The SEC website and 10k's are better than annual re****ts, exactly as
Douglas Johnson points out. I look for consistency of growth of
earnings, first, then the source of the earnings (the market the
company generates revenues from, the stability of the market, the
capital base required in the industry, and a general feel for the
honesty or integrity of the company). Things do change, so one must
spend a few minutes every quarter to be sure you know where your
companies are.
Note to Elle: sorry you had difficulty with the link I put up (it
seems like two links got posted somehow). Did you notice the headlines
about Bear Stearns today? Even guys with AAA mortgages can't find a
market for them, not so much, I gather, because there is a question
about the credit-worthiness, but simply because the field of buyers is
limited by increasing concentration of funds into fewer and fewer
institutional hands - and those are the guys who are writing things
off, thus squeezed to meet capital requirements, panicking in some
cases, and thus have no money to buy with (to lend, by buying bonds or
mortgage packages).
In a way, it is not dissimilar to the example you gave of a company
cutting or omitting a dividend. It isn't that the company is going out
of business (hopefully not), but it may very well be that intermediate-
term conditions for a few years have them without cash to pay the
dividend. The company going out of business would be a 'credit crisis'
while the few years cash shortage would be a 'liquidity crisis.'
An article early last year seemed to indicate that some bad guys were
trying to wring concessions out of cor****ations, due to the rippling
effects back then, but it now appears that the cor****ations held their
ground, and the ripples do not appear likely to impact there (unless a
company's line of business depends upon an industry where the ripples
ARE impacting ... there's always an 'if' somewhere ... just look at
the expression on Buffett's face).
On Mar 14, 4:08 pm, "Elle" <honda.lion...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> "W. Wells" <ot...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote
>
> > Where is a good place to check the ability of a company to
> > continue paying its dividend?
>
[snip]
> Note to dapperdobbs: One of the kind regulars here sent me a
> pdf version of the August 2007 Fidelity article on this
> credit/housing crisis. For some reason, I never got it to
> come up on the web with my computer.
>
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