Fundemental Analysis Tips

sp0om said: "I have a very poor understanding of fundemental analysis and would like very much to improve. PE ratios I understand and use. But what other ratios and figures should I be looking at? How do you go about your fundemental analysis for long term trades (and short term for that matter)? Thanks and enjoy the weekend everyone."

LongHauLRunner said: "The more positive figures it has on its financial summary the better off you will be. Return on Assets and Equity is a good display of how shareholder funds are being used and deployed. If those are in positive figures, that's a good start. Check out the trailing P/E and Forward P/E and make sure that the forward P/E ratio is lower (indicating more profitability). And for liquidity, the best indicator thereof is volume, and keep an eye on its charts to identify your entry and exit."

sp0om said: "Financial summary meaning Income Statement, Balance Sheet, and Cash Flow (That's what is listed under "financials on the Yahoo! finance site"). And volume is something that has always been beyond me. Apart from being able to connect high volume and big price movements, volume has been a mystery to me. Of course you can tell after a big price movement that the volume was a big indication of it, but how can you discern a meaningful volume spike from an unmeaningful volume spike as it is happening? Also, what kind of time frame do you look at volume? By the day? Week? Minute?"