How to locate stocks with certain criterias?

[Stockowner]

I figure looking through thousands of companies is not going to be practical. Is there a website where we can enter criterias so that we don't have to look through every company?

Thanks :)

[chrisd77]

stock2own.com Enter your stock symbol and it will spit stuff back out at you according to Rule 1 rules.

[dwperley]

After reading Rule #1 I had the exact same question which was "How do you weed through 1,000's of stocks to find Rule #1 companies"?
So far I have found 2 solutions, the first one I have tried and the second one I have only read about. The first solution is from MSN Money Central and it is free but it only narrows the list to less than 200 companies which you then need to run through the Stock2Own stock analyzer. The second solution is not free and it is from the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII). Supposedly it is a custom screener developed using the Rule #1 criteria.

Solution 1: MSN Money Central Stock Screener/www.stock2own
The first time you use this screener you will have to install some add on software. This is a customizable screener and it can be found by going to MSN Money Stock Screener. Shown below are the screening criteria I use to narrow down to a list of companies to evaluate with Stock2Own:

ROI 5-Year Avg. >= 15
Net Profit 5-Year Avg. >= 15
EPS Growth Next 5 Yr >= 15
Return on Invested Capital >= 15
5-Year Revenue Growth >= 15

Once you run this screen look for companies you know and are of interest to you and then run the Stock Analyzer tool at Stock2Own to see how the company stacks up against the Rule #1 Big 5. Of course if the company passes that hurdle you then need to evaluate the CEO and all that other fun stuff.

Solution 2: AAII.com's Stock Investor Pro "Rule #1 Screen"
I have only read about this solution so I can not comment on how effective it is at finding Rule #1 stocks. According to the AAII website Stock Investor Pro costs $198/yr for members and $247/yr for non-members and it includes a new "Rule #1" screen. For more information go to AAII Stock Screens. I do not know much about AAII but after reading the info from the "About AAII" link at the top of their home page it seems like they have the individual investor's needs as a priority as opposed to their pocketbooks. Again I have no experience with AAII as a paying member.

Please give one or both of these solutions a whirl and if you find some good Rule #1 companies. I would like to know what you think.

... HTH (hope this helps)

[Stockowner]

Thanks! :)

Also, where can we see for how long the company has paid uninterrupted dividends to its shareholders?

[Stockowner]

This was one of the main criterias for Benjamin Graham, so I think it has some importance for us on this forum. :)

[Nightshift]

Originally Posted by chrisd77

stock2own.com Enter your stock symbol and it will spit stuff back out at you according to Rule 1 rules.

I didn't see where you could enter your stock symbol?

[PrivateInvestor]

Originally Posted by Stockowner

Also, where can we see for how long the company has paid uninterrupted dividends to its shareholders?

This is not the entire universe of stocks, but it does represent the cream of the crop of dividend-paying companies:

(1) For Dividend Achievers (10 or more years of increasing dividends): Welcome to Dividend Achievers

(2) For Dividend Aristocrats (25 or more years of increasing dividends): Standard & Poor's - Indices S&P U.S. Dividend Aristocrats

In my retirement account, I have a dividend-paying ETF set up as a DRIP (ETFs get rebalanced regularly to account for changes in its components). A list of the high-dividend ETFs can be found at: ETF List: High-Dividend ETFs

[Stockowner]

That's very nice :) Thanks!!!

[physics]

I am a Stock Investor Pro subscriber and they do have a Rule #1 screen that they have preprogrammed in. It is not totally accurate, they only use 5 year average ROIC and sales growth and some other ones instead of using 10 year, 5 year, and 1 year numbers. I made changes to the screen to improve it but they don't have data going back 10 years so the most is 7 years. The other thing I've noticed is that these screens all mechanically apply the criteria, so any stock with a cash flow growth rate of < 10% gets eliminated, although Phil Town mentions that a stock could be okay if there is an explanation for the negative cash flow.

But the screen is quite nice, it goes through ~9000 stocks and around 17 pass his screen with their formulation, mine reduces it to 9. You can set up views to see each of the criteria you are interested in and can create portfolios of stocks you are interested in watching.