12/05/05 Tools and Links

...I subscribe to Louis Navellier's free weekly market newsletter MarketMail. Navellier sends it out every weekend, or when there is extraordinary movement in the market averages. Mr. Navellier is generally optimistic and can find the silver lining in nearly every scenario, it seems to me, but I think this newsletter is worthwhile. You can sign up at Navellier's website if you are interested.
...In the latest MarketMail, Mr. Navellier gushes about how the current market environment is about as good as it gets. For an exactly opposite view, see The Comstock Partners Market Commentary. I like these guys, too, but sometimes I think they have called 10 of the last 2 market crashes if you know what I mean. But I like getting different opinions.
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Tools: Here's a couple of free tools that I find very useful when checking out stocks. The first is Navellier's Stock Grader. It issues proprietary grades for each stock in 10 different categories, and an overall grade. It's a neat tool in my opinion.
...The other is MSN's StockScouter. It issues an overall stock score on a scale of 1-10, and letter grades A-E on four different subcategories, such as fundamentals for example. Another excellent tool.
...It is interesting to see how different folks grade stocks. Last week, I came across a couple of articles about railroads, and I saw a report where an analyst, it seemed to me, mentioned and recommended about every major railroad company left in the country except for the one I am in, Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNI). So, just for fun, I decided to see what Stock Grader and StockScouter had to say at the time (The Stock Grader site is updated with new scores weekly, not sure about StockScouter.)
...Stock Grader had BNI as an A; CNI, NSC and CSX all as B's. But StockScouter had BNI as a grade 7 (pretty good), but the other stocks as 8's and 9's. I think it's because Navellier gives more weight to growth type stocks and isn't concerned about high valuations as much as other raters, who sometimes think a stock is overbought simply because it is higher priced than its competitors. Mr. Navellier seems to think that some stocks justifiably command higher prices because they are the ones people want to own.
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