While there are plenty of free sources of “financial advice,” oftentimes the motivation behind these suggestions are pundits working to offload undesirable stocks.

On the other hand, VectorVest’s success is aligned with our customers—your success is ours. The guidance VectorVest provides doesn’t come from pundits or institutional investors, but rather from a refined mathematical model that takes into account market timing, stock value, and stock safety. VectorVest simplifies this data to allow subscribers to confidently know when to buy and sell.

VectorVest’s investing advice is based on mathematical models that provide guidance on what to buy and what to avoid, and when to do it.

VectorVest has a mix of private investors, money managers, brokers and financial advisers using the product successfully.

The bulk of our subscribers are individual investors. They are folks that have been involved in their own businesses and want to run their own portfolios. They tend to be financially sound and they have negative experiences giving their money to money managers and brokers without much success. So they turn to VectorVest for help.

VectorVest is the only system that analyzes, sorts and ranks stocks for value, safety and timing. We created a rating that we call VST – the value, safety, timing rating – which allows us to rank stocks from those that have the best combination of value, safety and timing to the worst. We have an analysis system where we measure 3 indicators–relative value, relative safety and relative timing–on a scale of 0-2, with 1 being the average.

If the rating is above 1 it is favorable and if the rating is below 1 it is unfavorable. What this allows our subscribers to do is find a stock then look at RV, RS, RT, and if the indicator is above 1, they know that is favorable.

These 3 indicators also very quickly tell you a lot about the stock. Whether it is a safe, under-valued stock that’s rising in price or whether it is a risky, overvalued stock that is falling in price. This system is what allows users to analyze stocks in seconds.

VectorVest analyzes a stock’s positive attributes (earnings, earnings growth, profitability) and negative attributes (interest rates, inflation) to determine its value. If the positive outweighs the negative, the value increases. Price moves towards value over time. If a stock is undervalued, its price will tend to rise over time to meet its value. If price is overvalued, its price will tend to reduce over time to meet its value.

As an investor we need to know if we should invest in a stock (where risk is involved) or invest in a safe investment such as a bond or CD (with a low-risk, fixed return). The Relative Value (RV) shows the long term price appreciation potential compared to an alternative investment into AAA corporate bonds.

Yes. While VectorVest is great at telling you when to buy, it’s also useful in knowing when to move to a cash position. For more advanced users, we also offer classes on shorting the market. Our savviest users have found that the market falls much faster than it rises, making for impressive short term profits.

Dollar cost averaging suggests buying stocks even as they’re going down in price, because hopefully the price will go back up. The problem is many stocks go down and never go back up. A JP Morgan study found that 40% of stocks since 1980 have suffered “catastrophic losses”, meaning declines of 70% or more without recovering.

We believe you should never buy a stock on the way down. Instead, we suggest waiting to buy when both the stock and the markets are going up—guidance that VectorVest provides daily. This allows you to buy low and sell high.