Here are the top 5 things new subscribers (or not-so-new subscribers) should do:

1. Send an email to President Brian Nelson, CFA

If haven’t touched base with Brian yet, please make it a priority over the next few weeks. Brian strives to answer all questions received personally, with your needs in mind. Some members often note that having access to Brian is worth the few dollars a month subscription alone. It’s important to get your questions answered – the website is only part of the service. We have an analyst team on call.

2. View the newsletters

The newsletter portfolios, the Best Ideas Newsletter and Dividend Growth Newsletter, are prime real estate. If you haven’t visited the portfolios found within them and evaluated the archives, you may be missing out on some of the best ideas within the context of a portfolio setting and aggregated to achieve each newsletter portfolio’s respective goals. Combined, the Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio and Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolio offer as many as 40 fresh ideas for consideration.

3. Learn about the Dividend Cushion ratio and Economic Castle rating

These are two of the most valuable metrics in the financial world, in our view, and both are proprietary to Valuentum. Take a read of the supporting evidence for each in the white papers on the website. The Dividend Cushion ratio can be found on each firm’s dividend report, while the Economic Castle rating can be found on each firm’s 16-page valuation report. Did we mention that we provide valuation reports on thousands of companies and dividend reports on some of the most heavily-followed (and underfollowed as well)?

4. Read the methodology documents

The Valuentum Buying Index is composed of three primary pillars – each alone perhaps more rigorous than some of the work found elsewhere with other services. Be sure to learn about the Valuentum discounted cash-flow process, why we use a relative valuation overlay, and why we like stocks that are “going up.” Fair value estimates, fair value ranges, economic value generation, ROIC, and free cash flow are all terms you should become very familiar with. The pdf reports put everything at your fingertips.

5. Evaluate the screens

Anybody can put together screens on widely-available information that companies provide to the SEC. But the screens at Valuentum are of data derived solely in-house, from our VBI ratings to our fair value estimates, to a company’s Dividend Cushion ratio and Economic Castle rating. We update the screens every month on the website and publish them in the monthly newsletters as well. The ‘Yields to Avoid’ screen is a great one to peruse periodically if you’d like to bulletproof your income portfolio.

If you’ve already done these things, you’re well on your way to getting familiar with what we have to offer at Valuentum. We believe we’re the best at Warren Buffett’s rule No. 1: Never lose money. But we think we’re doing a pretty good job outperforming in the newsletter portfolios as well. Looking forward to a fantastic 2016!