This week the U.S. market was down slightly as Americans digested electoral uncertainty along with their turkey. As we head into December, tax loss selling may create excellent buying opportunities. Be sure to keep an eye out for solid stocks that other investors are dumping. It's often dangerous for investors to take the results of a stock screening utility on blind faith.
Problems arise when the data presented is out of date, incorrect or incomplete.
Value investors, in particular, can be easily trapped. For instance, when selecting stocks with a high dividend yield, screening utilities may miss the announcement of a dividend cut. Instead, most utilities will show out of date results until a new dividend is actually paid. So watch out. It isn't only timeliness that posses problems but important qualitative features are also often overlooked.