Yes.

No! The model is constructed in such a way that you won't be bothered with editing formulas or calculating ratios. Everything is done for you automatically. The only thing you need to do is interpreting the ratios correctly and - if you wish - fill in your own values. You can do the latter by using the yellow fields in a worksheet. This way you can change values the model uses to calculate the valuation ratios in the upper worksheet row, like the current price, the expected EPS Growth and the P/E-ratios.

That is correct. The data in our model - the current prices and earnings estimates - are updated quarterly, because we know from experience that a higher update frequency doesn't add value to users. Besides our monthly update we update the historical key data (data from the company's annual reports) every year as soon as thes data are published.

You can conclude from the above that the share prices are only updated once a month. The price in the worksheets therefore is the share price at the last update moment. Updates take place every first weekend of a month.

You can calculate the expected priceranges and valuation ratios by filling in the current price in the yellow import field. Be aware that you must use a comma as decimal seperator.

High dividends are nice to shareholders, but we don't take them into account for two reasons. First of all we believe that returns on your stock investments are mainly determined by rising share prices and far less by paid out dividends.

Besides that our opinion is that a company's dividend policy doesn't say anything about the stock's strength. A high payout-ratio - in other words a high percentage of the company's profit that is paid out as dividend to shareholders - is attractive. It's cash that you become independent on stock performances. A low payout-ratio or even a payout-ratio that is 0 means that the company uses the restrained dividends to improve the company's balance sheet or to invest in growth. And this can be just as positive as a high payout-ratio. Hence our neutral attitude with respect to a company's dividend policy.

Reason for this is that not all the data in our model is shown online. Online you will find only historical data of the last 5 years. The actual model covers for most stocks more than 10 years of historical data. And the growth percentages are based on these data.

We use analyst earning estimates in our model. If these estimates are not available, the EPS estimates are solely determined by the calculated EPS Growth. We consider this as less reliable compared to analyst estimates, because analysts base their estimates on insight in the company's ongoing business and strategy whereas the model's EPS Growth percentage is merely based on historic performance.

If a worksheet states that "sufficient data are unavailable", this means that we don't possess enough historical data or that we have serious doubts about the correctness of the available data. This way we may prevend you from making a ill informed decision.

It is indeed correct that the NAIC-methodology - which is the source of our variant - evaluates the company's management. The way this is done however is rather debatable.

Two important indications the NAIC-methodology uses to evaluate management's competence are:

1. A company's profit margin development, where the profit margin is a company's net income devided by it's revenues. The evaluation of this development is however also advised in our variant: it is recommended to examine how realistic the calculated EPS Growth is by comparing this growth with the calculated SPS Growth. When earnings increase at the samen rate as sales, the profit margin stays the same. This is an indication the company's growth is healthy and that costs are under control.
2. The development of the Return on Equity (ROE). This ratio is unmistakenly an important one, but to derive this ratio from annual report data is very unreliable, because the outcome depends on which accounting standard is used.

   The ROE reveals how much profit a company generates with the money shareholders have invested. Obviously this is an important ratio, because it indicates the management's capability of making profits of your invested dollars. However, some components of the company's balance sheet can be accounted differently, although international standardisation is improving. For example: a company acquires another company and uses it's owners' equity to pay goodwill. The goodwill that is payed can as a whole be booked at once as a fixed asset, but it can also be booked as a fixed asset over several years (as the acquired value depriciates over a period of time). In the first case the ROE will be higher, because earnings will rise related to the owners' equity. But the profitibilaty will be the same in noth cases.

   We therefore recommend to determine the development of a stock's owners' equity and relate this development to earnings increase (EPS Growth). It's a good sign when these two developments are similar. A strong increase of earnings combined with a steady or decreasing owners' equity should rise suspicion.

This is partially true and has also to do with different accounting standards that companies use (see the question above). Recent developments in internation regulation on this area has however lead to an increased level of standardisation.

So we believe that the NAIC-methodology is a very useful methodology, in spite of the fact that the comparability between stocks and the reliability of the data cannot be fully guaranteed. For this reason we always recommend to carefully spread your portfolio.

We certainly advise you to also use technical indicators, but only to determine the right moment to buy or sell. And when you are only interested to invest on the short term (shorter than 0,5 years), you are probably better of with technical analysis tools. However, for a solid investment - that are not needed to be watched over on a daily basis - insight in the company's fundamentals is essential.

It is true that technical analysts also use indicators on the long term, such as support and resistance levels and the long term MACD indicator. But these indicators are a logical consequence of the company's fundamentals. If these fundamentals are good, eventually the long term price trend will become positive and this will atract other investors.

Yes and no. Macro economic developments are important, but eventually it's the economic situation on a company's level that counts. It is natural however that macro economic developments are reflected in companies' earnings estimates. If the economic stituation in a region is bad, it is difficult for a company to maintain high profits on the long run.

To answer the first part of the question: Options are - next to for example shares and obligations - an investment instrument. It's an instrument that can be used to anticipate on price falls (put options), to accelerate gains (leverage) or to reduce risks (tripods). So there isn't one answer on the question whether it is wise to invest in options. It depends on what you want to achieve with your investment. But be sure you really find out the ins and outs. It prevents you from big dissapointments.

Then the second part of the question. On this site we consider options as stockoptions. There we assume of this also. If you trade in options, the gains or losses you make are mainly caused by the increase or decrease of the option's underlying shares. And as you know by now the NAIC/WT-model is made just to forecast this.

So remember: trading in options is - just like the trade in shares - meaningless when you don't have an idea of the direction the stock price moves in.