Street Capitalist: Event Driven Value Investments

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Street Capitalist: Event Driven Value Investments

May 22, 2008

Evernote – A tool for investors

To be clear, the people at Evernote have not sponsored this post – it’s all me. I enjoy sharing new technologies that I find to be helpful.

Many value investors will tell you that they don’t really need any fancy tools. Maybe some good reading materials, a way to view/screen companies, and then then time. I agree with this. We’re a pretty spartan bunch, but there are certain things that could make us more productive. Evernote is one of them.

Every day I read an assortment of financial blogs along with newspapers like the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times. I also browse news that specifically relates to any of the companies I own (I obtain this through Google Finance).

Sometimes though, I don’t have time to read all of an article. Or I want to save the article I’m reading. Here is where Evernote comes in.

You can add a small button to the bookmark bar of your browser, and while you are reading articles which you’d like to save for later, all you have to do is highlight some of the text that you find important and press the bookmark bar. Upon doing this you’ll be brought to the Evernote page where you can confirm that you’d like to add this and you can tag the page for easier searching later on.

Here’s an example. Today I was reading an article about Children’s Place and their earnings and wanted to save it for later use.

So first in the article, I highlight the key text I want, and then I click the Evernote button in my bookmark bar. (As always, click the image to enlarge)

Evernote Screenshot 1

Upon clicking the bookmark bar, you will be asked to log in to Evernote, and then fill out some details about the note you are adding.

Evernote Screenshot 2

As you can see, I just tagged a few things regarding the note. The company’s name and then the nature of the note (earnings). Finally, if you click the button to go to your notebook, or ever decide to visit your notebook, you will see your notes in the following format:

screenshot2.jpeg

You see the title of the web page, the text that I had originally highlighted, and you have a link to the website. All together, this makes for an almost seamless method of saving things that you have read and liked online, so that you can easily go back to it. Evernote offers a few different solutions, what I have just shown here is their web solution — which I like because you gain the ability to access your information from anywhere. However, the company offers applications for Windows and Mac OS X Leopard users. Also, while I have only shown that you can use Evernote for creating databases of websites and articles you’ve read, you can also use it for almost any kind of data – pictures, pdf files, .doc files, and so on.

Lately I have found this extremely useful for breaking down long articles and reading them later, and I find it beneficial for my blogging. I read so much that it is helpful to easily be able to create a “filing cabinet” of things I want to come back later.

Evernote isn’t going to automatically perform DCF valuations or calculate the intrinsic value of your investments, but it might help you keep track of companies you find interesting. I believe that at the moment their web service is by invitation only, but feel free to e-mail me if you would like an invite.

Category: Investor Tools, Value Investing

  • http://www.fatpitchfinancials.com/ George @ Fat Pitch Financials

    I haven’t heard of Evernote before. It seems rather similar to the increasingly popular Diigo or even the older Furl bookmarking site. I’ve used Furl for quite some time and was considering trying out Diigo. What did you like about Evernote that makes it stand out?

  • http://www.fatpitchfinancials.com/ George @ Fat Pitch Financials

    I haven’t heard of Evernote before. It seems rather similar to the increasingly popular Diigo or even the older Furl bookmarking site. I’ve used Furl for quite some time and was considering trying out Diigo. What did you like about Evernote that makes it stand out?

  • http://www.StreetCapitalist.com Tariq

    I haven’t used Diigo or Furi actually. From what I’ve read though, Diigo seems more oriented to just websites, but with Evernote, especially if you download the application — it can become something where you can drop everything (all sorts of documents) into it. This could be useful when grabbing annual report pdfs, downloading charts in image form, and so on.

  • Tariq

    I haven’t used Diigo or Furi actually. From what I’ve read though, Diigo seems more oriented to just websites, but with Evernote, especially if you download the application — it can become something where you can drop everything (all sorts of documents) into it. This could be useful when grabbing annual report pdfs, downloading charts in image form, and so on.

  • Nick Zawicki

    Great review of Evernote! What is important to note is Evernote’s ability to index words in most things that you capture (screens of websites, even hand written notes!!) and gives you the ability to search through those items. I love Evernote – don’t know how I got by without it.

  • Nick Zawicki

    Great review of Evernote! What is important to note is Evernote’s ability to index words in most things that you capture (screens of websites, even hand written notes!!) and gives you the ability to search through those items. I love Evernote – don’t know how I got by without it.

  • http://www.mischacoster.com Mischa Coster

    Evernote is different from other systems in its searching capabilities. For instance, if I were to take a picture with my smartphone of an article someone shows me or I read in the newspaper, I will e-mail that picture from my smartphone to my evernote account (you get a dedicated e-mail address for this).

    Then, Evernote starts recognising text within the image (picture) you sent to it. It even recognises handwriting! So you could just make a snapshot of the business idea you just jotted down on a peace of paper and search it later in your Evernote application or on the evernote website. Really, really cool!

    I use it daily to clip websites, screenshots but mostly things I see when I’m away from my computer, using my smartphone.

    Just my 2 cents :-)

  • http://www.mischacoster.com Mischa Coster

    Evernote is different from other systems in its searching capabilities. For instance, if I were to take a picture with my smartphone of an article someone shows me or I read in the newspaper, I will e-mail that picture from my smartphone to my evernote account (you get a dedicated e-mail address for this).

    Then, Evernote starts recognising text within the image (picture) you sent to it. It even recognises handwriting! So you could just make a snapshot of the business idea you just jotted down on a peace of paper and search it later in your Evernote application or on the evernote website. Really, really cool!

    I use it daily to clip websites, screenshots but mostly things I see when I’m away from my computer, using my smartphone.

    Just my 2 cents :-)

  • Ed Melchior

    Evernote is useful for a lot of other things too: capturing meeting notes, transcribing voicemails and phone conversations, and almost anything you want to remember. To Do lists work well too. Excellent searching and tagging capabilities, and remember that the web version (and Mac version) are still in beta form. The older, fully released Windows version has much more functionality that Evernote says they are planning to get into the webified version. Plus, it’s free. Even the installable applications. There is (and will be) commercial versions that give more features, but all of the functionality described and much more is included in the free versions. I think its competitors are more like Yojimbo (Mac) or OneNote, rather than Dilgo or Furi.

    You can also send emails to it from you phone or other internet connected device, and it gets put into your database.

    YMMV.

    (I am not an EverNote employee, just a happy user for about 3 years. I pay for the commercial version, and I’m cheap.)

  • Ed Melchior

    Evernote is useful for a lot of other things too: capturing meeting notes, transcribing voicemails and phone conversations, and almost anything you want to remember. To Do lists work well too. Excellent searching and tagging capabilities, and remember that the web version (and Mac version) are still in beta form. The older, fully released Windows version has much more functionality that Evernote says they are planning to get into the webified version. Plus, it’s free. Even the installable applications. There is (and will be) commercial versions that give more features, but all of the functionality described and much more is included in the free versions. I think its competitors are more like Yojimbo (Mac) or OneNote, rather than Dilgo or Furi.

    You can also send emails to it from you phone or other internet connected device, and it gets put into your database.

    YMMV.

    (I am not an EverNote employee, just a happy user for about 3 years. I pay for the commercial version, and I’m cheap.)

  • http://www.StreetCapitalist.com Tariq

    Yeah, I agree Mischa & Nick. Evernote’s ability to capture text via things like a smart phone are really what makes it stand apart and add value. When I get an iPhone I’m really going to be using that aspect of it.

  • Tariq

    Yeah, I agree Mischa & Nick. Evernote’s ability to capture text via things like a smart phone are really what makes it stand apart and add value. When I get an iPhone I’m really going to be using that aspect of it.

About Me

My name is Tariq Ali, I run Street Capitalist. I recently graduated from the University of Texas at Austin. There, I stumbled onto value investing via the school library. I read everything I could and now I'm here, writing out my thoughts and investment ideas.


I have a lot of heroes when it comes to investing, it seems like every investor has some kind of niche. Some, whose books and writings have had the biggest impact on me are: Warren Buffett, Benjamin Graham, Joel Greenblatt, Seth Klarman, and George Soros.


Have any questions? Want to stay in touch?
Feel free to e-mail me at TariqTX@gmail.com


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