Valuation tools and services, who can I trust?

[vergis92]

Does anyone know of any software or have tried a valuation service
for UK stocks?

like this one here:
www.vectorvest.com

if anyone has used this service, your comments please


I also know of an analyst here who claims he performs thorough analysis
of a ballance sheet of a company and intrinsic value calculations but
they mostly do US stocks,

is the concept of the so called 'intrinsic value' real?

his valuations have proved right so far, but I've only done it for a handful of stocks,

he advised me against buying (ALKS)
trading $26 at the time as only being worth $0.90!!
few months later it droped to $17 and has yet to recover, contradicting
the advise of a big brokerage firm...

on merill lynch, (mer) he claimed a value of $320!!
it was trading at $40 and rallied up to $90 in two years or so


even if the valuation method is good who wants to really hold on to
US stocks given that the dollar slide can be as much as 20% in a year
and will wipe out any preospet for such profit,,
unless the dollar stops falling I don't want to invest in US stocks
or through dollar based broker


where can one find a reliable valuation service for UK stocks/ european stocks?
please help

 

[OpalSky]

Hi Vergis, I take it you know Vector have an online product for the UK market? (I'm not necessarily endorsing it - i just took a quick browse thru their site).

OS.

 

[honestsid]

VectorVest System Not Ready For The Uk Market

Vectorvest Dissapoints Uk Client!

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VectorVest System Not Ready For The Uk Market

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I thought that anyone considering using the VectorVest UK service may be interested in my experience of the product as it has not been all together satisfactory.

I have had two major problems with the Vector Vest system that, in my opinion renders it totally and utterly useless for all but a few UK clients. I will outline the problems separately below and ask you to read through ALL of this thread before making your own decision on whether or no to spend your hard earned money on this system.

I can send you all of my emails that I have sent to validate my complaints if you wish. However once the trial period was over and I had paid my subscription the email support totally dried up. That is why I am writing to warn others of the major shortfalls of this system. I have been waiting for over TEN DAYS for a reply, despite re-sending the emails, several times, from two addresses to make sure that they got through to VV. I don't like to be ignored when I am a paying client!

Please bear in mind that there is NO UK BASED SUPPORT, just a USA email or telephone support system so one has to accept the time zone difference when using email or pay for expensive phone costs.

In the first instance the trial downloaded to my home PC using a landline broadband connection and seemed to work fine. It then stopped working, VectorVest stating that I could only use the trial period once and as I had used it before they were stopping the service. Well it was my first time! It took a quick email and about 24hrs to remedy their mistake. The support, this time at least getting back to me fairly quickly.

I delighted in experimenting with all the data on my home PC. but it was not too long before I realised that setting up and back testing my portfolio was impossible. After a couple of hours struggling I thought perhaps I was entering my information incorrectly so sent off an email to support as follows,

“One problem I have found is in setting up a portfolio in GB pounds. When I put in the actual price I paid the system changes the values for commission. If I try and enter a manual figure for the cost basis ( edit total cost ) the system changes the price I have entered for the price/share. If I use the (your vv) feature to select the price on the day ( I presume based on the average for the day ) then the total cost that is automatically placed in the cost basis is wildly inaccurate. e.g. getting the pricing information from your system gives a price of 276.00 ( perhaps it should be reading 2.76) x number of shares = £90537.40 and it should be £905.28.”

I suggested that the support in USA checked this out and two days later got this reply;

“I was able to duplicate the issue you outlined. I will report it to our developers, and will continue to see if there is a quicker resolution. Thanks in advance for your patient.”
Not a solution but it offered hope that they would solve this very important problem that UK clients were having. After all they do, rightly, advertise their back checking and portfolio management system as being an important consideration when choosing their product above others.

I did remind them of the problem just before my five week trial ended, (4 weeks after first pointing out the problem to them), I had the response;

“Thanks for the follow-up. I will need to check for the resolve to the currency question. I do not see where it has been resolved. Since it is after hours at the time of my reply, I will need to wait for to confirm whether the issue has been addressed. Thank you for your patient.”

I feel that on hindsight I was being palmed off with a feeble excuse, and so I was, as it is still impossible to enter data for UK equities in GBP, our own currency!

TO THIS DAY, SOME TWO AND A HALF MONTHS LATER, UK CLIENTS CAN NOT SET UP OR BACK TEST PORTFOLIOS FOR UK EQUITIES.

How do I know this, Well I went on and paid my subscription, yes foolishly, in the hope that the TWO MAJOR INADIQUICES WITH THE UK VECTOR VEST SYSTEM WOULD BE RESOLVED.

The Second problem, and one very important to me was I am unable to use the system on my laptop. I trade all overt the place; on my boat, on the train, in the City of London, in Devon, in fact wherever the fancy takes me! I connect using the very common Huawei e220 broadband USB dongle and can connect through either the T-Mobile or 3 services. I have tested this problem on three different laptops, all to no avail.

My initial email to them went thus;

“Another problem I am having; Whilst trying view VV stock viewer, research and my saved watch lists from my laptop I can not access any of the mentioned. Whilst out and about my laptop is connected to the internet via a Huawei E220 USB modem. ( Whilst at home using the same laptop it has a wireless connection to my normal ADSL router modem and there is not a problem). Using windows XP pro on a 1.4GHz Pentium m. I have removed then re-installed VV to no avail. I get the error messages 13, 91 and 2147467259. It is important to my purchase of VV that I can use all the facilities whilst connected to the internet using a HSDPA usb modem, away from home, as I trade in the most peculiar of places!Many thanks for your attentions to this matter.”

Quite simply it has been impossible to access data, watch lists, strategies and searches that I have set up on my home computer whilst using my laptop. These being the crux of the product, I wonder what exactly I am paying for. As I have absolutely no issues using any other product, Java or not, on my laptop I was a little perturbed to get he response that it was due to my ISP using data compression? Well if other software works then why is it that Vector Vest do not re-write some coding in their product and get it to work rather than blaming my ISP,s. Again I feel palmed off. Vector Vest “support” did reply twice to help me but when their suggestions did not work they have TOTALLY GIVEN UP OFFERING ANY FURTHER HELP to the extent of ignoring me all together, not a good move from VV!

Its not often that we British take the time and trouble to complain. This has taken me the best part of two hours to warn others that this software does not work properly for the UK and about the absolutely dismal so called support from Vector Vest. The product itself looks useful but it is NOT IN ANY WAY READY FOR RELEASE ON THE UK MARKET. It should be withdrawn until it is properly tested.

If anyone does have any answers or has experienced the same problems please do let us all know, perhaps we can enlighten the "experts" (LOL) at VectorVest.

UNTIL THEN

It is your money and your decision, but I would not recommend this product to anyone.

 

[honestsid]

Latest Update ... A few months ago Vectorvest banned me from the yahoo user group, not directly, no they haven't told me that I am banned but my questions regarding the above to other yahoo vector vest users are never posted. The moderator, probably a vectorvest employee or someone in the pocket of vectorvest will not allow my postings. Very democratic eh chaps!!! Ah well if you have a duff product and cant repair it then just ban the complainant, the easy way out, and it means you can retain your income stream. In medieval times I would have probably been silenced in another way. And I thought US companies were at the forefront of the worlds customer relation revaluation, suppose vectorvest are going backwards, like property prices. You makes your choice and pays yer money. My subscription is canceled.