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The Methods of Investment Analysis – Yahoo Finance

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investment analysis

Selecting a profitable investment is a challenging for many investors. Fortunately, investors can use investment analysis to help them determine how an investment will perform. Here are a few of the most common methods of investment analysis that can help you make better investment decisions.

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<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="What is Investment Analysis?” data-reactid=”33″>What is Investment Analysis?

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Investment analysis is a comprehensive term. As a result, it includes a wide variety of calculations and assessments that analyze market trends, investments and financial industries. Meanwhile, analysts may use a variety of metrics including past returns, yield potential, price movement and more to help them make better investment decisions.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Types of Investment Analysis” data-reactid=”35″>Types of Investment Analysis

With all the data and financial information available, there are a variety of methods analysts and investors use. However, investment analysis can be divided into a few different categories.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Bottom-Up” data-reactid=”37″>Bottom-Up

Bottom-up analysis assesses individual stocks by using their merits. For example, these merits include pricing power, management competence and valuation. However, this investment analysis method doesn’t focus on market or economic cycles to determine asset allocations. Instead, this method looks at the best companies and stocks regardless of the state of the economy and market.

In other words, bottom-up analysis has a more microeconomic or small-scale perspective and approach instead of looking at the economy at large.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Top-Down” data-reactid=”40″>Top-Down

Top-Down analysis examines the economic, market and industry trends before making a more specific investment decision. For instance, say an analyst evaluates different industries and found that technologies outperformed financials. Consequently, they may decide to allocate their portfolio with greater weight in financials than technologies. They will then seek out the best-performing companies within the financial sector.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="In comparison to a bottom-up analysis, an investor may find compelling reasons to purchase a single technology stock and invest a significant amount of capital in the stock. The investor may do this even if the overall outlook on the industry is poor.” data-reactid=”42″>In comparison to a bottom-up analysis, an investor may find compelling reasons to purchase a single technology stock and invest a significant amount of capital in the stock. The investor may do this even if the overall outlook on the industry is poor.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Technical Analysis” data-reactid=”43″>Technical Analysis

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Technical analysis focuses on finding patterns of stock price movements that’s discovered through analysis of a security’s prices and volume of share trades. While fundamental analysis focuses on the intrinsic value of a stock, the technical analysis evaluates the strength or weakness of a security by reviewing a variety of analytical charting tools, trading signals, and price movements.” data-reactid=”44″>Technical analysis focuses on finding patterns of stock price movements that’s discovered through analysis of a security’s prices and volume of share trades. While fundamental analysis focuses on the intrinsic value of a stock, the technical analysis evaluates the strength or weakness of a security by reviewing a variety of analytical charting tools, trading signals, and price movements.

For example, let’s say the average price of a share over a short period (50 days) surpasses the moving average of a share price for a longer period (200 days) technical analysts might see a buying opportunity. Conversely, if a stock’s 50-day moving average price falls below its 200-day moving average, technical analysts might see an opportunity to sell.

Keep in mind technical analysis focuses on the actual price of the stock, not the financial strength of the company or industry or economy. Essentially, if you use technical analysis, you’re assuming pricing history already reflects all important information.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Fundamental Analysis” data-reactid=”47″>Fundamental Analysis

investment analysis

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Fundamental analysis focuses around the idea that at any given time a company’s shares have an intrinsic or enterprise value, which the market will acknowledge eventually. To identify this value, the investor must observe the corporation’s financial performance. However, fundamental analysts also assess the state of that firm’s industry and overall economic health.” data-reactid=”68″>Fundamental analysis focuses around the idea that at any given time a company’s shares have an intrinsic or enterprise value, which the market will acknowledge eventually. To identify this value, the investor must observe the corporation’s financial performance. However, fundamental analysts also assess the state of that firm’s industry and overall economic health.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Fundamental analysts use metrics including earnings-per-share (EPS), dividend yield, price-earnings (P/E) ratio, and return on equity to determine the corporation’s value. This method also focuses on a company’s assets, liabilities, and expenses.” data-reactid=”69″>Fundamental analysts use metrics including earnings-per-share (EPS), dividend yield, price-earnings (P/E) ratio, and return on equity to determine the corporation’s value. This method also focuses on a company’s assets, liabilities, and expenses.

Analysts will closely examine the firm’s reports which are filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These reports may include the 10-K and 10-Q, as well as sell-side analysts’ reports on the company.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Fundamental Analysis Details” data-reactid=”75″>Fundamental Analysis Details

Now that you understand the big picture of how fundamental analysts determine a company’s value, let’s take a deeper dive into some of the metrics that make up this examination. Keep in mind, some investors may solely rely on each individual metric to make an investment decision.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Price-Earnings Ratio (P/E)” data-reactid=”77″>Price-Earnings Ratio (P/E)

A price-earnings ratio shows the correlation between the price of one share of a stock and the earnings-per-share that the company reports over a period. This period is generally one year. It illustrates the amount of money each investor is putting into the firm for every dollar of earnings the company posts.

You can calculate the P/E ratio by dividing the stock’s market value per share. Often, investors will compare one stock’s P/E to other stock’s P/E in the same industry to determine the value of the stocks. Usually, investors consider lower P/E ratios favorable.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Earnings Per Share” data-reactid=”80″>Earnings Per Share

Earnings per share indicates how efficiently revenues filters down to investors. To calculate a company’s earnings-per-share investors should take earnings remaining for shareholders divided by the number of outstanding shares. If a company has high earnings per share, investors may identify them as a profitable firm.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Book Value&nbsp;” data-reactid=”82″>Book Value 

Investors may use the price-to-book ratio to identify high-growth companies that are undervalued. While the book value of a company is the total number of assets minus total liabilities, you can calculate the P/B by taking the market price of a company’s stock and dividing by the book value of equity. If a company has a low P/B ratio, it’s viewed as undervalued.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Dividend Yield” data-reactid=”84″>Dividend Yield

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="The dividend yield is the relationship between a company’s dividend payments and stock price. To calculate the dividend yield you will divide the annual dividend by the current stock price. You can then compare one company’s dividend yield to another. Investors may select companies with higher dividend yields if they are seeking to invest in companies with high dividend payments.” data-reactid=”85″>The dividend yield is the relationship between a company’s dividend payments and stock price. To calculate the dividend yield you will divide the annual dividend by the current stock price. You can then compare one company’s dividend yield to another. Investors may select companies with higher dividend yields if they are seeking to invest in companies with high dividend payments.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Return on Equity (ROE)” data-reactid=”86″>Return on Equity (ROE)

Essentially, the return on equity (ROE) reveals the company’s efficiency at turning shareholder investments into profits. ROE takes the net income from a firms’ income statement and the shareholders’ equity from its balance sheet. Therefore, if a company liquidates its assets to pay off debt, ROE is the amount that’s left over for shareholders.

To calculate the ROE, divide a company’s net income by its shareholder equity. The higher ROE a company has the better.

 

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="The Bottom Line

” data-reactid=”90″>The Bottom Line

investment analysis

Selecting the wrong investment opportunity can end up costing you your entire investment or more. While selecting the correct investment opportunity has the potential to help you achieve unlimited gains. Using an investment analysis method can help you make a better and more educated decision.

There are plenty of methods of investment analysis to asses an investment opportunity. Including different valuations into your analysis may help you make a better investment decision. The more information and data you can use, the better the evaluation you may be able to achieve.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Investment Tips” data-reactid=”113″>Investment Tips

  • Consider talking to a financial advisor about how investment analysis could improve your investment decisions. Finding the right financial advisor who fits your needs doesn’t have to be hard. SmartAsset’s free tool matches you with financial advisors in your area in five minutes. If you’re ready to be matched with local advisors who will help you achieve your financial goals, get started now.
  • Don’t assume that your investment strategy needs to depend exclusively on one kind of analysis. You may find that technical analysis works better in some situations while fundamental analysis works better in other situations.

Photo credit: ©iStock.com/PeopleImages, ©iStock.com/Natali_Mis, ©iStock.com/A stockphoto

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="The post The Methods of Investment Analysis appeared first on SmartAsset Blog.” data-reactid=”118″>The post The Methods of Investment Analysis appeared first on SmartAsset Blog.

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What is Islamic halal investment and why is it on the rise?

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The global Islamic halal economy is set to reach a market value of $7.7 trillion by 2025, more than double the $3.2 trillion it reached in 2015 and significantly higher than the $5.7 trillion it was valued at less than three years ago in 2021, according to industry experts.

A report by the General Council for Islamic Banks and Financial Institutions revealed last year that the global Islamic funds market has grown by more than 300 percent over the past decade, with nearly $200bn now under management globally.

The statistics depict a rise in both demand for halal – or “sharia compliant” – investments and opportunities.

Investing is permitted under Islam, but certain aspects of investment practice – such as charging or paying interest – are not. This has traditionally meant a lack of opportunities for Muslim savers and investors in the past.

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What is halal investment?

Halal is an Arabic term meaning “permitted” and stipulating that:

  • Transactions cannot involve “riba” (interest).
  • Investments must not be made in “haram” (unlawful) assets or commodities such as pork products, alcohol or military equipment, among others.
  • Investments cannot be made based on “gharar”, which has been described as “highly uncertain transactions or transactions that run contrary to the idea of certainty and transparency in business”.

“Halal investment is basically managing your money and finances in line with your faith,” Omar Shaikh, director of Islamic Finance Council UK (UKIFC), told Al Jazeera. “Muslims believe that earning money in a way which is halal is better than earning money (even if that is more) in a way that is harmful to society and against the morals of the religion.”

Umar Munshi, co-founder and managing director of Islamic finance group Ethis, said sharia compliance is key, but institutions and investors looking for ethical investments need to go even further to ensure a business is completely ethical.

“The actions of a business must not have a negative impact on society or the environment,” Munshi told Al Jazeera. “So it’s not only compliant, but refraining from having a negative impact. Investing in a tobacco company, for example, may be sharia compliant, but it’s not good for society.”

How does halal investment work?

One example of halal investment is Islamic business financing, which works using new models of profit-sharing, sharia-compliant insurance and sukuk, an Islamic financial certificate that represents a share of ownership.

Unlike with conventional bonds – a form of IOU that investors can buy in order to receive interest payments – sukuk investors receive partial ownership of a business and then receive profit payments, which are generated over time. These payments are made instead of interest in order to ensure sharia compliancy.

“Islamic finance as a sector is barely 30 years old, with the past 15 years seeing the most development,” Shaikh from UKIFC said. “It takes time to educate and create awareness and as this has happened, more banks have focused on servicing the demand for halal investing. This in turn helps to create more products, which then creates more demand.”

Stock markets used to be the traditional modes of investment for many [Marcin Nowak/Anadolu via Getty Images]

A Goldman Sachs report published in December 2022 estimated that by 2075, five of the world’s 10 largest economies – India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Egypt – will have Muslim populations amounting to more than 850 million people.

As the population rises, so does its demand for financial products. According to the State of the Global Islamic Economy Report 2023, published by research group DinarStandard, some $25.9bn was invested into sharia-compliant investments in the financial year 2022-23, marking a 128 percent year-on-year growth.

“In general, it [halal investment] is on the rise. People are a lot more educated and more aware of how their dollar impacts the socioeconomic landscape globally,” said Siddiq Farid, co-founder of SmartCrowd, a real estate investment platform based in Dubai.

“They are a lot more cautious, too, hence leading to more ethical investing, which halal investing is a big component of. It’s on the rise, particularly around the younger generation. The millennials, they are a lot more aware socially. People realise exactly where their money is going and how it’s being used.”

An increase in opportunities for halal investing and their ease of access are also cited as reasons driving the rise in demand.

Israel’s war on Gaza and its impact

More recently, the rise in demand for halal investments has received an additional boost as consumers boycott brands seen as supporting Israel and its war on Gaza.

The war, which has seen more than 32,000 Palestinians killed by Israeli attacks in Gaza, has “adjusted” the mindset of these investors, Farid said.

“Halal investment has been increasing steadily and it has accelerated further in the past six months, mostly among millennials and people under 40,” he said.

“But in the past, it’s more of these people just looking for something halal. As long as it’s not haram, it’s fine. Now, there’s more awareness of not only halal, but halal aligned with values and faith. All these boycott movements have got people much more aware that something may be halal, but you might not necessarily want to use it, be associated with it or invest in it.”

bds
The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement has made many people consider where their money goes before they spend or invest it, say experts [Martin Pope/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images]

How has technology contributed to the rise of halal investing?

FinTech Magazine reported in December last year that while Muslims make up nearly a quarter of the world’s population, barely one percent of financial assets qualify as sharia compliant. This is set to change, say experts, with the arrival of “fintech” – financial technology that can make investing much more accessible for ordinary consumers and individual investors.

“Muslims are generally not as well educated when it comes to investing, and this is partly due to a lack of available options for them as Muslims. Even basic information pertaining to sharia-compliant investments is often not available to most of the Muslim population,” said Ibrahim Khan, co-founder of the online financial platform Islamic Finance Guru, in an interview with FinTech Magazine.

However, the rise of social media has contributed to an increased awareness and significant growth in sharia-compliant finance. In addition, fintech has made halal investment options, which are often much more convenient and easy to use with a smartphone or laptop, more accessible.

Consultancy group McKinsey & Company published research in January this year showing that “revenues in the fintech industry are expected to grow almost three times faster than those in the traditional banking sector between 2023 and 2028”.

“Your phone is often physically the closest thing to you. Fintechs are able to start from this paradigm and build solutions that are efficient and enhance transparency and choice for retail customers. This is where a lot of the action is at. Many banks are now creating fintech-based solutions or acquiring fintech players,” said UKIFC’s Shaikh.

Munshi added the selling point for fintechs is the age of the target audience.

“The younger generation is more open to investing online,” said Munshi, whose company operates an online platform and community for alternative finance and investment opportunities.

The same research by McKinsey & Company showed that the fintech industry raised record capital in the second half of the 2010s. Venture capital funding grew from $19.4bn in 2015 to $33.3bn in 2020, a 17 percent year-over-year increase.

As of July 2023, publicly traded fintech companies had a combined market capitalisation of $550bn, double that of 2019, the research said.

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Amazon completes $4B Anthropic investment to advance generative AI – About Amazon

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Amazon concludes $4 billion investment in Anthropic.

Customers of all sizes and industries are using Claude on Amazon Bedrock to reimagine user experiences, reinvent their businesses, and accelerate their generative AI journeys.

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The work Amazon and Anthropic are doing together to bring the most advanced generative artificial intelligence (generative AI) technologies to customers worldwide is only beginning. As part of a strategic collaborative agreement, we and Anthropic announced that Anthropic is using Amazon Web Services (AWS) as its primary cloud provider for mission critical workloads, including safety research and future foundation model development. Anthropic will use AWS Trainium and Inferentia chips to build, train, and deploy its future models and has made a long-term commitment to provide AWS customers around the world with access to future generations of its foundation models on Amazon Bedrock, AWS’s fully managed service that provides secure, easy access to the industry’s widest choice of high-performing, fully managed foundation models (FMs), along with the most compelling set of features (including best-in-class retrieval augmented generation, guardrails, model evaluation, and AI-powered agents) that help customers build highly-capable, cost-effective, low latency generative AI applications.

Earlier this month, we announced access to the most powerful Anthropic AI models on Amazon Bedrock. The Claude 3 family of models demonstrate advanced intelligence, near-human levels of responsiveness, improved steerability and accuracy, and new vision capabilities. Industry benchmarks show that Claude 3 Opus, the most intelligent of the model family, has set a new standard, outperforming other models available today—including OpenAI’s GPT-4—in the areas of reasoning, math, and coding.

“We have a notable history with Anthropic, together helping organizations of all sizes around the world to deploy advanced generative artificial intelligence applications across their organizations,” said Dr. Swami Sivasubramanian, vice president of Data and AI at AWS. “Anthropic’s visionary work with generative AI, most recently the introduction of its state-of-the art Claude 3 family of models, combined with Amazon’s best-in-class infrastructure like AWS Tranium and managed services like Amazon Bedrock further unlocks exciting opportunities for customers to quickly, securely, and responsibly innovate with generative AI. Generative AI is poised to be the most transformational technology of our time, and we believe our strategic collaboration with Anthropic will further improve our customers’ experiences, and look forward to what’s next.”

Global organizations of all sizes, across virtually every industry, are already using Amazon Bedrock to build their generative AI applications with Anthropic’s Claude AI. They include ADP, Amdocs, Bridgewater Associates, Broadridge, CelcomDigi, Clariant, Cloudera, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Degas Ltd., Delta Air Lines, Druva, Enverus, Genesys, Genomics England, GoDaddy, Happy Fox, Intuit, KT, LivTech, Lonely Planet, LexisNexis Legal & Professional, M1 Finance, Netsmart, Nexxiot, Parsyl, Perplexity AI, Pfizer, the PGA TOUR, Proto Hologram, Ricoh USA, Rocket Companies, and Siemens.

To further help speed the adoption of advanced generative AI technologies, AWS, Anthropic, and Accenture recently announced that they are coming together to help organizations—especially those in highly-regulated industries including healthcare, public sector, banking, and insurance—responsibly adopt and scale generative AI solutions. Through this collaboration, organizations will gain access to best-in-class models from Anthropic, a broad set of capabilities only available on Amazon Bedrock, and industry expertise from Accenture, Anthropic, and AWS to help them build and scale generative AI applications that are customized for their specific use cases.

Deepening our commitment to advancing generative AI, today we have an update on the announcement we made to invest up to $4 billion in Anthropic for a minority ownership position in the company. Last September, we made an initial investment of $1.25 billion. Today, we made our additional $2.75 billion investment, bringing our total investment in Anthropic to $4 billion. To learn more about the broader strategic collaboration between Amazon and Anthropic, of which this investment is one part, check out the stories below:

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Amazon doubles down on Anthropic, completing its planned $4B investment – TechCrunch

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Amazon invested a further $2.75 billion in growing AI power Anthropic on Wednesday, following through on the option it left open last September. The $1.25 billion it invested at the time must be producing results, or perhaps they’ve realized that there are no other horses available to back.

The September deal put $1.25 billion into the company in exchange for a minority stake, and certain tit-for-tat agreements like Anthropic continuing to use AWS for its extensive computation needs.

Amazon reportedly had until the end of the first quarter to decide whether to increase its investment to a maximum of $4 billion, and here we are just before the deadline, and the company has decided to throw in the maximum amount.

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Anthropic’s AI models are one of very few that compete at the highest levels of capability (however you define it) yet are available at scale for enterprises to deploy internally or in user-facing applications. OpenAI’s GPT series and Google’s Gemini are the others up there, but upstarts like Mistral may soon threaten that fragile triumvirate.

Lacking the capability to develop adequate models on their own for whatever reason, companies like Amazon and Microsoft have had to act vicariously through others, primarily OpenAI and Anthropic. The two have reaped immense benefits by allying with one or the other of these moneyed rivals, and as yet have not seen many downsides.

What we can take from Amazon’s decision to invest the maximum after (one must assume) getting a pretty close look at how they make the AI sausage over there is, really, pretty scant.

It makes too much strategic sense for these companies, which possess enormous war chests saved up for exactly this purpose (outspending rivals when they can’t out-innovate them), to pour cash into the AI sector. Right now the AI world is a bit like a roulette table, with OpenAI and Anthropic representing black and red. No one really knows where the ball will land, least of all the companies that couldn’t predict or create this technology themselves. But if your bitter enemy puts their chips down on red, it only makes sense for you to bet on black.

Especially if you can bet on black at a discount — which is what Amazon got here, since it could invest at Anthropic’s September valuation, which is most certainly lower than it is today.

That said, if things were looking sketchy over there — the way they must have looked at Inflection before Microsoft pounced on it — Amazon could have backed out or just invested less than the full supplemental $2.75 billion. But that might have sent a confusing signal no one wants getting out there, least of all existing multibillion-dollar investors.

We know Anthropic has a plan, and this year we’ll find out what Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and other multinational interests think they can do to monetize this supposedly revolutionary technology.

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