When you start investing, it is best to choose companies that have value to you.

Investing is not just about finding businesses at really good prices, but about understanding when to enter or exit the market. To aid in your understanding, here’s a list of essential investing tools that anyone buying or selling stocks should know about.

1. 10-K and 10-Q Company Reports

One of the best ways to determine a company’s value to you is by examining its financial statements. The 10-K and 10-Q not only provide financial data but also highlight a company’s strengths and weaknesses.

This is crucial information you would not be able to obtain just by glancing at the stock market section in the newspaper.

The 10-K is the SEC form that a company is required to fill out annually. It is a comprehensive summary of the company’s financial performance throughout the year. The 10-Q is the SEC form filled out quarterly to disclose unaudited financial statements and provide the company’s financial position for that given quarter.

You can log onto SEC.gov company filings and search for a company’s 10-K or 10-Q.

Even easier, you can Google the name of the company and go straight to their website.

You should have no trouble finding a company’s 10-K or 10-Q as they are required to file.

2. Tools for Finding Financial Metrics

There are three companies that are great to use to find the financial metrics of a given company.

These companies are:

• Gurufocus

• Morningstar

• MSN Money

These websites provide information on financial metrics, track stock picks, and examine the portfolios of the best investors in the world.

The main focus of these companies is value investing. Value Investors buy stocks at a discount to what they believe they are worth, or their perceived value, in hopes of that these investments will rise over time to reflect their intrinsic value. These are 3 sites that track a company’s financial metrics for long periods of time.

3. Use Budgeting and Saving Tools

Apps like Mint are great for tracking your saving and budgeting. They update transactions and track your spending in real time. There are other apps like Acorns that save you money automatically by rounding charges up and investing the money.

4. Keep Up With Market News

Another essential tool for tracking the market is keeping up-to-date with market news.

The Wall Street Journal is a great place to keep up on not only market news, but general news. It also provides information on individual companies. Barrons.com is also a great site to get ideas on trades.

There is most likely market news on any other news site that you may use to keep up with current events.

Remember, the best deals on the planet sometimes happen to be on the front page!

5. Portfolio Management Apps

There are some great apps to use that can help you track your investments, open up investing accounts, and practice investing.

TD Ameritrade’s app and platform are great for opening accounts and trading. It also allows for paper trading. You can practice trading with fake money before using real money. This helps you get familiar with the stock market. The app also gives you up-to-date news and charts.

Using these investing tools will help keep you up to date, and track all of your stocks more easily. The more visibility you have into the companies you own and the more you understand them, the better your stocks will perform.