Standard & Poor’s 500 Guide, 2011 Edition

This is a very big paperback—8 ½” x 11”, more than 1000 pages, and weighing in at about 4.5 lbs. With so much information available online, why would anyone need this book? I can think of several compelling reasons.

First, a personal preference: I enjoy flipping through pages, making serendipitous discoveries. I don’t have the same kind of experience online since I normally am looking for something specific, not just seeing what comes my way.

Second, the two pages devoted to each company in the S&P 500 are jam-packed with data, including ten years of company financials (per share data, income statement analysis, and balance sheet and other financial data), five years of revenue and earnings per share, and the five most recent dividend payments. The summary of the company’s business is also more analytical than the run-of-the-mill online fare.

Third, and taking up almost half of the space allocated to each company, is proprietary S&P information, ranging from analysts’ reports to the famous five-star system of investment recommendations. The analysts’ reports, I should note, are not especially timely; some date back to July and the most recent are from October. The book seems to have gone to press in late October; most of the closing prices are from October 22.

Other data include S&P’s qualitative risk assessment, its quantitative evaluation, and each company’s relative strength rank. There is also a price chart from June 2007 through October 2010 overlaid with S&P proprietary metrics.

For the reader who cannot live without stock screens, the book provides lists of companies with five consecutive years of earnings increases, stocks with A+ rankings, rapid growth stocks, and fast-rising dividends.

The book is somewhat unwieldy to handle (it’s definitely best read on a desk, which I personally find awkward), but this is a small price to pay for the amount of information available.