In analyzing potential companies for which to invest one must first choose a certain set of guidelines or criteria that he or she will use. These criteria should be used to compare one company to the next, regardless of what industry each company is in. Companies in different industries must be able to be analyzed and compared to each other in order for an investor to be able to make the proper decision of which company will best serve his or her investment goals. Therefore, these criteria must be universal in their use. All companies should be able to be analyzed using them. Clear and comprehensible results should be seen in the end, leaving only one clear choice.
In order to come to such a conclusion I have chosen certain criteria from numerous sources. These criteria are the ones that set the best standard and make it possible to compare all companies, regardless of their industry or differences.
Warren Buffet is an excellent example of one who has mastered the art of value investing. He is able to pick stocks better than anyone else. With this great ability he has a set of criteria that he looks for in a company. One of these criteria is, has the company consistently preformed well. This is a very broad topic. Depending on what one uses to research this, one could come up with numerous results. Therefore, in analyzing this, one can look at numerous facts, numbers and ratios. The criteria used will be has the dividend been raised five times in the last twelve years, there should be at least 25 years of uninterrupted dividends, and the earnings have improved in at least seven of the last twelve years.
The first criterion is the dividend has been raised five times in the last twelve years. To clearly ...