How the numbers are actually put together
Method pieces on reading filings, valuing companies and interpreting the data that everybody quotes and few people check. Written from the parts of this that were hard to get right.
- 3 min
What a DCF actually assumes, and where it breaks
A discounted cash flow model is a machine for converting assumptions into a number that looks like a fact. Knowing which assumptions the number is actually made of is the entire skill.
- 2 min
Reading a 13F without fooling yourself
Institutional ownership filings are public, free and widely misread. Most of the misreading is mechanical rather than analytical.
- 2 min
How to read a 10-K properly, in about forty minutes
A 10-K runs to a hundred pages and perhaps twelve of them change year to year. Knowing which twelve is most of the skill.
- 3 min
Where financial data comes from, and why two sources disagree
Two reputable platforms will show you different numbers for the same company and the same year. Almost always, neither is wrong. They are reading different tags.