What is an outlier in the Stock Selection Guide® (SSG®) data?

There is no hard and fast rule or algorithm about what an outlier is in the historical fundamental data set in the Stock Selection Guide. In general, an outlier is an observation that a particular data point is an unusually large distance away from other data in the data series. We typically observe these outliers when looking at the graph of the data. 

To investigate an outlier, you should try to understand why that particular data point is so different from the others. This will help you decide if it's a good or bad sign for the company. You can typically research this data by reviewing the company’s press release for the quarter or year in which they reported the associated data. It's a good idea to write down your findings in a study note.

If desired, you can remove the entire year that contains the outlier data by clicking on the year label in the X-axis (bottom) of the graph. In SSGPlus, you can remove data for a single data point by clicking in the cell in the Fundamental Company Data section. If data is removed ‘as an outlier’ then the growth rate trend calculation will automatically adjust for the removal of the data and the growth rate trend lines (if applicable) will be automatically adjusted.

Related article: What are outliers in Member Sentiment data?

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