This submission details changes in the grades to firms in this survey. Grades are reviewed at least quarterly.
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The discount brokerage landscape has been surveyed for the past four or so years. Each December, on New Year's Eve, a new national champion is crowned. The award is given to the broker that provides the best value for the long-term investor; which means, it's the broker that has the lowest, overall transaction cost. Here's a line-up of the National Champions.
2011 Lightspeed Trading
2010 Lightspeed Trading
2009 Zecco
Let’s look at the overall results: the grades in a tabulated format. I hope you enjoy some of the names of the different firms.
These grades were initially assigned as of December 31, 2011. During the course of the year, as things change, the survey will be revisited; if important new information is found about a broker, a grade will be reassigned. In fact, one of the articles below includes a current list of the top ten brokers, from best to worst, using the approach adopted in this survey. As of New Year's Eve, four companies earned an A grade; seven companies are currently graded as a B; a total of 11 companies merited a C, while 26 companies received a D. Finally, 15 companies were awarded a failing grade: an F. Keep in mind: they failed as brokers for long-term investors; the definition of such investors was discussed earlier. A brokerage firm that earns an F for a long-term investor, could well merit an A for a trader. One company, SureTrader, was not graded for reasons disclosed in the discussion section for that company.
]]>This post is a deeper dive into the format used to critique each brokerage firm. The post after this one contains a summary of the grades, which is followed by posts that provide some expanded details on each of the brokerage firms reviewed in this survey. The commentary on each broker is divided into two sections: (i) a summary of key fees and related matter and (ii) a discussion on the firm in question, which includes any response from the company.
]]>Welcome to the 2011 survey of discount brokerage firms. Information on self-styled discount brokers has been compiled for almost four years; it’s now time to publish. This introduction contains a description of the methodology used to grade firms. A table in the third post shows the results. Towards the end there are posts where each broker is described in some detail using a standard format. The third article focuses on a breakdown of the format used to describe each individual broker.
The approach, in summary, is as follows: brokers were analyzed on commission rates, additional fees and overall service. A total of sixty-four brokerage websites were included in this survey. If there are more out there that were missed, please let me know. Each broker was assigned a letter grade, A through F.
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In the article entitled The Dividend Discount Model interest rates were examined together with a short introduction to discounting a stream of cash flows and determining a value for an investment opportunity. This value depended on the rate of return required by a willing buyer. In this blog, the goal is to turn this effort on its head and learn how to figure out an interest rate if we only know the stream of cash flows and the future value. The effort borrows from areas with which most people are already familiar: a savings account. It shows how the mechancis of calculating interest payments in such an account can be adapted to figuring out how well a portfolio is performing. The method that Quicken and other similar packages and sites uses will be demonstrated and shown to be equivalent to an Excel function called XIRR. The limitations of this approach will be touched on. Be forewarned: this article is long!
]]>The first question that someone might ask is "what is a dividend"? A dividend is usually cash paid to a shareholder. There are other types of dividends (companies could give more shares, even transfer tangible property to shareholders), but for the purposes of this discussion, we'll stick to cold hard cash.
]]>The PE ratio is one of the more commonly available pieces of information about a publicly traded company. The calculation is simple: it's the share price divided by the annual earnings per share. In a sense, the PE ratio is a way to normalize the price of a company to its earnings and allows a person to compare one company with another. For example, if company ABC is trading at $50 a share and generates $5 in earnings in a 12-month period, it has a PE ratio of 10 (50 ÷ 5 = 10), while company XYZ is trading at $18 a share, but produces only $1 a share in earnings, it has a PE ratio of 18 (18 ÷ 1 = 18), if the companies are very similiar, at first blush you might say that ABC is trading at a better value than is XYZ, of course more analysis is needed, but this result alone should convince a person to investigate further to see if this difference is warranted. This issue will be touched on later and discussed in more detail in another blog.
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Are the PE ratio and Growth connected?
People often observe some kind of connection between the PE ratio and the growth rate in earnings of a company. Through the PEG ratio, Peter Lynch popularized the connection in the book “One Up on Wall Street.” In fact, Peter Lynch suggests a direct correlation: a PE ratio of 15, say, implies a future annual earnings per share (EPS) growth rate of 15%. There are many ways to think about how such connection happens; here’s one. ]]>The PE ratio can often behave differently for cyclical companies. Generally speaking, conservative investors often shy away from a high PE ratio and consider buying a company when the PE is depressed. Cyclical companies have sales and earnings that tend to undulate over time: they follow the business cycle, moving up and down in synch. The PE ratio, the price of the stock divided by its earnings per share, changes over time too. Let’s consider two extremes: at the onset of a recovery and when the economy starts to slide into recession.
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Most of us simply don’t believe this theory. I don't. I like the concept a lot, but personal experience leads me to believe that its a theory that's not fully formed. For one thing. If it’s true, why did stocks adjust so precipitously in October of 1987? In the US the markets are as efficient as markets can be; however, there does seem to be an element of the irrational every now and again. The stock market seems to be efficient in the long-term and pretty wacky in the short run. It was Benjamin Graham, Warren Buffett's mentor, who said that in the short term, the market is a voting machine; while in the long term, it’s a weighing machine.
]]>I delayed addressing this topic until we’d been through a bit of a numbers-fest! I talked earlier about money managers. In many cases, money managers have models for the financial performance of companies. Just as we will do in chapters 2 through 5, the models seek to learn the future, often using information learned from behavior in the past. These models are based on earnings or more likely free cash flow. In summary, free cash flow is the amount of cash you could extract from the business each accounting period without affecting its operations.
]]>Just as for the income statement, the statement of shareholders equity can have a number of different names; however, in all cases in breaks out the equity section in more detail. Below is the statement issued by Clayton Homes in its 1999 annual report.
This statement can also be called the statement of owners equity, the statement of changes in owners equity or the statement of capital. Like many words in finance, the word capital can mean slightly different things in different contexts. When talking about the statement of shareholders equity—capital and equity are the same thing. Shareholders—owners—invest capital in the corporation. They capitalize the corporation. These investors own a share in the capital stock of the corporation.
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Here is the statement of cash flows for Clayton Homes. It was found in the annual report for 1999.
As was discussed earlier, accountants have a certain amount of leeway with the components of earnings. Some people have problems with the somewhat subjective nature of the accrual principle in accounting. These people would rather see the sources of cash. The Statement of Cash Flows helps them.
]]>The income statement for Clayton Homes is below. The income statement might be given a slightly different name; however, the information it provides doesn’t change. While the balance sheet shows the state of the company at some point in time, the income statement shows the change in revenues and expenses over a period of time. For the case below, this period of time is one financial year (July 1, 1998 to June 30, 1999)
The document is a “consolidated statement of income,” in that the income statement from each business unit is taken and combined into one large income statement.
That’s the income statement! Let’s go through some of the key points.
]]>The balance sheet is a listing of the company’s assets and liabilities. If you think of your own personal finances, you have things that you own: a house, a car, furniture, food and so on. You also might owe money. There could be a mortgage on the house; a home equity loan, a car loan and some credit card debt. The difference between what you own (your assets) and what you owe (your liabilities) is what you’re worth (your equity).
A balance sheet is a listing of the assets and liabilities of a company together with a listing of the shareholders equity. If you think about it, if you subtract off the liabilities from the value of the assets, you get the shareholders equity. Think through the example of personal finances discussed in the preceding paragraph.
]]>As mentioned in the last section, public companies are required to provide information to their shareholders and other interested parties. This information is provided four times per year in quarterly and an annual report. These reports provide a summary of the financial status of the company. In addition, the company files information with the SEC, the Securities and Exchange Commission; there are two basic reports: the 10-Q for quarterly information and the 10-K for annual information. The financial information in annual reports can differ from the 10-K. There’s nothing sinister in the reason for these differences. Shareholders need information useful in making an investment decision. The SEC has strict requirements that detail what a company must report. You can ask a company for their SEC filings (10-K and 10-Q) and use these to augment what you find in the annual report.
In the next few sections, I want to detail exactly what you will find in the annual report of a company. While annual reports differ from company to company, they all have the same basic structure. Keep in mind that when numbers are reported, except for per share data, they are in 1,000’s. For example, when you see depreciation and amortization totaling 17,795, it means 17,795,000—almost $18 million. The three trailing zero’s are discarded to simplify the reporting.
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Keep in the following in mind. This section is written to augment your studies. I write it because it supports my perspective on investing and helps support the approach taken by many fundamental investors. You don’t have to read this section if you don’t want to.
Like it or not, as you delve into the world of investing, you’re going to learn a little bit about accounting. When most people think of accounting, an image of bookkeeping probably pops into the head. As you’ll discover—I hope—accounting is much, much more than bookkeeping.
The goal of accounting is to provide financial information so that people can make a decision. Accountants attempt to provide accurate information about the health and operations of a business. This activity is a little trickier than you might think.
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So, the question was asked: should I buy gold? Well, look at it this way: when Elizabeth the First reigned, an ounce of gold would buy a man a suit of clothes, a fine pair of shoes and a hearty meal. Today, with Elizabeth the Second reigning supreme, an ounce of gold permits a man to purchase a suit of clothes, a pair of shoes and a Happy Meal. (I don't have access to pricing of women's clothing during the first Elizabethan period--sorry!) Gold just about tracks inflation, but only when it has a run up in price. Gold is, simply put, a terrible investment. Gold will drop in price; it always does. It will drop right back down to under $500 an ounce–it's visited that price many, many times before. When times are uncertain; there are rumors of inflation; currencies weaken; markets do badly: gold climbs again and experts come out of the woodwork proclaiming what a great investment is this precious metal.
In my opinion, gold belongs in your teeth, in electronic circuits, in jewelry or in catalytic converters; it has no place in a serious investment portfolio.
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