Stage 2 – Collect opinions

The first part of the process is collecting facts. Now you want to collect opinions. As much information as you can about what the market (read analysts) think about a stock. We call it “Added value” because it’s so easy to waste time with noise that doesn’t add value. Thousand-word articles with a click bait headline and no point or action statement. We don’t have time. You need to become a master of scanning content for its ‘point’, and in this part of the process that’s what you’re trying to define. Thoughts, opinion and commentary that adds value.

If your stock got through stage one then what you are basically trying to work out here is what everyone thinks about the stock. This leads to the question…is it cheap or expensive?

You’re going to want to collect every bit of opinion about the company that you can. But you probably don’t have the resources to collate every piece of data or get a firsthand look at the business. So, instead, you’re have to rely on a bunch of people more experienced and more informed than yourself to put a stock in perspective. Luckily there’s no shortage out there and when all we want is ideas and opinions, it doesn’t matter if it comes from a media hustler trying to make waves. Having an opinion is good. You can assess whether it’s worth following yourself, but always worth a listen. You can’t have all the ideas yourself and if they are taking the time to write about a stock that you have already formed an opinion about it is actually interesting, so what’s the harm.