There’s a lot more that goes into the success of a business than the financials that investment services firms have access to. It’s entirely possible for someone that interacts with a company on a daily or weekly basis to have a better idea of how well that business is doing than professional investors, especially if they also bother to look at the public financials.

Gathering this kind of information may be too labor-intensive to justify doing it as a profession but rewarding enough for an interested amateur.