Value Line Benefits:
- Detailed coverage and analysis of 1700 stocks
- Has historically outperformed the Dow 18 to 1
- Offers ratings and reviews, including the famous Timeliness and Safety ratings
- Both online and print versions available for trial (see below)
Value Line Investment Survey Trial Offers:
Special Offer (Online Edition):
Get Value Line for 13 Weeks for Just $65
Special Offer (Print & Online Edition):
Get Value Line for 13 Weeks for Just $75
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Stock newsletters come and go, and very few are able to demonstrate a track record that spans decades. The staff of Coupon Jungle has subscribed to and reviewed a number of stock market newsletters, and we urge the utmost caution when selecting one. A common problem is that many newsletters present past performance results which are calculated in ways that inflate returns (such as assuming that exits were made at the highest price point following a recommendation, something that in practice is nearly impossible to do). A general rule of thumb we follow is that if the returns claimed by a certain newsletter sound too good to be true, it usually is.
Long considered an indispensable research tool, the Value Line Investment Survey is one of the longest running and arguably best financial newsletter of all time. Value Line closely tracks 1700 stocks and 90 industries, and provides detailed analysis, charts, and commentary. All this is fine and good, but as an investor, you are probably most interested in how Value Line can make you money. While Value Line won’t turn you into an overnight millionaire, it does provide a highly trusted and reliable way to evaluate individual stocks.
At the core of Value Line’s system is something called the Timeliness rating. Stocks with a Timeliness rating of "1" are predicted to be the best performers in the next year, and in the past, these stocks have greatly outperformed the general market. In fact, if you had invested in Timeliness 1 stocks since 1965, your total returns would be 15,576% to date (compared to just 1165% for the S&P 500 and 1044% for the Dow). For a no-brainer system of trading stocks, this method stands out both for its extreme simplicity and moreover, for its ability to substantially outperform almost every other method of stock-picking.
The problem with Value Line, in the past, was that it was a rather voluminous and cumbersome newsletter to manage. A subscriber of Value Line had to maintain multiple heavy binders with thousands of pages, which are kept current by adding and replacing pages on a regular basis. Fortunately, the Internet has changed all this for the better. We highly recommend the online subscription to Value Line, which literally puts a wealth of top-notch research information at your fingertips, minus the hassle of maintaining binders on your own. In addition, you can quickly filter stocks using convenient and powerful online screening tools. The Value Line members area is a stock researcher’s dream come true, providing not only the esteemed Value Line rating system, but access to market commentary, individual stock reports, and model portfolios as well.
A financial newsletter as good as Value Line does not come cheap. A 1-year subscription to the Value Line Investment Survey costs over $500, but with over 100,000 subscribers, it is clear that serious investors are more than willing to pay this amount in return for the quality of information provided by Value Line. There is also a special 13-week trial, which is only $65 for the online edition, and $75 for people who order the print edition.
Is Value Line Worth the Price?
If you are using Value Line strictly for informational purposes, you may find that it is sufficient to just go to the library once a week to do your research. However, if you are an active investor with a sizeable trading account, you will find that the online tools offered by Value Line will save you both time and money, and greatly assist you in picking winning stocks.
As for the question of whether or not Value Line is worth the price, much of this would depend on your account size. Keep in mind, the historical returns of Timeliness 1 stocks is 13.8% annualized, as opposed to an S&P index benchmark of around 7.9% annualized. Therefore, if you were to do nothing but invest in Value Line Timeliness 1 stocks, you would, on average, make an extra 5.9% in returns each year. For any account over $10,000, you would easily cover the cost of the annual subscription with your increased returns. On an account of $100,000, you would make an average of $5900 more per year, and for such account-holders, the $500 annual subscription is well worth the price.
Value Line’s Historical Performance:
A newsletter is only as good as its performance. Value Line shines in this regard as it has a long history of delivering solid, consistent results. Below is a chart that shows how the Value Line ranking system has fared over the last few decades.
As you can see, Value Line Group 1 stocks do quite well in the long run, but the system does require patience since any given year may not perform as well as you would like. As long as you are a long-term investor with a reasonable investment time horizon of 5 years or more, you should do well using Value Line’s rankings as a basis for selecting your stocks.