Reading Reports: Earning Profits the Old-Fashioned Way

Reading Reports: Earning Profits the Old-Fashioned Way

Following the recent news that 81% of S&P 500 Index companies published corporate responsibility reports last year, it seems only right that someone has decided to read them all—and more. GCA Capital fund manager Geoffrey Abbott is reading 3,000 reports from U.S. companies, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Abbott is searching for good investments by reading information published by companies, rather than crunching data or tweaking algorithms, the default mode of most current investors. He wants to confirm—in the company’s own words—that managers are focused on the long term, care about investors, and can clearly explain how the business makes money and how they measure progress toward their goals.

By the way, Warren Buffet got his start by reading every entry in the thousands of pages of Moody’s manuals. He still spends much of his time reading, including letters to shareholders in companies’ annual reports.

I’m John Howell for 3BL Media.