Free Stock Market Investing Tips

If you want to help in softening the impact of your death on your loved ones, then you should think of “estate planning”. This does not just include previously written wills, the distribution of one’s assets, or ensuring that all your wishes are carried out, for it includes much more.

A major element in estate planning is protecting your belongings from unwanted recipients, such as greedy relatives and strangers or the IRS itself. By carefully planning your estate, you can avoid most of the hustle that results from your death. First of all, in order to do this, you must have someone in your mind to whom will get your things after your death. Through estate planning, you can also ensure that the people you care about are provided for; it will help you find solutions to protect those you love, whether they are humans or even pets. Estate planning, moreover, entails taking care of a limitless number of details regarding you death, such as the location and method of burial.

In addition, such planning encompasses psychological aspects, for it will help you to come to terms with your own mortality and all the issues related to it. Furthermore, estate planning is a way of helping those we leave behind in one of their most chaotic situations, our death.

Operating expenses are those costs every business has that are not considered directly related to a company’s first line of business. Operating costs include sales and marketing, research and development (R&D), and administrative costs. Investors want to make sure management is doing the best job it can keeping these costs in control. Operating expenses are available on the financial statements that every publicly traded company files with the SEC.

Management also must do a good job turning a profit with its own operations. That means the costs associated with cost of goods sold (COGS), etc. must generate more than those costs. If not, well, the company must be in the wrong line of business. Companies should never be operating at a loss. If a company is operating at a loss exactly why needs to be interpreted by the prospective investor

Operating margins represent the direct relationship between sales revenue and operating income. The operating margin of a firm is the operating income divided by net sales. It shows how much gross profit a company generates before taxes. Well-managed companies should increase these margins from year to year. The higher these margins are the more profits are available to return to shareholders investing in the company. Operating margins can be a useful tool when comparing two prospective stocks that compete within the same market. Higher operating margins represent a company in a better position to generate income. For example, a company with a lower operating margin than a competitor in its market will have less flexibility in determining prices. It’s competitor with higher profit margins will know this about it’s competitor and can “go for the jugular” by slashing prices and stealing market share.

The cash flow statement sometimes is another financial statement that investors should become familiar with. It is another tool for managers and investors that shows how changes in the balance sheet and income affect cash. The cash flows are broken down into three parts: operating activities, investing activities, financing activities and the cash flows from each source. These changes shown on the cash flow statement are useful in determining the immediate health of the firm and its ability to function as an ongoing concern.

Operating activities are the production, sales, and delivery of the company’s products. These are the regular day to day activities of the firm that put it into business in the first place. This category will include figures like depreciation, taxes, and amortization of intangible assets (things like brand-name recognition).

Investing activities include the purchase and sale of long-term assets. Items here will include capital expenditures and investments. All investments made on behalf of the firm are including here. Purchases of plant, property and equipment are included as capital expenditures.

The financing activities represent the equity of the firm. This is the money owned by outside entities such as banks and shareholders as well as the payments to these owners of the company (dividends). If the company made any purchases or sales of its own stock, it will be included here.

The cash flow statement will contain a bottom-line, the net increase (or decrease) in cash. If a company is negative in cash, it will have issues paying its short-term debts and have difficulty continuing to do business. That’s not to say it will definitely fail, but will have to find other ways to generate cash to pay its bills. Remember, this statement does not detail income; just how much cash the firm has on hand. A sample cash flow statement is pictured below.

Income statements and balance sheets are two common annual financial statements. These reports contain information about a company’s performance that year and present a snapshot of the health of the company at a given point in time. Publicly traded companies are required to file them to the SEC and they are available to the public through EDGAR. Understanding the information contained in them can help an investor make better decisions. An income statement will always contain figures for revenue, cost of goods sold (COGS), selling, general, and administrative expense (SG&A), and earnings.

Revenue is gross income. It is the total income before any deductions are made for taxes, etc. COGS is the cost of purchasing raw materials and production costs. This is where accurate inventories are important because COGS equals the beginning inventory plus the cost of produced goods during the previous year, less the previous inventory. COGS figures show the cost of producing goods. These costs can show how well managed a firm is. SG&A expenses are the sum of salaries, commissions, and traveling costs for management and salespeople, advertising costs, and payroll costs. These figures also need to be controlled by management because, if they get out of control, they affect the profitability of the firm. Finally, earnings are the company’s revenue less expenses (COGS, SG&A, and taxes).

On the income statement these figures are easy to see because they are labeled just as described. Sometimes firms may refer to COGS as cost of sales, however.

The balance sheet is a snapshot of the firm’s health at a given point in time. The balance sheet has two parts: assets and liabilities. Asset items on the balance sheet are listed in the order of their liquidity or availability for use as company funds. Commonly listed asset items on the balance sheet are cash, accounts receivable, current assets, and fixed assets. We all know what cash is. Accounts receivable are debts owed to the firm. Accounts receivable are a current asset in that they are expected to be converted to cash within the year. Other current assets are cash, inventory, marketable securities, and prepaid expenses (rent, for example). Fixed assets are depreciated over time and are tangible, long-lived resources like plants and machinery. Liabilities are current liabilities (debts owed within the year), long term debt (payments over years), and equity (total value of shares owned by shareholders).

What’s most important to investors about the balance sheet is the book value of a stock can be determined from these lists of assets. Stockholder equity, or book value, represents the amount shareholders would theoretically receive if a firm went immediately out of business. Market value of the company is generally higher as firms do tend to make money. How much higher this market value is can help the investor determine if a stock is overvalued or, perhaps, undervalued.