Investing 6 Things To Look for When Buying Stock Answer these questions to understand whether you're making a good choice. By Joshua Kennon Joshua Kennon Joshua Kennon is an expert on investing, assets and markets, and retirement planning. He is the managing director and co-founder of Kennon-Green & Co., an asset management firm. learn about our editorial policies Updated on March 11, 2022 Reviewed by Erika Rasure Reviewed by Erika Rasure Erika Rasure is globally-recognized as a leading consumer economics subject matter expert, researcher, and educator. She is a financial therapist and transformational coach, with a special interest in helping women learn how to invest. learn about our financial review board Fact checked by Lakshna Mehta In This Article View All In This Article What Is the Company's Value? The Importance of Market Cap Price-to-Earnings Ratio If the Company's Buying Back Stock Your Reasons for Investing Prepare to Own the Stock for Years Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) Photo: Jose Luis Pelaez Inc / Getty Images New investors are often interested in buying a company's stock, but they're unsure whether it will be a good asset in their portfolios. Some factors can help you illuminate the better candidates and weed out those that might not be appropriate for you, from how long you plan to own the stock to the company's value. Key Takeaways Learning to use a company's market cap can help you avoid overpaying for an investment.A declining number of shares, but the same profit, might indicate more value for an investor.Look for long-term investments with good price-to-earnings ratios.Make sure you evaluate your reasons for buying a stock before you make the purchase. What Is the Company's Value? It's vital that you look at more than just the current share price when you're doing research. Check out the price of the entire company. The "cost" of acquiring the whole corporation is called "market capitalization," or "market cap" for short. It's the total value of the company's outstanding stock shares, including restricted shares held by the company and publicly traded shares. Multiply the number of shares by the current stock price. It's known as the corporation's "enterprise value" when you add its debt on top of it. In short, the market cap is the price of all outstanding shares of common stock multiplied by the quoted price per share at any given moment in time. Note A business with one million shares outstanding and a stock price of $75 per share would have a market cap of $75 million: 1,000,000 shares outstanding X $75 per share price = $75,000,000 market capitalization. The Importance of Market Cap This market capitalization test can help you avoid overpaying for a stock. Consider the case of eBay and General Motors at the turn of the millennium. eBay had the same market cap as the entire General Motors Corporation at one point during the boom. To put that into perspective, General Motors Corporation made $4.5 billion in net income in fiscal year 2000, while eBay made only $48.3 million, not including stock option expense. But you would have paid the same amount were you to buy either one. Note It's almost unbelievable that any investor would pay the same price for both companies, but the general public was seduced by visions of quick profits and easy cash at the time. Price-to-Earnings Ratio Another useful tool to gauge the relative cost of a stock is the price-to-earnings ratio (P/E). You can calculate it by dividing the price per share by per-share earnings. This provides a valuable standard of comparison for alternative investment opportunities. Is the Company Buying Back Its Stock? One of the most critical keys to investing is understanding that overall corporate growth isn't as important as per-share growth. A company could have the same profit, sales and revenue for five consecutive years, but create substantial returns for investors by reducing the total number of its outstanding shares. Think of your investment as a large pizza. Each slice represents one share of stock. Would you rather have one piece of the same pizza that was cut into twelve slices or one piece of the one that was cut into eight slices? The pizza that was only split into eight pieces will have bigger pieces. The same principle is true in business. A shareholder should look for a management team with an active policy of reducing the number of outstanding shares if alternative uses of capital aren't as attractive. That makes each investor's stake in the company bigger. Each share represents a higher percentage of ownership in the profits and assets of the business when the corporate "pie" is cut into fewer pieces. What Are Your Reasons for Investing? Ask yourself why you're interested in investing in a particular business before you add a company's share of stock to your investment portfolio. It's dangerous to fall in love with a corporation and buy it solely because you feel fondly for its products or people. The best company in the world is a lousy investment if you pay too much for it. Note Ensure that the fundamentals of the company—current price, profits, and good management—are the only reasons you're investing. Everything else is based on your emotions. Emotion leads to speculation rather than intelligent investing. Remove your feelings from the equation, and select your investments based on the cold, hard data. Your goal should be capital appreciation and healthy dividend payments. That requires patience and the willingness to walk away from a potential stock position if it doesn't appear to be fairly valued or undervalued. Be Willing To Own the Stock for 10 to 25 Years or More Buy shares in a company, and go in with the intention of forgetting about them for the next 10 years, or five years at the absolute minimum. Professional money managers attempt to beat the markets all the time, but most fail to do so, year after year. One likely way to success has historically been to select a great company, pay as little as possible for the initial stake, begin a dollar-cost-averaging program, reinvest the dividends, and leave the position alone for several decades. Of course, all of this is more easily said than done when the market plummets due to unforeseen circumstances. Experts maintain that you should try to avoid panic and wait it out when at all possible. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) What should you look for when buying dividend stocks? The most obvious metric to look for when choosing dividend stocks is the dividend yield, which tells you how much you might expect in income for every dollar you invest in a company. Another key aspect to consider is the "dividend growth rate" or the rate at which you can expect your dividend income to grow every year. It's also a good idea to consider the price action of the stock so you can avoid buying volatile stocks with downside potential that could eat into your overall returns. What should a day trader look for when they're buying stocks? Day traders will have a very different set of criteria for buying stocks than those outlined here. Metrics that touch on business fundamentals, such as the price-to-earnings ratio, don't matter to a trader who plans to hold the stock for only a few hours. Instead, a day trader is more likely to be concerned about technical indicators on a stock's volume, volatility, and momentum. Highly volatile stocks with lots of trading volume and clear directional momentum could present good day trading opportunities. Was this page helpful? Thanks for your feedback! Tell us why! Other Submit Sources The Balance uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy. Securities and Exchange Commission. "General Motors Corporation Form 8-K." eBay Inc. "eBay Inc. Announces Fourth Quarter and Year End 2000 Financial Results."