Everything on this page is free to read, complete, and written for someone deciding whether to own a business rather than someone studying for an exam. The guides work in sequence; the definitions work on their own.
Start here
One framework, seven questions, in the order that keeps valuation from driving the thesis.
- How to Analyze a Stock: A 7-Step FrameworkA 7-step framework for analysing any stock: business model, lifecycle phase, moat, management, growth, risk and valuation, in the order that matters.
- The 5 Phases of a Company LifecycleStartup, hyper growth, operating leverage, capital return, decline. What happens in each phase, which metrics matter, and which valuation methods work.
- When to Sell a Stock: 4 Reasons That Hold UpThe four legitimate reasons to sell a stock: the thesis changed, your priorities changed, tax, or you cannot hold it calmly. Plus the reasons that fail.
Reading the financial statements
Where the numbers come from, and the handful of lines on each statement that carry the information.
- How to Read an Income Statement in 5 StepsHow to read an income statement: revenue growth, gross margin, operating leverage, debt coverage and dilution. The five numbers that matter, top to bottom.
- How to Read a Cash Flow Statement in 5 StepsHow to read a cash flow statement: the three sections, how to calculate free cash flow, and the red flags that appear here before anywhere else.
- How to Tell If a Dividend Is Safe: 5 ChecksFive checks for dividend safety: payout ratio, free cash flow coverage, debt, cyclicality and dividend history. What to look at before trusting a yield.
Judging business quality
Why some companies keep earning high returns for decades and most do not.
- Economic Moat: The 5 Types and How to Spot ThemWhat an economic moat is, the five types, the evidence that proves one is real, and the fake moats that fool investors most often.
- Network Effect: The Moat That Grows With ScaleWhat a network effect is, the difference between direct and indirect, how to tell a real one from a fake, and why it is the strongest moat type.
- Switching Costs: Pricing Power Without a Better ProductWhat switching costs are, the six types, how to spot them in a financial statement, and why they create pricing power without requiring a better product.
- ROIC: What Return on Invested Capital Tells YouWhat ROIC is, how to calculate it, what counts as a good number, and why it beats ROE as a measure of business quality.
The metrics that decide
Four numbers that tell you more about a business than any hundred others.
- Free Cash Flow: What It Is and How to Calculate ItWhat free cash flow is, how to calculate it from the cash flow statement, why it beats net income, and what a healthy conversion rate looks like.
- Gross Margin: What It Is and What It RevealsWhat gross margin is, how to calculate it, what counts as good in each industry, and why it moves years before net income does.
- Operating Leverage: Why Profits Grow Faster Than SalesWhat operating leverage is, how to measure it, why it drives the most rewarding phase of a company's life, and how it turns dangerous.
Valuation
What a business is worth, and the trick that makes the question answerable.
- Intrinsic Value: What a Business Is Actually WorthWhat intrinsic value means, how investors estimate it, why two careful analysts get different answers, and how to use it without pretending to precision.
- Reverse DCF: What Growth Is the Price Assuming?What a reverse DCF is, how it works, and why it turns valuation from an unanswerable question into one you can actually check.
- P/E Ratio: What It Means and When It MisleadsWhat the P/E ratio is, how to calculate it, what a good P/E looks like, and the four situations where it gives a confidently wrong answer.
Growth, capital and the portfolio
Three questions that sit above any single company: is the growth coherent, where is the cash tied up, and how many should you own.
- Rule of 40: The Growth vs Profit Test for SoftwareWhat the Rule of 40 is, how to calculate it, which margin to use, what a good score looks like, and where the rule stops being useful.
- Working Capital: What It Is and Why It MattersWhat working capital is, three ways to calculate it, what negative working capital really means, and how it shows up in cash flow.
- How Many Stocks Should You Own?How many stocks to own: why the diversification benefit runs out around 20 to 25, and the two limits that decide the right number for you.
Reference
Every term above, defined in plain English, with why each one matters to a decision.
Free tool
The fastest way to make any of this concrete
Every guide here eventually asks the same question: where is this company in its life, and what should I therefore be measuring? Phase Check answers it for any US-listed company in seconds and names the metric that matters most at that phase.
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Frequently asked questions
With how to analyze a stock. It sets out the seven questions in the order that matters, and every other guide here fills in one of its steps. Reading it first means the rest arrives with somewhere to attach rather than as disconnected facts.
You need to read three statements and roughly ten lines across them. That is a weekend, not a degree. The arithmetic is division. The hard parts are judgement calls about durability and management, and none of those are accounting problems.
No. Every guide and definition here is free and complete, with no email required to read them. The free Stock Simplifier account and the free Phase Check tool are also genuinely free rather than trials.
Each page carries a visible last-updated date. Definitions change slowly; anything referencing competitor pricing or product features gets checked quarterly, because those drift fastest and stale figures are worse than no figures.
Investopedia defines a term and stops. Every page here also says why the term matters to a decision, where the metric stops working, and how its meaning changes depending on where a company sits in its lifecycle. The goal is a judgement you can act on, not a definition you can recite.
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