Recommendation - Financial Software Package
February 12, 2010 7:05 AM Subscribe
Is there a financial software program that would be able to break down a company's quarterly or annual financial report so the information would be more understandable for a layman? I am seeking to enter numbers into this software package and have the software analysis the company financial strength.
depends what you want as the output. If you want a DuPont analysis or something like that I'm sure you can find that on-line. The problem is once you get past the numbers it all becomes very subjective.
posted by JPD at 7:20 AM on February 12, 2010
posted by JPD at 7:20 AM on February 12, 2010
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Are you just looking to get the various common financial ratios? If so, use Yahoo finance. For example, here are the financial ratios for W.R. Berkley.
Note, though, that "financial strength" is a somewhat amorphous term, dependent, in part, on the industry the company competes in, among others.
Various measures of financial strength, such as the quick ratio or current ratio, vary across industries. You can't say that all companies with a quick ratio below 1 are financially sound; some companies need to rely on more debt financing than others.
The short answer to your question is: fundamental analysis of companies is very complex and there's no easy way for a layman to do it without spending a lot of time learning how to read financial statements.
posted by dfriedman at 7:20 AM on February 12, 2010 [1 favorite]