SPREDGAR - Stock Market Investment Software

Color-coded SIC Comparisons of Key Financial Ratios
SPREDGAR V4 now supports color-coding of each ratio and how it compares with its SIC benchmark. It makes it easy to tell at a glance how a company is doing with respect to its peers, and in what areas. Here's how it works:

Threshold. Ratios 10% (default) over the benchmark or 10% under the benchmark are of interest. You may change this threshold using the SPREDGAR options dialog.

Yellow. A yellow cell indicates that the ratio is within 10% of the benchmark.

Green. A green cell indicates that the ratio is 10% "better" than the benchmark. Usually this means "higher", although with some ratios are "better" if they are lower (such as debt to equity).

Red. A red cell indicates that the ratio is 10% "worse" than the benchmark. Usually this means "lower", although with some ratios are "worse" if they are higher (such as debt to equity).

Example. Take a look at part of WalMart's SPREDGARized 10-K filing as of 12/31/2003:

	Gross margin. WalMart's Gross Margin is more than 10% less than it's benchmark of 28.0% for SIC 5311 (Department Stores). In this case, 10% of 28% is 2.8%, so anything under 25.2% merits a "red flag."
	Operating margin, pretax and after-tax margins are all within 10% of the benchmark, and thus merit a "yellow" (OK) cell.
	All the rest of the ratios beat the benchmark, in some cases by a substantial margin. The SGNA (selling, general, and administrative) ratio is more than 25% less than the benchmark. So that helps to explain how WalMart can have significantly lower gross margins, and yet be much more profitable than its peers.

Gordon Gerwig, founder of Spredgar Software, has a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley and an M.B.A. in Finance from the University of California at Davis. Gordon Gerwig and Spredgar Software have been written up in Online Investing for Dummies, Online Investing Hacks, and in the Innovator, the U.C. Davis Graduate School of Management's alumni magazine. Gordon is an individual investor and a member of the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII). He is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER, a Licensed International Financial Analyst (LIFA) , and is an associate member of the CFA Institute. He has worked in financial services as a advisor for Morgan Stanley and American Express. He has experience in small business lending, valuation and consulting. Spredgar Software's mission is to provide unbiased financial investment data through Excel add-in software for the private investor, the professional analyst, and the academic.

Color-coded SIC Comparisons of Key Financial Ratios SPREDGAR V4 now supports color-coding of each ratio and how it compares with its SIC benchmark. It makes it easy to tell at a glance how a company is doing with respect to its peers, and in what areas. Here's how it works:

Color-coded SIC Comparisons of Key Financial Ratios
SPREDGAR V4 now supports color-coding of each ratio and how it compares with its SIC benchmark. It makes it easy to tell at a glance how a company is doing with respect to its peers, and in what areas. Here's how it works: