Why understanding fundamental analysis is important for investing in stocks?

Fundamental analysis:

Why understanding FA is important? 

FA cannot offer you the magic keys to sudden or instant wealth. If that were true, the Professors of Finance will all be fabulously rich! What FA can do is to provide sound principles for formulating a successful long-range investment program. FA are proven methods that have been used by millions of successful investors.

The motivation for investing in stocks is obvious. It is to watch your money grow.

Why then, for every story of great success in the market, there are dozens more that don't end so well!!!!

More often than not, most of those investment flops can be traced to:

1. Bad timing
2. Poor planning
3. Failure to use common sense in making investment decisions.



Intrinsic Value

The entire concept of stock valuation is based on the idea that all securities possess an intrinsic value that their market value will approach over time.

Security analysis consists of gathering information, organizing it into a logical framework, and then using the information to determine the intrinsic value of common stock.

Given a rate of return that's compatible with the amount of risk involved in a proposed transaction, intrinsic value provides a measure of the underlying worth of a share of stock. It provides a standard for helping you judge whether a particular stock is undervalued, fairly priced or overvalued.



Main message

The aims of fundamental analysis are to determine the asset's intrinsic value and its future growth potential.

Total Stock Returns = Fundamental Return + Speculative Return

Over long periods of time, if you take the entire stock market, you would expect the speculative return to be very negligible. This makes a lot of sense, right? In the end, you’ve got to show me the money! And history agrees. Over the last 100 years, the total annualized return for the total U.S. market was 9.6%, and all but 0.1% of that was explained by earning growth and dividends. (See graph below.)





Fundamental Return = Earnings Growth + Dividend Yield

Speculative Return = P/E Ratio Changes

Total Return = Fundamental Return + Speculative Return

What are we buying when we buy a share of a company? Essentially, we are buying a stream of future money. That money is returned to us the form of earnings growth (which increases the share price) and dividends (which goes straight to us as cash).


http://www.mymoneyblog.com/will-future-long-term-stock-returns-be-less-than-8.html

The Little Book of Common Sense Investing by Vanguard founder Jack Bogle

It is the Business that Matters

IT IS THE BUSINESS THAT MATTERS

Analyst upgrades and chart patterns may be fine tools for traders who treat Wall Street like a casino, but they're of little use to investors who truly want to build wealth in the stock market. You have to get your hands dirty and understand the businesses of the stocks you own if you hope to be a successful long-term investor.

Over the long haul, stock prices tend to track the value of the business. When firms do well, so do their shares, and when business suffers, the stock will as well. Always focus on the company's fundamental financial performance.

Wal-Mart, for example, hit a speed bump in the mid-1990s when its growth rate slowed down a bit - and its share price was essentially flat during the same period. On the other hand, Colgate-Palmolive posted great results during the late 1990s as it cut fat from its supply chain and launched an innovative toothpaste that stole market share - and the company's stock saw dramatic gains at the same time. The message is clear: COMPANY FUNDAMENTALS HAVE A DIRECT EFFECT ON SHARE PRICES.

This principle applies only over a long time period - in the short term, stock prices can (and do) move around for a whole host of reasons that have nothing whatsoever to do with the underlying value of the company. We firmly advocate focussing on the LONG-TERM PERFORMANCE of businesses because the SHORT-TERM PRICE MOVEMENT of a stock is COMPLETELY UNPREDICTABLE. (Benjamin Graham: In the short term, the market is like a voting machine, however, in the long term it works like a weighing machine.)

Think back to the Internet mania of the late 1990s. Wonderful (but boring) businesses such as insurance companies, banks, and real estate stocks traded at incredibly low valuations, even though the intrinsic worth of these businesses hadn't really changed. At the same time, companies that had not a prayer of turning a profit wer being accorded billion-dollar valuations.

Understanding Stock Market Return

Stock market return

= fundamental return + speculative return

= (earnings growth + dividend yield) + (change in PE ratio)

http://turtleinvestor888.blogspot.com/2008/03/is-there-such-thing-call-value_19.html