The Rule 1 Calculators?

[tzoom84]

Hello all. I recently found this site, and I am trying to figure out some of the history here. Anyone mind helping? (Note: I am NOT looking for the software, just curious what happened).

I see scattered references to an automatic MSN calculator and watchlist from a few years ago. But it doesn't seem to exist anywhere anymore. What happened to that tool?

Also, I see that the latest excel sheet has been 'discontinued' or marked 'temporarily offline', but is still downloadable. Is this a stopped project? And why was this project selected over the old watchlist one?

Lastly, if that last one was stopped, are there currently any calculators or tools supported by this forum?

Thanks for your help!

[npg]

So, you are looking for the no-brainer hands down formula to make you rich quick?

How about the yes-brainer. Use your common sense and educate yourself practicing indepedent thought along the way?

This is a win win situation not only for you, but for all of us. It will make you a better citizen of this planet, regardless the plolitical (predjudist) climate.

What you need to figure out in any business is....

.... what matters is the take-home pay.

Berkshire Hathaway calls it the look-through-earnings. The problem is that current legislation does not enforce accounting in such way. This makes commonly used metrics such as P/E or even P/C nearly useless.

Take home pay. Figure that out in a business...

...and no, the accountants and GAAP are not on your side. They are on the side of whoever is in power. Don't be a pawn.

[tombrown1]

npg makes good points.

In answer to your question, Phil Town has calculators on his web site.

The excel sheet you can still download I believe still works.

I would also encourage you to make up your own excel spreadsheet so that you can input things exactly how you want them. It only takes a couple hours to set up your own spreadsheet.

[tzoom84]

npg:
Reference the first sentence (parenthesis) of my first post). Nope, not looking for a no-brainer formula. If one existed, we'd all be rich. Just curious on the history of what has already been done here on these boards. Unfortunately, many of the past posts here seem a bit cryptic about old solutions that disappeared. Or people posted some solutions, that seemingly got pulled as well. If it's a legal issue, its a legal issue. I was just hoping for a direct answer.

Agreed, good point about the yes-brainer. But remember that innovation and tools/'technology' aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. Sure, we put a man on the moon with the power of smart folks and their slide-rules. But does that mean we need to abandon all advancements to cultivate intellect? (Rhetorical questions obviously)

tombrown1:
Phil does have manual calculators. I understand why he promotes manual ones, to encourage some thought process. And the excel sheet does work here. But the discussions on that excel calculator seemed to taper off around mid-late 2007, and I didn't see a direction where it went.
I appreciate your encouragement to develop my own. In fact, I was interested in the direction because I initially made my own sheet, along with started a standalone Java application. (Then I learned about here, along with some other sites). No need to reinvent the wheel if there is a potential community already involved. With some more hunting around, I decided stock2own.com has what I was looking for, saving re-work.

Hope that clarifies my intent ... (P.S. What happened to ruleoneforum.com?)

[tombrown1]

tzoom,
stock2own is okay. And the automatic spreadsheet here is okay. But they are only really good for a basic overview.

If you're really interested in a company, I think it's important to do all of your own numbers manually. If you send me your e-mail address I can send you the excel sheet I created (I can't figure out how to post it here). It includes a lot of things that I haven't seen in any of the spreadsheets. But none of it is automatic (don't know how to do it).

As for the history - it was made available by many people who worked very hard to keep it current. Then it kind of faded off and Justin fixed it up and brought it out again. He considered charging for it, and I think there wasn't much interest in paying for it. So it has kind of been dormant since then. That is to the best of my knowledge.

Hope this helps some.


Tom

[tzoom84]

Thanks for catching me up! Appreciate it.

[jcourv]

I am somewhat confused about why so many folks get different Rule #1 numbers when they are reviewing a potential stock.

Tom, you say that stock2analyzer is just a good starting point, that we should run our own numbers. The creator of Zadbaz.com also has developed a program to run numbers. It seems his numbers sometimes come out different.

What if all the numbers come out different? How do we know whose numbers are right?

Appreciate any response.

Best, Joanne

[tombrown1]

When in doubt, always check the annual reports. However, when you find the right company, even with minor discrepancies in numbers, you will know quite obviously that it's the right company.

[.Smitty.]

Yeah, like tombrown said, numbers might be different, but not by much on a R1 company. The numbers will still jump out at you. If your numbers are completely different than others, you may want to consider re-running the numbers to make sure you did them right.

[Matrick]

Just a quick question, do you guys find the Calculators by Phil Town useful or not?