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

1. 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

2. 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

3. SocialBlade — Track social media growth of a company or individual

4. 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)

5. OpenCorporates — Quickly find the executives, board members, or state registration for private businesses

6. 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

7. ROIC AI — 30 years of financial statements available for free

8. IBorrowDesk — Website with borrow rates and short availability on any stock

9. ShortSqueeze — Data on short interest

10. Twitter Advanced Search — Use Twitter Advanced Search to find a particular account’s most popular tweets or anytime that account mentioned a specific stock

11. r/SecurityAnalysis — Wide collection of recent hedge fund investor letters

12. 10x EBITDA — A compilation of every hedge fund activist presentation

13. OpenInsider — Tracks insider purchases and sales

14. SEC Press Releases — Ten years of press releases on SEC enforcement actions and other newsworthy items. Updated regularly

A+ Paid Resources

1. 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 ($)

2. 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 ($$$)

3. 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)

4. TheTikr — A super convenient tool for financial data and earnings calls. Incredibly easy to use (~$15/month)

5. Bedrock AI — Cool early-stage software that extracts hard-to-find red flags from SEC filings ($)

Other Great Free Resources

1. CFPB Consumer Complaint Database — Searchable database of millions of consumer complaints to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

2. FTC Cases and Proceedings — Searchable database of ongoing or recently closed Federal Trade Commission actions

3. PACER — Find lawsuits against any company or individual

4. Glassdoor — Great way to search for ex-employee reviews of corporate culture

5. Blind — Anonymous professional network for tech company employees

6. SiteJabber — Wide collection of consumer reviews for online businesses

7. TrustPilot — Consumer review site

8. Reddit — Great for finding consumer reviews and gossip on a company

9. YouTube — Great for consumer reviews and general industry education

10. BBB — A non-profit consumer review and business accreditation site

11. 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

12. CMS Drug Spending — Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services database to provide greater transparency on spending for drugs in the Medicare and Medicaid programs

13. Google Trends — Long-term trends in search volume for certain terms on Google

14. Diff10K — Cool early-stage tool to track changes in disclosures for a company’s 10-K from year to year

15. FOIA.gov — Explains how to use the Freedom of Information Act to get government records

16. CamelCamelCamel — Amazon price tracker

17. Zer0es TV — Free interviews with great investors and short-sellers

18. ListenNotes — Search all podcast transcripts for any word or phrase. Great for discovering industry-specific podcasts/experts

19. Quartr App — App that lets you listen to recordings of any earnings call

20. ValueInvestorsClub — Public platform to share stock write-ups

21. VIC Summaries — Free summaries of top Value Investors Club articles

22. PlotDigitizer — Upload any unlabeled chart and get an approximation for the data figures

23. Reverse WHOIS — See all the publicly registered domains owned by a particular company

24. 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

25. Dataroma — List of top hedge fund holdings

26. Finviz Industry Charts — Random stock chart generator by sector, good for randomly finding new ideas

Investor Letters & Famous Presentations

1. 1,100-page PDF of all Charlie Munger letters available here

2. Warren Buffett Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letters 1977 to 2019. All available on this page (scroll to bottom for the PDF)

3. Nick Sleep Nomad Capital Shareholder Letters 2001 to 2014 all available here

4. François Rochon Giverny Capital investor letters from 2001 to 2021 available here

5. Michael Burry Scion Capital shareholder letters 2000 to 2006 available here

6. Bob Wilmers M&T Bank shareholder letters 1983 to 2016 available here

7. Benjamin Graham's Letters to Partners 1946 to 1958 available here

8. Peter Lynch news articles from the 1990s, scroll to the bottom of this page

9. Seven Sins of Portfolio Management, November 2005, 105-page PDF available here

10. The Walter Schloss Archive — writings from the late Walter Schloss available here

11. Blue Ridge Capital Reading List — Credit to John Zettler for sharing it publicly

12. “A Perspective on Leadership and Strategy” — Lecture from Andrew Clyde, CEO of Murphy USA (NYSE: MUSA), on capital allocation and business

13. “Confessions of a Capital Junkie” — A widely respected presentation by the late Sergio Marchionne on the automotive industry's value-destroying addiction to capital

14. “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

15. “Financial Fraud Throughout History: a Forensic Approach” — Jim Chanos’ Yale class syllabus

16. The Vest Pocket CFO — a great book on financial accounting. Complete searchable PDF available here

17. Accounting Guide for Annual reports — publicly uploaded here

Evergreen Tweets

Hidden Monopolies @SwitchCost

Pro tip: When researching a company, try this in Google: [COMPANY NAME] filetype:pdf site:.gov You will be suprised what kind of docs you will find !

Dirty Texas Hedge @HedgeDirty

A GENTLEMAN’S PRIMER ON SHORTING INSOLVENT SHITCOS So you’ve found a ShitCo. It’s such an ugly zombie it couldn’t be an extra in season 19 of The Walking Dead But it’s still got a $185m cap And you want to be the one to mung the last rancid, putrefying drops out of that corpse

Edwin Dorsey @StockJabber

FinTwit Red Flag Checklist What else should be added?

Daniel S. Loeb @DanielSLoeb1

Anyone interested in business excellence should study Danaher $DHS and its Business System, DBS. This single page from their website and accompanying video is more valuable than a two year MBA. danaher.com/how-we-work/da…

Brian Feroldi (🧠,📈) @BrianFeroldi

The most useful SEC filings are: 1⃣ 10-K (Annual Report) 2⃣ DEF 14a (Proxy) 3⃣ 424b4 (Post-IPO Data & Financials) Here’s a handy cheat sheet of the rest:

Blake Burge @blakeaburge

10 (all new) must-have Excel skills everyone should know: 📊

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

1. Atlay Capital — Awesome Japanese microcap write-ups (currently free)

2. Bison Interests — Commentary on the oil and gas markets from investor Josh Young (free)

3. Dirty Bubble Media — Fearless reporting on the crypto frauds (free)

4. Generals and Workouts — Benjamin Graham style deep-value ideas (free)

5. Raging Capital Ventures — Entrepreneurship, small-caps, activism, and more from investor Bill Martin (free)

6. Treasure Hunting — Off-the-beaten-path microcaps (free)

7. Overlooked Alpha — Consistent small and mid-cap long and short ideas (free)

8. Asian Century Stocks — Great deep-dives on Asian equities ($349/year)

9. Doomberg — A source of economic, policy, and financial insights. If you’re dissatisfied with the status quo, Doomberg is for you ($300/year)

10. Neckar Value — Awesome newsletter with A+ investor profiles and general articles ($120/year)

11. NonGAAP Investing — An awesome newsletter on the dark arts of corporate governance ($340/year)

12. Petition — The must-read newsletter for any distressed debt investor ($599/year)

13. Special Situations Investments — An awesome newsletter on small-cap special situation ideas ($590/year). Read an Idea Brunch interview with the founder here

14. Stock Picking by Nat Stewart — A newsletter with off-the-beaten-path small and micro-cap ideas ($395/year)

15. 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.