subject: Value Line Review [print this page] If you have not heard of Value Line, you have been missing out on perhaps the best stock newsletter out there. In this article I will provide a review of Value Line based on my own experience using it.
My first encounter with Value Line was when I was in business school. It was clearly the first place to turn to when I need information on a company. Most other students I knew relied on it heavily as well. Among the information provided by the Value Line Investment Survey was coverage of industries, company analysis, charts, and a rating system that helped me determine how well a company stock was expected to perform in the future.
But it wasn't just in school that I benefited from Value Line. In subsequent years, I would use it quite a bit to help me pick stocks to purchase. I absolutely loved Value Line's rating system as it was easy to use and effective. The ratings are performed on two factors, referred to as Safety and Timeliness. The ratings are from 1 to 5, with 1 being the highest score.
By doing nothing more than just blindly investing in stocks with a Timeliness rating of 1, you would historically do much better than the overall market and get average annual returns around 14%. I like to look for stocks that have both a high Timeliness and Safety rating, since this gives me both good returns and safety.
I find the print edition to be a bit cumbersome. You need huge binders to keep all the reports you get, and the volume of the report may become large and unmanageable at some point. I personally like the online edition much better. For one thing, it costs less, and in addition to that it's a lot easier to get the information you need. Of course, you can't take the online edition with you and read it wherever you go, which is one disadvantage. But if you have a good laptop, this will not be a problem.
Regardless of whether you are a professional investor or a student, you will benefit greatly from the information you find in Value Line. It is one of my favorite publications, and plan to use it for a long time to come.
