This is a continuation from last week’s post.

Vince inquired about a stock that he knew of that basically met my finviz screen but did not show up when he ran the screen. He asked, “What is your take on this?”

My response to Vince’s question: Your question is an important one because on occasion finviz may lack data on one or more filters from its very extensive list of filters for a given company. (In the stock case Vince raised, finviz lacked data on one of the 7 filters used in my screen.) When this happens (it is unusual), the stock will not show up in the screen results due to lack of information. So, there may be a stock on occasion that does not show up when my screen is run even though the stock meets the screen. It is unusual because www.finviz.com financial data is very comprehensive on any publicly-traded company.

Bill asks, “Do you have any recommendations as to the best websites to find information on a corporation’s CFO, the outlook for a corporation and a corporation’s industry?”

In response to Bill, I use Yahoo Finance to get a lot of information. Some of the best outlook information is generally provided in the company’s press releases on earnings, which come out each quarter. Yahoo (Finance), Google (Finance) and numerous online sources present the company press releases at earnings time. If you go to www.finance.yahoo.com, for example, just input the stock symbol and there will be a lot of links that come up for the stock. One is “Profile” which takes you to a page profiling the business and that page has the website address for the company itself. The company’s website often gives a biographical sketch on each executive officer and board member. You will have to navigate the website to find the biographies. They are often located under a link called “Investors” or “Investor Relations.”

Also, you can go to www.nasdaq.com and input your stock symbol and access a world of information there. At this site, you can scroll down through the available links on the left side of the page, and find one on “SEC Filings.” If you click on that, you will find a list of historical filings. Viewing the ones called 10Qs and 10Ks are very helpful. The latest 10Q (quarterly report) you see there or 10K (annual report) is loaded with company information. These are the actual documents on company financials required by the SEC. I hope this helps…..online information is so comprehensive today, the problem can almost become one of information overload once you start researching. I heavily depend on the finance arm of Yahoo and nasdaq.com for my company research beyond what I do at finviz.com as detailed in my book.

As with the first installment in this Q & A post sequence, thanks for the great questions. I will have another Q & A installment next time.