Retail
investors are customers. We are the business of retail brokers. What do you say upon learning that twin price-performance metrics are routinely displayed for the very same stock and period–on the same page? What do you do when the P/Es from the same system also don’t match? And if they’re off by a factor of 4?
Mismatching metrics can be your reality, and precisely why STOCKjAW created Money Chops. Money Chops shows you how to do the numbers yourself. Running your own numbers puts accuracy in your hands–at least as much as possible. Trusting and trading on dodgy data puts you in the hot seat. Trust is no substitute for knowing.
Tracking down precise company-issued EPS and calculating the P/E takes time and ranks as tedious. Same goes for price performance. Yet are you ready to move forward when the most important metrics investors rely on come up in mismatching pairs? You don’t have to. Here’s how.
When
no one wanted it to happen, does it really count?
“It’s like water torture,” I’d suggested.
When you beat down your broker’s support line with troubling questions, is it so wrong?
“Discrepancies in the data may elicit a response,” I’d warned.
If you consider other brokers, does that mark you as some knee-jerk “reactionary?”
“Something had to give,” I’d insisted. “We only have room for one truth–not two,”
Our business manager stared, fixedly. “The Chinese called it digital water torture?”
“Really? Where’d you pick that up?”
Who you gonna call when the data on your broker’s system don’t match? You’re already speaking with your outlet.
“See,” I’d pointed out. “The metrics don’t match.”
Does the data across your broker’s platforms match up? Try the basics and see. Trailing P/E. Peg ratio. Price performance ytd and 1 year.
We felt stupid and rope-a-doped by data. What can we say? We believed what we read and got what we kind-of deserved. We felt slow for not noticing earlier. Knowledge seems to extend only as far as curiosity. How can we be anything but ignorant of all lying just beyond our willingness to investigate?
How much chaos can be created by conflicting numbers? Investors depend on accuracy, and there’s a lot of that about. Yet, soft numbers pose a detour to any and all. What do you suppose NASA does when confronted by variances in their metrics?
We have to say–we’re jacked. Over this past year our research skills and habits have been freight-training. Daily we expand and refine our process and in turn views. Hard-built systematic research habits can’t be faked. We’ve focused solely on our side, and little on sources.
What’s reasonable to expect from your broker? Most now offer reasonable commissions, and a spread of capable, customizable tools/platforms. But perhaps metric consistency across platforms and data sources is a bit tougher. In an extremely complicated world is it too much to ask that the metrics agree–at least one’s on the same page? Or is it better to simply display the mismatching metrics? Data’s often flawed, imprecise, illusory, because that’s just how the world is?
Numbers you can trust are like an unzipped wade amide lapping waves.
He’s speechless–next slide…
Again–speechless. She knows her metrics are dependable. That’s joy–we hate her.
You’re just blowing portfolio bubbles when your moves are based on junk numbers.
Are mistakes or variances in data streams inevitable? STOCKjAW feels that mistakes and mismatches are unavoidable. That’s precisely why we launched Money Chops(Money tab drop-down menu.) Annoying as it is, all metrics are not created accurately.
Data stream metric scatter includes even the most basic metrics–like P/E multiples and peg ratios and price performance figures. These are touchstone numbers, both starting places, valuation basics, and the benchmark measure. When compaines report in basis points, these variances are consistently sizable, if not BIG.
The services routinely provided by online brokers are staggeringly good. Yet, discrepancies create real confusion and time suck. A work-around is the only way, when offered a pair of trailing P/E s differing by a factor of 4. That’s righ, a 6 matched up with a 24. We don’t even like the trailing P/E. Yet, mismatching pairs of P/Es catch our eye.
No broker can provide everything to anyone. Brokers are a sort of clearing house for such market data. They are forced to rely on others, as are we all. Many sources provide their data. All will never agree. Even the most common metric posted on your screen may not always represent, although most seem to. We think.
We launched STOCKjAW Money Chops for investors. Calculating P/E multiples, peg ratios, and performance are easy. We show how.
When you’re measuring an equity’s one-year price performance, should there be more than one correct answer? We got two–for every ticker we checked, displayed within ten inches of one another, on one page. Data streams are products produced and controlled by people. Mistakes happen. Yet, the results we witnessed were systematic.
The treatment of after hours trading is one way price performance metrics could vary, while remaining accurate. Would after hours trading account for a 5.99% difference for Amazon’s one year price performance? Perhaps. But it wouldn’t account for another company’s trailing P/E varying by a factor of four.
Calculating Percentage moves
We chose not to name our broker precisely because we attribute no misdeed or neglect on their part. Life is complicated, complex, and fast. Brokers are why we are able to invest so incredibly easily and with scads of dependable information. And after providing immediate, super-easy market access, some brokers then even cut their prices. We don’t complain about that kind of presence.
STOCKjAW highly respect the consistent and earnest work of the broker we use. We not only trust them, we recommend them. That’s why we were not surprised to find corrected and fully agreeing performance metrics on their site, before we went to post. Very nice.
Put more power in your hands. Here’s step-by-step how, and where.
Money Chops
https://stockjaw.com/money/
Thanks for reading.
STOCKjAW.COM 
measure twice, cut once
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Exactly. And in addition, our broker corrected the price performance issue, and then robustly thanked us meaningfully for our “business.” It was earnest too. Only those very few companies fully dedicated to excellence in customer service would respond so intelligently. Amazon does, and Kroger, and Schwab.
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