The Best Stock Research Tools for 2023
The Bear Cave spent dozens of hours finding the best resources for professional investors. None of these are paid endorsements and we receive no affiliate commissions; this list is based solely on our experience using the products and user reviews. We hope you enjoy this list — The Bear Cave will be back with our regular newsletter this Sunday.
A+ Free Resources
SEC Full-Text Search — Search through 20 years of SEC filings for specific terms, people, or entities. The Bear Cave commonly uses this tool to see every instance where a person’s name was mentioned in a SEC filing
PCAOB Auditor Search — Find the auditor and specific audit partner for any company, as well as their track record. Use the search bar in the top right and click auditor search
SocialBlade — Track social media growth of a company or individual
Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions FDD database – Find nearly any Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD) for franchisors that do business in Wisconsin. For example, view McDonald’s FDD here (downloadable at the bottom of the page)
OpenCorporates — Quickly find the executives, board members, or state registration for private businesses
Wayback Machine — A non-profit that regularly archives millions of the most visited sites. Use it to see how a site or specific webpage changed over time
ROIC AI — 30 years of financial statements available for free
IBorrowDesk — Website with borrow rates and short availability on any stock
ShortSqueeze — Data on short interest
Twitter Advanced Search — Use Twitter Advanced Search to find a particular account’s most popular tweets or anytime that account mentioned a specific stock
r/SecurityAnalysis — Wide collection of recent hedge fund investor letters
10x EBITDA — A compilation of every hedge fund activist presentation
OpenInsider — Tracks insider purchases and sales
SEC Press Releases — Ten years of press releases on SEC enforcement actions and other newsworthy items. Updated regularly
A+ Paid Resources
InsiderScore by Verity — Track and screen management changes, auditor changes, buybacks, insider transactions, and easily see a board member or executive’s history with other public companies ($)
Tegus — An awesome database that lets you find dozens of expert network calls on any company in seconds. Great for learning about any new company/industry. They have a great app too ($$$)
VisualPing — Get alerts for changes made to any website. For example, The Bear Cave occasionally uses VisualPing to see if a company changes executive bios or website disclosures (~$25/month)
TheTikr — A super convenient tool for financial data and earnings calls. Incredibly easy to use (~$15/month)
Bedrock AI — Cool early-stage software that extracts hard-to-find red flags from SEC filings ($)
Other Great Free Resources
CFPB Consumer Complaint Database — Searchable database of millions of consumer complaints to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
FTC Cases and Proceedings — Searchable database of ongoing or recently closed Federal Trade Commission actions
PACER — Find lawsuits against any company or individual
Glassdoor — Great way to search for ex-employee reviews of corporate culture
Blind — Anonymous professional network for tech company employees
SiteJabber — Wide collection of consumer reviews for online businesses
TrustPilot — Consumer review site
Reddit — Great for finding consumer reviews and gossip on a company
YouTube — Great for consumer reviews and general industry education
BBB — A non-profit consumer review and business accreditation site
Open Payments Data — Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services database to search payments made by drug and medical device companies to physicians for speaking fees, consulting fees, and meal reimbursements
CMS Drug Spending — Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services database to provide greater transparency on spending for drugs in the Medicare and Medicaid programs
Google Trends — Long-term trends in search volume for certain terms on Google
Diff10K — Cool early-stage tool to track changes in disclosures for a company’s 10-K from year to year
FOIA.gov — Explains how to use the Freedom of Information Act to get government records
CamelCamelCamel — Amazon price tracker
Zer0es TV — Free interviews with great investors and short-sellers
ListenNotes — Search all podcast transcripts for any word or phrase. Great for discovering industry-specific podcasts/experts
Quartr App — App that lets you listen to recordings of any earnings call
ValueInvestorsClub — Public platform to share stock write-ups
VIC Summaries — Free summaries of top Value Investors Club articles
PlotDigitizer — Upload any unlabeled chart and get an approximation for the data figures
Reverse WHOIS — See all the publicly registered domains owned by a particular company
StockPerks — An app that shows you perks companies offer their shareholders. For example, if you own more than 10 shares of Vital Farms (NASDAQ: VITL) you are entitled to a dozen free eggs every quarter
Dataroma — List of top hedge fund holdings
Finviz Industry Charts — Random stock chart generator by sector, good for randomly finding new ideas
Investor Letters & Famous Presentations
1,100-page PDF of all Charlie Munger letters available here
Warren Buffett Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letters 1977 to 2019. All available on this page (scroll to bottom for the PDF)
Nick Sleep Nomad Capital Shareholder Letters 2001 to 2014 all available here
François Rochon Giverny Capital investor letters from 2001 to 2021 available here
Michael Burry Scion Capital shareholder letters 2000 to 2006 available here
Bob Wilmers M&T Bank shareholder letters 1983 to 2016 available here
Benjamin Graham's Letters to Partners 1946 to 1958 available here
Peter Lynch news articles from the 1990s, scroll to the bottom of this page
Seven Sins of Portfolio Management, November 2005, 105-page PDF available here
The Walter Schloss Archive — writings from the late Walter Schloss available here
Blue Ridge Capital Reading List — Credit to John Zettler for sharing it publicly
“A Perspective on Leadership and Strategy” — Lecture from Andrew Clyde, CEO of Murphy USA (NYSE: MUSA), on capital allocation and business
“Confessions of a Capital Junkie” — A widely respected presentation by the late Sergio Marchionne on the automotive industry's value-destroying addiction to capital
“The Makings of a Multibagger” — Case studies on 104 of the best-performing companies over the last five years and their common characteristics, trends, and catalysts
“Financial Fraud Throughout History: a Forensic Approach” — Jim Chanos’ Yale class syllabus
The Vest Pocket CFO — a great book on financial accounting. Complete searchable PDF available here
Accounting Guide for Annual reports — publicly uploaded here
Evergreen Tweets
For new analysts, Brett Caughran has awesome Twitter threads on accounting, advice for analysts, pod shop investing strategies, getting a hedge fund job, having a good PM-analyst relationship, investment checklists, modeling, interview case studies, and much more
Great Podcasts
Bill Ackman on The Knowledge Project available here
Invest Like The Best — Ricky Sandler interview available here
Steve Cohen Point72 academy podcast (season 2, episode 6), available here
“Perry Boyle, Point72's x Leader & Senior Director on Managing A Long/Short Hedge Fund & Steve Cohen” — awesome February 2022 interview available here
Exposing Corporate Misconduct in the Golden Age of Fraud — Wealthion interview with Edwin Dorsey available here
More great podcast interviews with great investors are available here
Other Great Newsletters
Atlay Capital — Awesome Japanese microcap write-ups (currently free)
Bison Interests — Commentary on the oil and gas markets from investor Josh Young (free)
Dirty Bubble Media — Fearless reporting on the crypto frauds (free)
Generals and Workouts — Benjamin Graham style deep-value ideas (free)
Raging Capital Ventures — Entrepreneurship, small-caps, activism, and more from investor Bill Martin (free)
Treasure Hunting — Off-the-beaten-path microcaps (free)
Overlooked Alpha — Consistent small and mid-cap long and short ideas (free)
Asian Century Stocks — Great deep-dives on Asian equities ($349/year)
Doomberg — A source of economic, policy, and financial insights. If you’re dissatisfied with the status quo, Doomberg is for you ($300/year)
Neckar Value — Awesome newsletter with A+ investor profiles and general articles ($120/year)
NonGAAP Investing — An awesome newsletter on the dark arts of corporate governance ($340/year)
Petition — The must-read newsletter for any distressed debt investor ($599/year)
Special Situations Investments — An awesome newsletter on small-cap special situation ideas ($590/year). Read an Idea Brunch interview with the founder here
Stock Picking by Nat Stewart — A newsletter with off-the-beaten-path small and micro-cap ideas ($395/year)
Sunday’s Idea Brunch — A newsletter interview series where great investors share their best ideas ($70/year)
If you feel we missed anything important, please let us know and leave a comment!
Thank you for your support,
Edwin
P.S. If you are looking to consume some non-finance material, two of The Bear Cave’s favorite pieces of content are Craig Ferguson’s monologue on empathy and this great story about Charles Barkley and Lin Wang.
This is honestly the most useful list of resources I have seen yet. I wasn't aware of roic.ai - you just saved me a tremendous amount of time and money uploading data into excel!
Thanks for the shout out!