Melanie wrote:Given what you have contributed above, where would you suggest that the kind of questions I periodically ask should go? That is, Mel and I are looking at a couple of firms, and looking at their financials, KPIs, ratios etc. and one such ratio intrigues us. E.g. "interest cover", ROCE etc. and we'd like to ask a question regarding this, and we may ask the question, in relation to a particular firm or several firms, or no firm in particular. Furthermore, as such a thread/topic matures, other posters may contribute to the thread, by ref. to different firms, the quoted firm etc. etc.
Would you say in "INVESTORS' ROUNDTABLE - Techniques" -> "Technical Analysis" ?
Definitely not! Unfortunately, "technical analysis" has a rather non-obvious technical meaning in the context of investing, which is basically to do with analysing patterns of trading on markets - looking at price fluctuations, volumes of the share (or other investment) traded, etc. Basically, it's analysis of how markets operate, in the hope of getting clues about where they're going to go next, and so is potentially most useful for short-term trading. (I say "potentially" because opinions differ widely about how useful it is!)
So analysing what the companies themselves are like in terms of making earnings, paying dividends, owning valuable assets, etc, although definitely technical in the everyday sense, is not what the Technical Analysis board is about. The general term for it is "fundamental analysis". And before you ask, no, TLF does not have a fundamental analysis board. I seem to recall that TMF did, though named something like "Analysing Company Reports" rather than "Fundamental Analysis", but it didn't make the cut for being carried over to TLF - I'd guess most likely just because no-one expressed an interest in it at the time.
It might well be quite a good addition to the site: Share Ideas is IMHO not the ideal home for the sort of threads you've been posting on it, basically because of the different 'durabilities' of the posts. I.e. I can well imagine your threads about price-to-book ratio, free cash flow, etc, still being of interest to those wanting to learn (or refresh their memories about) how to calculate, use and not use them in 5 or 10 years' time, whereas threads about specific companies such as James Halstead, Walker Greenbank or Indigovision will be well out of date - even if the company does happen to still be of interest, it will be based on different information.
If you do want such a board, I'd suggest you post a new thread about it here on the Biscuit Bar, as I think a new thread stands a better chance of attracting attention than a reply over a week into a point of detail about how the site presents itself! I can't guarantee success, but it does look to me to have a very reasonable chance.
Gengulphus