Investor Business Daily IBD

Investors Business Daily
4 Bonus Weeks

IBD Financial Newspaper

The Investor's Business Daily financial newspaper or IBD for short and Investors.com provides investors the famous stock investing method called CAN SLIM by it's publisher Bill O'neil. Can slim has been one of the most consistent and strongest performing stock selection systems during both bull and bear markets. Canslim has been generating a 704.9% gain over the past 6 years without a single down year.

• What is Investor's Business Daily?

Investor's Business Daily (IBD) is a national business and financial daily newspaper that serves over 800,000 investors worldwide through a variety of proprietary products and services, relevant news from the investor's perspective, as well as innovative research, investment education, efficient stock ratings and screens unavailable anywhere else. IBD differs from traditional market journalism and provides an unconventional, but more research-based approach to interpreting the economy, and identifying emerging stock market trends. Its editorial stands alone since all reporting is driven by its stock-databased research findings and its ability to spot trends faster. IBD's editorial foundation deals with facts, not opinion. And traditionally, while most financial institutions and publishers are based near Wall Street, IBD is headquartered in Los Angeles to help maintain its total focus and balance on the issues proven to be most relevant.

IBD's editorial mission has always been to provide clarity and more relevance to issues that impacts investors and business people. Research and exhaustive analysis are at the core of its reporting - a story is never written without those components. Investor's Business Daily also avoids "news for news' sake" and thus is usually an outsider in the media world since mainstream media sell papers with sensationalism, not necessarily the substantive business and investing analyses relevant to audiences whose focus is making money in the market. Investor's Business Daily set out to be different, and not replicate other media, but provide what was missing. Over the years, IBD's content has lived up to that goal and consistently promoted focus on relevant issues.

However, that has often meant taking a different stance than conventional wisdom, which creates challenges for both readers and outside media if the findings attack long-accepted beliefs. Now and then, the research conclusions have surprised us as well. (See Editorial Section for specifics.) And sometimes, the findings are not riveting copy for the attention span of mass-readership - but the end result is truth and accuracy that can be trusted.

The real challenge for everyone today is information overload, which creates confusion instead of clarity. How does one come to accurate business and investment conclusions when print and TV news formulas include the intermingling of news with the opinions of "experts"? In the case of investment reporting, the purported "experts" may not be the top performers in their field, or even have the strongest, most accurate perspectives.

This was apparent during the March 2000 market crash when media recommendations were to buy more stock because of its 'value.' Ultimately, buying as stocks move lower meant that 80 million investors lost $7 trillion due to poor advice almost across the board. It was an unconscionable flaw in general media and financial advice at the time, predominantly because these 'experts' did not have strong sell strategies. 'Buy and Hold' philosophies will never provide the safeguards investors need to cut losses, or capture important profits in the market.

Investor's Business Daily wrote about emerging market weakness in 2000, and followers were able to save their profits from the 1990s by sitting out the next three years - the worst bear market in recent history, reminiscent of the 1920s crash.

• Why Investor's Business Daily Was Created

In 1983, entrepreneur and legendary investor William J. O'Neil realized that both individual and professional investors needed more relevant data, and O'Neil found that most newspapers made readers sift through too much news and information to try and figure out the relevant facts in their investing. He himself found it difficult to read print publications for conclusive or relevant investing data. His goal in designing IBD was to not only cut through mass information, but to report and highlight the data that was more pertinent to finding emerging stock leadership - and also, discuss the perspectives not being covered by the media. As a noted stock market veteran with decades of investing successes, O'Neil's forward thinking approach involved databasing all stock performance statistics and creating programs to highlight top performing stocks. This might seem obvious by today's standards, but O'Neil was the first in the 1960s to computerize stock market information and create historical tracking of stock performance. It netted eye-opening conclusions that created a proven stock-picking strategy which honed in on how stocks performed before their biggest price moves. O'Neil created many screens and IBD's well-known stock tables that rate stocks against others. Many subsequent innovations over the years went into Investor's Business Daily, making the paper unique, groundbreaking and without peer. The content continues to evolve each year, but is always derived from programming the O'Neil stock computers to sift for stocks with emerging leadership performance-a primary component of a stock's future potential. He also followed with studies of stocks topping and turning down, so that it is more clearly understood today how stocks break down. These findings have enabled investors to use IBD's screens and research to build their skill, and many now make more money in the market. Investor's ability to now zero in on growth in emerging stages has resulted in long lists of success stories, many of which can be found here. Of course, not all succeed if they are unwilling to break bad habits or don't take the time, effort and discipline to improve their investment methods.

• William O'Neil's Books

O'Neil's latest book, The Successful Investor (McGraw-Hill October 2003), is a BusinessWeek and Wall Street Journal Bestseller and was also named one of the 20 "Best Business Book of the Year" in 2004 by The Library Journal. In The Successful Investor, Investor's Business Daily Chairman and Founder William J. O'Neil steps up to tell investors how they can make money and, more importantly, avoid big losses in up markets, down markets and everything in between. More than 80 million investors lost 50 to 80 percent of their savings in the recent stock market crash of 2000. O'Neil, however, was one of the first to see - and warn investors about -the dangers inherent in what had been, up to that point, a historic bull market run. Those who followed his counsel were able to sidestep devastating losses and emerge with their sizable bull market profits largely intact. In the few months since it's publishing, The Successful Investor has proven empowering and educational to thousands of readers worldwide, who have decided to take their financial future in their own hands.

How to Make Money in Stocks. A Winning System in Good Times or Bad, a longtime bestseller that has become a classic, has helped countless investors invest with a proven system and learn when and how to take profits and succeed in the market. Based on the unprecedented study of the common traits of stock market winners, it outlines the proven 7-step CAN SLIMT Investment Research Tool to help investors find stocks with similar growth characteristics before they make their major moves. When it was first published, How to Make Money in Stocks hit the investing world like a jolt, providing readers with the first in-depth explanation of William J. O'Neil's innovative and highly successful CAN SLIM investing method. In an independent, real-time study by The American Association of Individual Investors (1998 through 2003), CAN SLIM outperformed with a 503.6% increase - and showed the steadiest, most consistent results.

The international bestselling 24 Essential Lessons for Investment Success has two-dozen of O'Neil's most important lessons for investors. He outlines his popular and easy-to-follow techniques for building a profitable portfolio and gives new investors some clear-cut direction to succeed - and seasoned investors the necessary shifts in thinking to improve investing skills further. He's had consistent, top performance, and shares in 24 Essential Lessons his own secrets for long-term financial security - and proves it's easily within reach, if someone is willing to work at it. His timeless advice and eye-opening investing nuggets sometimes go against conventional wisdom, but his decades of research and exhaustive studies verify his findings. O'Neil's cautionary yet pro-active advice has helped to make Investor's Business Daily one of America's fastest growing and most respected newspapers, and now, investor's can benefit from his timeless words of wisdom, collected in this easy-to-understand resource.

• Background of IBD's Founder & Chairman William

Born in Oklahoma during the Depression, O'Neil was raised in Texas. He made his first investment of only $300 in Procter & Gamble stock while serving in the Air Force in his 20s. Shortly after making that first investment and becoming a stockbroker at Hayden Stone in Los Angeles in 1958, O'Neil independently began a historical study of the greatest stock market winners to determine the specific elements they followed. His analysis uncovered seven performance characteristics in every leading stock before their big price advances. Continuing annual studies of the best stocks regularly confirm his original findings - these seven common components are the basis for the widely respected CAN SLIMT Investment Research Tool. In 2003, The American Association of Individual Investors' (AAII) independent 'real-time' month-by-month studies of more than 50 well-known strategies found CAN SLIM outperformed with a 704% gain (1998 through 2003) and said it "has been one of the most consistent and strongest-performing in both bear and bull markets." O'Neil originally researched and developed the CAN SLIM stock traits in the 1960s, and catapulted to the top-performing broker at Hayden Stone, increasing his personal portfolio over 2,000% in just 26 months.

O'Neil's success in the market led to his purchase of a seat on the New York Stock Exchange in 1963, the youngest at that time ever to do so. He started William O'Neil + Co., Incorporated, the institutional investment research firm that compiled his computerized stock market research into the first daily securities database in the world in 1963. Compiling data on approximately 130 fundamental and technical variables on listed securities, the O'Neil Database not only tracked historical performance to build success models, but also screened in a number ways for leadership, such as top earnings, top relative price strength, etc. The first of its kind anywhere, this landmark research into the way stocks build power and achieve their greatest gains also involved the study of how stocks top and turn down.O'Neil's studies would become some of the most definitive stock market research based totally on how the markets and stocks actually work year after year, decade after decade.

The O'Neil Database would become one of the largest, most comprehensive stock market databases in the world, and is used today by over 400 of the largest banks, mutual funds and insurance companies.

O'Neil's visionary and analytical ideas, in addition to his recognition of the void in comprehensive studies of great stock market winners, is what led to the launch of Investor's Business Daily and its investing data that in many ways changed the face of business and financial publishing. Specifically, he saw that conventional wisdom emphasized certain elements like looking for value and low P-E ratios, when he learned through years of research that almost every big stock market winner actually had high and expanding P-Es before their meteoric price climbs. In other words, his research findings were proving the majority wrong in some of their focuses. O'Neil stayed neutral, void of personal opinions and just trusted the research which is inarguable-and which had proved highly successful for him in his investment pursuits.

Readers too began to benefit greatly from IBD's focus on relevant proven data. They were now able to zero in on emerging stocks and industry trends and make better, much more informed decisions. (See the IBD Tour for specific stock screens and other proprietary editorial and investing tools.)

O'Neil is the author of several best-selling books, including the million plus bestseller How to Make Money in Stocks and 24 Essential Lessons for Investment Succes. Then he authored The Successful Investor, also a best seller, (October 2003) as a way to help investors analyze the difficult 2000-03 bear market and create an investing plan to help understand and react to market turns. O'Neil reasoned that if 80 million people lost $7 trillion in the downturn, a simple step by step strategy was needed if investors were to recoup losses and invest profitably. In March 2004, The Successful Investor was named "best business book of the year" by the Library Journal.

Although O'Neil has achieved extraordinary success in investing, he prefers to travel and connect with investors and discuss the CAN SLIM investing methods that can help them achieve greater results. His investing is legendary among professional and individual investors. Stock Trader's Almanac dedicated their 37th Edition in 2003 to O'Neil as a "Wall Street pioneer who put investment information at the fingertips of the masses by launching Investor's Business Daily.His foresight, innovation and disciplined approach to stock market investing will influence investors and traders for generations to come." Jeffrey Hirsh, Publisher, Stock Traders Almanac, 2003.

O'Neil also received the distinguished American Electronics Award for service and help to the broad-based technology industry in 2003.

• The Publishing Industry at Inception of Investor's Business Daily

The major national business newspapers available when Investor's Business Daily began publishing were The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and the Washington Post, and Barron's weekend investment paper. Until IBD, business and financial publishing was 'business as usual' with editorial perspectives and stock table formats remaining the same as they had for a century. IBD offered improved, efficient stock ratings in their tables that screened for leadership, and also brought to publishing their proven stock expertise. That meant they could detail their unique stock market analysis on a daily basis, which has ended up hitting early alerts on every single emerging new trends since its first issue. Investor's Business Daily became respected for sage market insights as recognition grew for its market analyses. (See market analysis section at www.investors.com for market alerts.) The most widely known market calls appeared in IBD's "The Big Picture" column in March and April 2000, and discussed specific weakening signs in the major indexes (Dow, Nasdaq and S&P 500). Those following these early warning signals protected profits they made in the earlier raging bull market of the 1990s. Today, 'The Big Picture's market analyses are closely followed by serious investors.

The industry also took note of some of IBD's other groundbreaking features, specifically the unique stock tables that contained performance comparisons and went way beyond traditional 'high, low and close' tables. Stocks were now boldfaced if up a point or more, and underlined when down a point or more, or making new price highs and underlined when down a point or more or making new price lows. In later years, some publications took to duplicating the boldfacing, however most of IBD's proprietary screens could not be mimicked-primarily because of IBD's exclusive access to the historical stock database created by O'Neil in the 1960s. In fact, several publications have approached IBD since its launch to access this proprietary stock screening capability, but O'Neil has insisted that experienced investing balances the portrayal of that data, and has chosen to keep most of the data proprietary for IBD's loyal readers.