5 ways to stay on top of the stocks you own — and ones you're looking to buy

Published Fri, Jul 1 202211:07 AM EDTUpdated Fri, Jul 1 202211:15 AM EDT

Kevin Stankiewicz @in/kevinstankiewicz @kevin_stank

Research is an essential task for any investor who wants to make money over time. This homework must occur before you buy the stock of a company — and, just as importantly, once you become a shareholder. Wall Street analysts publish steady streams of research notes intended for their base of professional clients. There's absolutely value in reading them, which is why we try to summarize as much of it as we can for Club members . While most individual investors cannot get their hands on the entire analyst notes, it's important to recognize they are just one information piece in the larger puzzle of investing wisely. There's so much essential information out there. A lot of it is free to access and can help you achieve your investment goals. This story aims to offer some ideas on where to starting looking. 1. Company filings One nice thing about investing in public stocks is that, by law, companies have to consistently report financial information. Among the most important are quarterly and annual reports, which under U.S. securities law are known as Form 10-Q and Form 10-K, respectively. Both reports contain the detailed financial information that investors must analyze at all stages of their stock ownership. Annual reports, in particular, are the best places to begin homework into a company you may invest in. It's important to scrutinize a few years' worth of annual reports, too. One reason they're so valuable is, in addition to quantitative financial info like income and cash-flow statements, they also include more explanatory sections on the company's operations, such as the business overview that kicks off every 10-K and the invaluable section titled "Management's Discussion and Analysis." This helps investors understand what a company does and how it makes money. Companies also will highlight risk factors in their annual reports, another valuable disclosure for investors. Quarterly reports shed light on financial performance with more regularity than just an annual report, so they also are essential in measuring the financial health of a company before buying its stock. For current shareholders, quarterly reports are absolutely critical to read and analyze because you need to keep track of your investment case for the company. Your reasoning for buying shares of a company may have been sound initially, but you can't tune out what happens with the business for months at a time. Long-term investors still need to track the quarter-by-quarter performance, so they don't miss material changes that dent their investment thesis and point to trouble ahead for the underlying business. This speaks to Jim Cramer's longtime mantra of "buy and homework" investing, not simply "buy and hold." There's two primary places to find quarterly and annual reports: a company's investor relations (IR) website and the Securities and Exchange Commission's searchable online database known as EDGAR . A simple Google search for " Salesforce IR website," for example, should do the trick. Each site is a little different, but once you're there, you'll see various tabs titled something like "Financial Information," "SEC Filings," "Leadership and Governance," and more. Within the "SEC Filings" page, you typically can filter the results by the type of filing, too, so it's easier to find exactly what you're looking for whether it's quarterly and annual reports, or also the latest Form 8-K updates . Companies file an 8-K whenever there's an event or announcement that could be relevant to shareholders. Another cool thing found on many (but not all) investor relations' websites is an email alerts feature, where you can signup to get SEC filings and sometimes other updates like event announcements straight to your inbox. On Nvidia 's IR website, for example, clicking on the "Investor Resources" will take you to the email alerts signup page. Investors can also utilize an "RSS Reader" to subscribe to SEC filings for the company's they wish to follow. 2. Earnings calls After a company reports its quarterly results, management hosts a conference call during which they talk about the numbers, potentially discuss forward-looking guidance, and typically field questions from analysts. These earnings calls are invaluable ways to learn about a company's performance and operations. It's also not a surprise when commentary issued during a call moves the stock because professional investors pay close attention to them. However, at the Club, we worry some individual investors may overlook them. We published in an in-depth breakdown earlier this year focused on what we look for when listening to a call. That piece is definitely worth checking out for help understanding the calls. For our purposes here, we want to provide a resource that can make it easier to find and listen to the calls: smartphone app Earnings Calls , which makes listening to a conference call pretty much as easy as listening to a podcast . CNBC contributor Josh Brown has called it his favorite app. You can also search around on companies' investor relations websites and track down the earnings webcast replays and listen back on your computer. 3. Earnings estimates Another earnings-related point we want to make is the value of having Wall Street estimates on hand when you look through the release. They're not gospel, to be sure, but they do matter in shaping how market participants think about a quarter — and, by extension, how a stock may trade in the near term. For an individual investor, being able to have a general idea of how a company did relative to expectations can help you understand whether a company is improving operationally or struggling. We always include Street estimates in our earnings analysis stories. However, we recognize it's possible your personal portfolio includes companies that are not in Jim's Charitable Trust, which is the basket of stocks we use for t