Page 481 - How to Make Money in Stocks Trilogy

How I Use IBD to Find Potential Winning Stocks 351

The Big Picture
The third feature I always check on page A1 is the “The Big Picture” column at
the bottom. It’s a fairly short but excellent summary of market action and key
developments. Inside the column is “Market Pulse,” a valuable box that notes
leaders that were up in volume for the day and those that were down. The pulse
also lets you know whether the market’s in an uptrend or a declining phase.
“The Big Picture” column is one of IBD’s most highly read features. Ded-
icated readers have repeatedly told us it has helped them immeasurably in
dissecting the general market. In fact, more than a thousand have given tes-
timonials on how it has helped them raise cash when the market began get-
ting difficult or determine when it was starting a major uptrend.

© 2009 Investor’s Business Daily, Inc.

Top Stories
Finally, I glance at the headlines on the main two front-page stories. I’m a
headline reader: if a story is on a subject I want to know about, I read it; if
not, I skip it and go to the next page.
The top stories will often show charts or tables. The one I’m looking at
has a table of 15 retailers. It shows sales changes for the month plus same-
store results and estimates for the future. This quickly tells me three com-
panies in the field are doing excellently, but many others aren’t.

To The Point
Page 2 saves a busy executive or investor time. Titled “To The Point,” it pro-
vides some 50 business briefs, arranged by industry sector, and short sum-
maries on the nation, the world, and the economy. I can quickly scan each
headline and read the briefs I’m interested in. There’s also a column called
“Trends and Innovations” that I always try to read to learn about the new
things that keep being invented in today’s society.