London: October 23 2012 was a dark day for many equity investors without internet access. At around tea time, the Ceefax service in Northern Ireland — the last part of the UK to switch to digital television — was turned off, taking with it the share prices of hundreds of companies. Its replacement, the digital “red button” service, features only the prices of FTSE 350 companies.
The share price listings in newspapers are not comprehensive, since these are paid-for services and not a regulatory requirement, and it is cheaper per-minute to call a pornographic chatline than to get share prices by phone.
The Annual Report Service, whose clover-leaf logo used to grace the share price pages, now takes orders over the internet only. Companies will generally still supply hard copies of annual reports, but some are more enthusiastic about doing so than others.
Most equity research is conducted over the internet, using a plethora of websites, forums and screening tools. However, there are still two reputable paper-based options. Investors Chronicle (part of the Financial Times group) covers a very wide range of UK quoted companies; an annual print-only subscription is £145 (call 01795 414 942). But the ultimate source of corporate detail is CompanyREFS, which combines key metrics with a valuation system devised by Jim Slater and covers all companies on the main market and Aim, except investment trusts. It’s still available in print format; telephone directory-sized tomes are dispatched either monthly (£930 a year) or quarterly (£335 a year).
— Financial Times
