Which stock website shows historical numbers like 10 year P/E ratios, EPS, ROE, and debt?

Question

I'd like to buy stocks the Buffet way--by looking at a company's performance over the past 10 years to determine if it's got a competitive advantage and has consistent earnings and then buying low. I just can't find the right website yet. Yahoo and MSN offer just P/E, EPS, etc dating back 1 year or just a few years back.
Is there a website that will give me those numbers going back 10 years? That would help me determine if it has consistent earnings. It doesn't have to be a free service but if it's a free site, that would be even better. Thanks.

Answer 1

Fidelity and TD Ameritrade both have S&P stock sheets that show this data going back 10 years for most stocks. Not all stocks but most stocks. Each sheet is a two page encapsilation of the fundamental data for the stock going back 10 years for each year.

Answer 2

P/E is related to ROE from the equation P/E = 1/ROE (Assuming there is no growth). In your example, 1/100 = 0.01, the ROE is 0.009 < 0.01 which may be due to riskier cash flows to shareholders (A lower P/E than 1/roe may result from companies with riskier cash flows to shareholders). High P/E ratio arises from either when there is low EPS (Price/EPS), or from the fact that since it is a reciprocal of ROE and if the ROE is small, the P/E will be huge. High P/E can also suggest that investors are expecting higher earnings growth in the future compared to companies with a lower P/E. Negative P/E is usually non-applicable in valuation (It can arise from negative Price (quite impossible) or negative Earnings (company making a loss)). EPS tells u the amount of earnings that are paid out per share. Can sometimes be shown as EPS = (Net income - preferred dividend) / outstanding common shares. Low EPS can mean that either the Retention ratio is high, or earnings are low (High retaining earnings can allow the firm to expand). You may want to link EPS with dividend, to get the Dividend payout ratio = Dividends(per share) / EPS. Mature companies tend to have a higher Dividend payout ratio. The payout ratio provides an idea of how well earnings support the dividend payments. All credits go to the sources. I'm just facilitating the matching of answers to the question. Joining up the dots. Hope i cleared some of your doubts.

Answer 3

I don't know of any free sites, but you can subscribe to the Value Line Investment Survey. They have an online version. It has all of the information you're looking for and more. However, it costs a pretty penny (You can find hard copy versions at most libraries. They do offer the Dow 30 Investment Report for free. Follow first link below for that.

Answer 4

I've found AdvFN to be the most comprehensive on quarterly and annual financial statement (and derived) data. Here's a link to the data for IBM as an example:

http://www.advfn.com/p.php?pid=financials&btn=annual_reports&symbol=NYSE%3AIBM

Also, severals "tools based" websites on value investing that you may find of use:

http://www.ruleoneforum.com
http://charts.grahaminvestor.com/
http://bmwmethod.com/index.php
http://invest.kleinnet.com/bmw1/intro.html

Answer 5

yahoo finance is the best