While the majority of what I've put together for the Support Tickets so far has been notes that Support has been using, this is is taken a bit more from some conversations I've had over the last few weeks. Because of some promotions that are coming to a close in a few days, we've had more calls than normal about the Investor Advisory Service (also called IAS). As a result, it seems like a good time to take a look at some of the more common questions we've been seeing, and hopefully answer a few that folks haven't thought to ask yet.
So, to begin, what is IAS? In short, it's a monthly newsletter published by ICLUBcentral Inc. and written by the professional money managers and Chartered Financial Analysts at Seger-Elvekrog, Inc. Each month, the newsletter investigates and publishes complete analyses of three choice stocks. They've been doing this since 1973, and if you take a look at some of the information available by clicking the IAS link above, you can see they've got a pretty good track record. StockCentral founder Doug Gerlach has been the IAS Editor-in-Chief since 2004.
Now before getting into the meat of this note, there are two things that you should download that will answer most of the questions about how the newsletter is set up, and how to make use of it.
In the spirit of learning by doing, a sample issue can tell you a lot about how IAS works. If you've never seen an issue of IAS, take a look here:
The other important file is the "How to Use IAS" guide. I feel like this gets unfairly overlooked. After questions about subscription renewal dates, the most common thing we are asked is how to use the information that's provided is in the newsletter:
If this was Facebook, or MySpace, or one of the multitude of other social networking sites where brevity is in some cases a requirement, I could stop here. In a little under 30 pages, the guide takes you through some of the basic principles, the publishing schedule, what's in each issue, the basics of the SSG, how to read the rankings report, and even how to get around the web site.
Times like this, I'm really glad that Stock Central affords posts in a little bit longer form.
So, what do you get for subscribing?
We have two basic types of subscriptions, an "Online Only" subscription, and a "Print and Online" subscription. The prices vary from time to time due to promotions, but the "Online Only" is always less than the "Print and Online" subscription (and the "Online Only" is a "greener" choice for those who are interested in eco-friendly options).
The "Print" part of the "Print and Online" is sent out to arrive close to the beginning of each month, and ranges between 22 and 38 pages. The "Online" edition is put up on the same day that the print copies are delivered to the Post Office from the printer, and contains exactly the same information as the Print version.
Now, if you've got the "Print and Online," and you're only reading the paper copy, you should really go take a look at what else is available with the Online part of the subscription. There are some extras that are only available on the web site, such as Excel files, and archives of the online updates and alerts. There's no need to hunt for the link, you can sign in at:
The best part about the Online subscriber's web site will depend on what you're interested in. If you want to dig into the history a bit, we have the archives back to early 2002. There's a quick list of recently published updates, in case one of your pages has gone missing. What I like the most is the ability to go into any given issue and download the information directly on to my computer. While I commonly use the First Impression when opening up something new in Toolkit 6, I really like being able to download the PDF file for each of the three picked stocks for the month, and compare the information there with what I can get by working through the stock study on my own.
As I look back on that paragraph, I realize I'm rambling a bit, and didn't even touch on the Portfolio Sorts of previous picked companies (which can be downloaded as an Excel file, if you want to), the Earnings Reports, the fact that you can get the Investment Comments, or the write ups for the individual companies just on their own. And since I'm always remembering snippets of sentences, I can't forget to mention downloading the whole issue as a PDF file, and using Acrobat's built-in search feature to look for that one thing you remembered seeing about the company when you were browsing just the other day (and hopefully I'm not the only one for whom 'the other day' could mean almost any time in the last week or two).
I'm going to close very nearly where I started: if you're not subscribing, take a look at the sample issue. If you're already subscribing, and you don't have the User Guide, take a little time to download it, and give it a read through. And since you're reading this on StockCentral, remember that as a member, you can save 50% off the regular subscription -- just use the special code from the StockCentral Discounts page when you subscribe:
Hope everyone has a good weekend, and I'll see you in a while.