ONE of the biggest problems beginner investors face is to figure out what stock to buy. To do so, they need resources to understand the market in a comprehensive way. They might have an eye on a promising food and beverage stock, for example. They might, through the Bloomberg and Yahoo Finance websites, already have a quick sense of the company's revenues, profits, cashflows, price to earnings ratios, and price history. But how does the stock compare to similar businesses on the market, or around the world? An investing decision should not be made in isolation. A stock might look fundamentally strong, but might not be relatively cheap. A business might be dominant in fast-growing Asia, but a competitor could have the edge everywhere else and is trading at a more reasonable earnings ratio.

To choose the best investment, one would need to know all the other stocks out there in the same industry or sector. This is a near impossible act to pull off if one does not have access to an industry report or a classification system of some sort. Google can only tell you so much. To this end, StockFacts, a free online initiative launched by the Singapore Exchange (SGX) this week, goes a long way in providing valuable market information to the ordinary investor. With just a few clicks, one can screen for promising stocks in the same sector or industry. The value investor looking for cheap stocks can also add a number of other conditions. For example, one can screen for all the stocks in the market that earn revenues of more than S$1 billion annually, trading below 15 times earnings, with a dividend yield of at least 2 per cent (The answer: about 25 stocks as at Tuesday). This is far more efficient than checking each of SGX's 700-odd stocks, and far cheaper than using a Bloomberg terminal that can cost at least S$25,000 a year.

However, if people want quality, they have to pay for it. StockFacts itself is a collaboration with data provider S&P Capital IQ, one of the newer competitors nipping at Bloomberg's heels. S&P Capital IQ is known for their company database, but those looking for comprehensive news and market data are sticking to their Bloomberg and Reuters machines, for now. Shortcomings of StockFacts include the inability to screen for stocks using more than five parameters, as well as the lack of a way to set up customised watchlists of companies to track over time. Retail investors looking to screen stocks using a wider array of technical and fundamental analysis criteria would arguably be better served using the more powerful screener of ShareInvestor. This is a financial portal that Singapore Press Holdings, which owns The Business Times, bought in 2008. Nevertheless, StockFacts is a commendable effort by SGX. It is even more urgent now that retail investors are wooed back into the market, following a lacklustre year that saw securities daily traded values fall by over 20 per cent on average. Now, retail investors have a new cause for cheer.