There’s no formula that finds a sure winner, and i-wise won’t tell you what to buy. What it can do is help you check a company properly before your money goes in, and keep checking afterwards. Here’s a path through the portal, from a whole market to a company you understand. The pages linked below are inside the portal: create a free account or log in to open them.
First: make sure you’re ready to invest at all; see Before you invest. Money you’ll need within a few years is usually better kept out of shares.
1. Look at the market as a whole
Open Markets Today (Research → Stock market) to see how the Indian and US markets are doing. A share that fell today may simply have fallen with everything else.
2. Narrow it down: sectors, or the screener
By sector: Sector Analysis shows each sector, largest first, with its growth over the last year in green or red. Open a sector you understand for its sub-sectors, and a sub-sector for its companies, largest first.
By health: Find healthy stocks lists the companies whose fundamentals are healthy, and optionally whose price is in an uptrend or that analysts rate a buy, in a market or sector you choose.
Either way, aim for a short list of two or three companies whose business you can explain in a sentence.
3. Check each company on Stock Health
Open a company and read its At a glance line at the top, then go through the tabs:
- Fundamental Analysis: its numbers, each graded Healthy, Caution or RED FLAG, with a plain explanation. Red flags deserve a careful read; several are a warning (see Reading a company’s health).
- Technical Signals: whether the price trend is up, mixed or down (see what they can and can’t tell you).
- Analysts: what professional analysts rate it, and their price targets.
- Fair Value: what the share may be worth by a few standard methods, against today’s price.
- Competition: the same health check for its rivals; a good company may have better ones beside it.
- Recent News: the latest headlines, green for good news and red for bad.
A careful buyer usually wants a healthy company, without red flags, at a sensible price, ideally better than its rivals. A rising trend and analysts’ approval are useful extra signs, not reasons on their own.
4. Write down why: the Workbook
Save the company to your Workbook (the icon beside the tabs on Stock Health) and write your view: why you like it or not, marked Selected, Rejected or Still deciding. Writing it down keeps you honest later.
5. Practise first, if you’re new
Paper Trading lets you buy it with virtual money at real prices and see how your choice would do, without risking anything.
6. Plan the purchase, not just the pick
In Plan your stock investment set a budget, a buying target (the price you’d buy at), a selling target, and how much to invest, in steps if you like (tranches). Turn on “Email me” to hear when the price comes near a target. i-wise also re-checks the company’s fundamentals every week and warns you if they weaken before you buy.
7. Buy, record it, and keep watching
When the price reaches your target and you buy through your broker, press Bought on the plan to record it on Transactions. Your Dashboard then shows it in your holdings and the portfolio heatmap, flags it when a target price is reached, and tells you each week if its fundamentals get weaker or stronger.
This is a way of checking, not advice to buy or sell any share. Past figures don’t guarantee future returns.
General information for education, not investment, tax or financial advice. Rules, rates and limits change: check the official sources before acting, and consider a SEBI-registered investment adviser for advice on your own situation.