The Value Line Investment Survey is one of the oldest, continuously running investment advisory publications. Since 1955, the Survey has been published in multiple formats including print, loose-leaf, microfilm and microfiche. Data from 1997 to present is now available online. The Survey tracks 1700 stocks across 92 industry groups. It provides reported and projected measures of firm performance, proprietary rankings and analysis for each stock on a quarterly basis.
DATA AVAILABLE FOR YEARS: 1980-1989
This dataset, a subset of the Survey covering the years 1980-1989 has been digitized from the microfiche collection available at the Dewey Library (FICHE HG 4501.V26). It is only available to MIT students and faculty for academic research.
Published weekly, each edition of the Survey has the following three parts:
- Summary & Index: includes an alphabetical listing of all industries with their relative ranking and the page number for detailed industry analysis. It also includes an alphabetical listing of all stocks in the publication with references to their location in Part 3, Ratings & Reports.
- Selection & Opinion: contains the latest economic and stock market commentary and advice along with one or more pages of research on interesting stocks or industries, and a variety of pertinent economic and stock market statistics. It also includes three model stock portfolios.
- Ratings & Reports: This is the core of the Value Line Investment Survey. Preceded by an industry report, each one-page stock report within that industry includes Timeliness, Safety and Technical rankings, 3-to 5-year analyst forecasts for stock prices, income and balance sheet items, up to 17 years of historical data, and Value Line analysts’ commentaries. The report also contains stock price charts, quarterly sales, earnings, and dividend information.
Publication Schedule:
Each edition of the Survey covers around 130 stocks in seven to eight industries on a preset sequential schedule so that all 1700 stocks are analyzed once every 13 weeks or each quarter. All editions are numbered 1-13 within each quarter. For example, in 1980, reports for Chrysler appear in edition 1 of each quarter on the following dates:
- January 4, 1980 – page 132
- April 4, 1980 – page 133
- July 4, 1980 – page 133
- October 1, 1980 – page 133
Reports for
Coca-Cola were published in edition 10 of each quarter on:
- March 7, 1980 – page 1514
- June 6, 1980 – page 1518
- Sept. 5, 1980 – page 1517
- Dec. 5, 1980 – page 1548
Any significant news affecting a stock between quarters is covered in the supplementary reports that appear at the end of part 3, Ratings & Reports.
File format:
Digitized files within this dataset are in PDF format and are arranged by publication date within each compressed annual folder.
How to Consult the Value Line Investment Survey:
To find reports on a particular stock, consult the alphabetical listing of stocks in the Summary & Index part of the relevant weekly edition. Look for the page number just to the left of the company name and then use the table below to identify the edition where that page number appears. All editions within a given quarter are numbered 1-13 and follow equally sized page ranges for stock reports. The table provides page ranges for stock reports within editions 1-13 of 1980 Q1. It can be used to identify edition and page numbers for any quarter within a given year.
Ratings & Reports
Edition Pub. Date Pages
1 04-Jan-80 100-242
2 11-Jan-80 250-392
3 18-Jan-80 400-542
4 25-Jan-80 550-692
5 01-Feb-80 700-842
6 08-Feb-80 850-992
7 15-Feb-80 1000-1142
8 22-Feb-80 1150-1292
9 29-Feb-80 1300-1442
10 07-Mar-80 1450-1592
11 14-Mar-80 1600-1742
12 21-Mar-80 1750-1908
13 28-Mar-80 2000-2142
Another way to navigate to the Ratings & Reports part of an edition would be to look around page 50 within the PDF document. Note that the page numbers of the PDF will not match those within the publication.
(2023-09-05)
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