Ray Dalio created a portfolio structure called the All-Weather Portfolio. The idea of this portfolio is that its makeup will perform reasonably well under all market conditions.

In that portfolio structure, a part of it includes commodities because when the stock market goes down, commodities, like gold, tend to go up in price, as they are considered safe-havens, and vice-versa.

How to Invest in Commodities

How do you trade commodities? There are several ways to trade commodities. Some of the most well-known ways to trade commodities are to buy futures contracts, options, ETFs that track commodity prices, or even buying some of the raw materials yourself.

If you want to buy gold, you could just go to a gold specialist shop and buy gold. That is obviously more expensive because the gold has been processed and the shop needs to make money from it too. On top of that, you still have to store the gold yourself, which is not safe.

Conclusion

When trading commodities, be mindful that they are somewhat risky to invest in. That’s because commodities can be affected by uncertainties that are difficult to predict. Examples of uncertainties could be weather events like flooding and wildfires, epidemics that could spread diseases on something like soybeans, and wars that can dramatically influence the price of crude oil.

When chosen carefully, though, commodities can help create a balanced portfolio.

The post Why and How to Invest in Commodities appeared first on FinMasters.

BlockFi

Companies like BlockFi allow people to earn interest on their crypto. According to their website, you can earn an interest of up to 8.6% annually on your cryptocurrencies. Interest is then paid back in cryptocurrencies, making your original investment compound over time.

BlockFi basically lends your cryptocurrencies to trusted institutional and corporate borrowers, on overcollateralized terms to avoid defaults. These institutions pay interest back to BlockFi. BlockFi does take a fee and pays the remaining back to the clients as interest. They also keep enough reserves to facilitate client withdrawals, so it all works smoothly.

Celsius Network

An alternative to BlockFi is Celsius Network. Celsius is a mobile app that lets investors earn interest on their cryptocurrencies, and like BlockFi, borrow cash against those cryptocurrencies.

Celsius’s interest accounts pay up to 10% interest, depending on the cryptocurrency, and claim to be the best provider in this space. They also pay interest weekly, in either cash or CEL tokens, which are Celsius’s own tokens. In order to incentivize users to use CEL tokens, they end up paying a lot more than they do in cash.

If you want to invest in Crypto Interest Accounts, BlockFi and Celsius are the top contenders in this space. But there are others you should check out as well, with slightly different approaches.

Nexo

Nexo, for example, also provides crypto interest accounts on stablecoins, besides USD, EUR, and GBP currencies. They provide interest rates of up to 8%, and they pay interest daily, allowing your funds to compound fast over time. Besides interest accounts, they also provide crypto loans and a card. Nexo’s card allows payments in local currencies, instant cashback on purchases, amongst other features.

Compound Finance

Compound Finance, on the other hand, has a slightly different offering. It is an algorithmic, autonomous interest rate protocol built for developers, to unlock a universe of open financial applications.

What it allows users to do is to provide liquidity to the market by placing the digital coins in it, and others will borrow from the market. Interest rates are then determined algorithmically, based on supply and demand, and interest accrues every Ethereum block. If there’s a lot of liquidity, interest rates will stay low. However, when there’s less liquidity, they will rise.

Note that Compound Finance is truly decentralized and it is quite trusted, so it’s a good alternative to those mentioned above.

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