From the Back Cover
From the information source trusted by more than one million investors-- vital facts and figures on today's corporate giants
The Standard & Poor's 500 index is the most watched index in America--if not the world! Microsoft ... McDonald's ... Wal-Mart Stores ... these are the largest of the large-cap stocks, the true anchors of the American economy.
Whether you're an individual investor looking to make a smart stock purchase, an executive researching corporate competitors, or a job seeker looking for concise and up-to-the-minute overviews of potential employers, you'll find the critical, often hard-to-find information you need in Standard & Poor's 500 Guide, 2004 Edition. Easy-to-use and packed with market intelligence on all 500 of the companies listed in the S&P 500 Index, this authoritative reference includes:
- Well-researched buy, sell, or hold recommendations from S&P's analysts
- Summaries of each company's business activity, sales history, and recent developments
- Company addresses, telephone numbers, and websites
- Names of key corporate directors
- Earnings and dividends data, with three-year price charts
- Important income and balance sheet statistics
- Exclusive Standard & Poor's Quality rankings (from A+ to D)
In addition, unique at-a-glance charts detail:
- Stocks with A+ earnings and dividend (Quality) rankings
- Companies with five consecutive years of earnings increases--a key bellwether of strong long-term performance!
- Companies with 10 consecutive years of increasing dividends
- Low-priced stocks poised to break out
- Stocks that couple low P/Es with high growth rates
Put the comprehensive, updated data and analysis expertise of the world's premier securities information firm at your fingertips, with the Standard & Poor's 500 Guide, 2004 Edition.
About the Author
Standard & Poor's, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., is the nation's leading securities information company. It provides a broad range of financial services, including the respected Standard & Poor's ratings and stock rankings, advisory services, data guides, and the most closely watched and widely reported gauges of stock market activity--the S&P 500, S&P MidCap 400, S&P SmallCap 600, and S&P Super Composite 1500 stock price indices. Standard & Poor's products are marketed around the world and used extensively by both financial professionals and individual investors.
