Fundamental Analysis, Company Performance

[Binary]

When I first started investing in dividend companies I quickly realised that understanding balance sheets, income statements and free cash flow is a must. Although I know more than a year ago, the more I read the more questions I have. I hope to get answers for 2 basic questions:
- what are the resources you use to get a picture on a company that's on your watchlist? Earnings reports? Annual reports and presentations? How do you combine all those resources?
- what books/pages would you recommedn for a newbie DGI investor who would want to learn more about fundamental analysis and company performance analysis more in detail?

Thanks for all the help.

[Roadmap2Retire]

I use combinations of all - quarterly/annual reports and presentations. Presentations are a good starting point, when you are dipping your toes into a company. You will of course see the best picture possible as the management will try to paint a rosy picture. It is just as important (if not more than) to seek our the bear case for that investment.

Morningstar is possibly the best resource I know of. It provides a data dump for the previous 10 years. I use that data to crunch my own numbers and come to a conclusion of how things are unfolding. Stockrover is also a good one that Ive started using more and more over the past year after someone on this forum recommended it.

[DividendGarden]

(01-24-2017, 12:07 PM)Binary Wrote: When I first started investing in dividend companies I quickly realised that understanding balance sheets, income statements and free cash flow is a must. 

Definitely a must.  Accounting is the language of business, and financial statements are the most important thing to read CEO comments will always be biased and optimistic, but the cold, hard numbers do not lie.