Automatic MOS Calculator Watchlist for Microsoft Excel --- *Temporarily Offline*

[SIDUG]

Justin:

How are you? I would like to offer my sincere appreciation to you for sharing this web site and all the valuable information and tools, especially your MOS Calculator Watchlist.

I'm fairly new to this forum. Like many other members I've read Phil's book, his posts and posts in this forum repeatedly cause I want to make sure I understand the concept and the techniques.

I have also created a spreadsheet to calculate the raw data to arrive at the 5 growth rates(9, 5, 3), which in turn result in the 3 important figures: the FUTURE EPS, RULE#1 P/E, and TTM EPS. From here it’s just a straight-forward compilation to produce the M.O.S. This exercise not only helped me to create a tool to save time in getting final results, but more importantly, help me to understand the technical aspects of the process. I’ve tested my spreadsheets and compare to Phil’s calculator and confirmed their accuracy.

Now I was fairly proud of myself until I see your spreadsheet. Although I haven’t used all the functions(e.g. watch list), I’m blown away by it’s complete automation. Justin: you’re on fire!

I’ve had a minor concern for all this time which I would like your insight: Please bear with me when I give you a little background. As I mentioned before the most important 3 figures are the FUTURE EPS, RULE#1 P/E, and TTM EPS in order to calculate the today’s Sticker Price, hence today’s M.O.S.

As we know, Phil taught us:
1) the FUTURE EPS is the projection of TTM for 10 full years(120 months) from today using the RULE#1 GROWTH RATE(which can vary significantly, but I’m not getting into it)
2) FUTURE EPS x RULE#1 P/E = FUTURE STICKER PRICE (10 full years)
3) Apply the formula <'=pv(rate(15%), 10 year-1,,-Future Price> to FUTURE STICKER PRICE = TODAY’S STICKER PRICE
4) TODAY’S STICKER PRICE / 2 = M.O.S.

Whew! Finally my point: if you use 5 years instead of 10 years to calculate FUTURE EPS and to get the FUTURE STICKER PRICE (5 full years), then work back 5 years to get TODAY’S STICKER PRICE, the result will be quite different. I use the numbers on your sample of SBUX to illustrate, while keeping FUTURE P/E at 8 and an expected return of 15%:

10 years
$1.19(FUTURE 10-year EPS) x 8(RULE#1 P/E) = $9.27(FUTURE STICKER PRICE),
backtrack 10 years: TODAY’S STICKER PRICE = $2.29

5 years
$0.98(FUTURE 10-year EPS) x 8(RULE#1 P/E) = $7.65(FUTURE STICKER PRICE),
backtrack 5 years: TODAY’S STICKER PRICE = $3.81

The difference is almost 66%! then one may be confused how much is the right price. What do you think?

Anyway my thanks to you again and cheers!
Sidug

I'm fairly new to this forum. Like many other members I've read Phil's book, read his posts and posts in this site repeatedly cause I want to make sure I understand the concept and the techniques.

I have also created a spreadsheet to calculate the raw data to arrive

[g0wave]

Either web or excel is fine by me. I lived by the watchlist and used it extensively regardless of how long it took to load. I'd press the button, leave for 30 mins and come back and was more than pleased with the speed.

[johnpvee]

Hi Justin,

Thanks so much for all the effort you've put in this far. I'm with drsmartz. Have you considered opening it up as an open source project? It would be a good way for the community to help itself. Bugs could be fixed fairly quickly.

The only way I'd be interested in paying a monthly fee is to also have a premium data feed included in the price, so that I don't have to rely on the free feed being reliable. Otherwise, I would go with a traditional pay once for the software version (with minor fixes included and major upgrades being included for a period of time afterwards).

Thanks again. Please consider the open source model. Many of us would be willing to pitch in.

Regards,
John

Originally Posted by drsmartz

Justin - have you ever considered running the MOS calculator as an open source project? I know amongst your 6000 users that some know Excel at a professional level. Probably some of THOSE people would be willing to maintain the XLS as part of a team, posting updates to this site.

The construction of the XLS is crystal clear to me, and I have successfully made adjustments to it to improve my results (adding more sites for alternate sources of data, etc). Perhaps your efforts, whatever you have time for, could be in managing the team and ensuring maintenance and quality control of the XLS rather than doing the grunt work of the XLS itself. That's the beauty of open source - you contribute what you have time for. And when you get in a time crunch, likely someone else from the team will be able to pick up the slack.

All we'd need is a group of folks to sign up, and a collaboration tool we could use to coordinate versions of the XLS. Some people would update the XLS, and others, if they wanted to pitch in but don't know Excel that well, could still contribute by testing the XLS and posting bug reports.

I've never started an open source project before - anyone know of good web-based tools to handle versioning and bug tracking?

[Justin]

I wish thank those who encouraged the idea of turning the calculator over to an open source project.

This has been weighing heavily on my mind lately, and I wanted to be sure I was comfortable with these thoughts before I announced them publicly. Time has a way of making things exceptionally clear.

After careful consideration, I agree that donating the Margin of Safety Calculator to the open source movement is the most appropriate step for the evolution of this project.

To all those who are willing/interested in maintain this project - drop me a line via pm or just leave a message on here. I'll see if vbulletin has a way to make usergroups that would make it easier for those involved to keep in touch on a regular basis. Let's move forward with this thing eh?

[SIDUG]

".........The only way I'd be interested in paying a monthly fee is to also have a premium data feed included in the price, so that I don't have to rely on the free feed being reliable...."

I'm in agreement with JohnPVee of high quality data feed within M.O.S. calculator. Maybe even including the 3 tools and the Big Chart(or equivalent of industry strength).

I have a basic knowledge of Excel and wouldn't mind contributing efforts in a minor way.

cheers
Sidug

[bfs]

Not an excel guru here but count me in for bug issues.

[drsmartz]

Originally Posted by Justin

To all those who are willing/interested in maintain this project - drop me a line via pm or just leave a message on here. I'll see if vbulletin has a way to make usergroups that would make it easier for those involved to keep in touch on a regular basis. Let's move forward with this thing eh?

I can execute fixes in the XLS for reported bugs, and I can also work on features which are requested if they are reasonable.

Looks like this may be a good (free) way for us to coordinate bug reports and versions of the software:
Google Code - Project Hosting

Google says: "Join the over 50,000 open source projects that call Google Code their home. We offer version control, issue tracking, wikis, download hosting and other useful tools."

Justin - do you mind signing up for that?

Another option is to install bug tracking and version control software to the roicommunity web server. Here's an open source bug tracker that might be good: Mantis Bug Tracker This path may require a lot of admin overhead work, though.

[piazzi]

I just downloaded your mos_calc111.xls

I am not sure how to run it, previous versions, you would enter the ticker and it would do the magic

this one does nothing, please tell me how to run this?

I went to http://www.roicommunity.com/forum/au...functions.html
but it has instruction for old version

[wiz]

Hi all

Apologies if this is a dumb question, but whats with the "temporarily offline" message? Is the calculator on the first post of this thread always the latest version (i.e. mos_calc111.xls at the moment)? I've had a good look around - and see different versions and betas mentioned - but would like to make sure I'm on the latest and greatest!

Many thanks, Wiz

[Kenthar]

Thanks a bunch Justin!

This really saves me loads of time when I have an investment idea. Input the ticker and I have all the info I need to complete my Preliminary Search. After that I can move on to analyzing the business more thoroughly, getting to know it better through annual reports and conference calls, check the management, and investigate any suspicious years. Then, after a few weeks of analysis, I can throw it on my Watch List. Get in when the Tools say go and I have a margin of safety, and then ride it in and out with them. Thanks again, I really appreciate this major time saver. Used to take around an hour to gather all the information and calculate the growth rates. (Or maybe I'm just slow, I'm 13 and just starting so give me a break)

Mark