What Is the Best Order for Reading an Equity Research Report?
Learn a practical sequence for reading equity research: identify the conclusion, then examine estimates, valuation, and risks. Look beyond the Buy rating on the first page.
Read article →MW GOBLIN JOURNAL
A Practical Guide to Stock Research
Learn how to read company results, valuation, and market data. Each guide explains a method, shows the calculations, and points you to primary sources.
400 articles · Original research guides with primary sources and worked examples
Topics · All topics
START HERE
A starting point for your research
Read a report, understand the statements, then explore valuation.
How Are Analyst Price Targets Calculated?
Read a price target as a combination of forecast earnings and valuation assumptions. Check the earnings year, peers, net debt, and share count, then calculate the impact of changing assumptions.
Read article →Does a Buy Rating Mean You Should Buy the Stock Now?
Understand a research report's Buy rating by checking its time horizon and return criteria. Learn how absolute and relative returns differ, and why a rating can stay unchanged while the price target changes.
Read article →How the Income Statement, Balance Sheet, and Cash Flow Statement Connect
Learn to connect the three financial statements through net income, cash, and working capital. Credit sales and capital expenditure examples explain why profit differs from cash flow.
Read article →Consolidated vs. Separate Financial Statements: What to Check When Results Differ
Understand the reporting scope of consolidated and separate financial statements, intragroup eliminations, and dividend income. Assess group performance and the parent's finances separately.
Read article →How to Read an Income Statement from Revenue to Net Income
Follow revenue, cost of sales, SG&A, finance income and costs, and income tax through the income statement. Use amounts and margins to understand why net income can fall despite revenue growth.
Read article →Low P/E Stocks: Check How Long the Earnings Can Last
A low P/E ratio does not necessarily mean a stock is undervalued. Learn to separate earnings periods, one-time gains and losses, debt, and cash flow to judge whether the price is cheap or reflects declining earnings.
Read article →Does a Price-to-Book Ratio Below 1 Mean a Stock Trades Below Asset Value?
Book value in PBR differs from what shareholders receive after assets are sold. Learn to interpret a low price-to-book ratio by checking recoverable inventory, receivables, goodwill, and liabilities.
Read article →Why Higher ROE Can Support a Higher Price-to-Book Ratio—and When It Does Not
The relationship between ROE and PBR starts with shareholders’ required return. A simple growth model shows why high ROE must be supported by sustainability and consistent reinvestment assumptions.
Read article →Why Did Operating Cash Flow Fall While Net Income Rose?
Understand the gap between net income and operating cash flow by separating noncash expenses, working capital, and tax payments. Build a reconciliation to distinguish cash tied up in growth from delayed collections.
Read article →Why Does an Increase in Working Capital Reduce Cash?
Calculate the cash impact of working capital changes through receivables, inventory, and payables. Learn how operating working capital differs from current assets minus current liabilities.
Read article →Rising Receivables: Sales Growth or Slower Collections?
Analyze rising receivables through sales growth, collection periods, overdue balances, and loss allowances. Learn how to compare collection speed without relying solely on closing balances.
Read article →How to Calculate Dividend Yield: Which Dividend and Share Price to Use
Calculate dividend yield by matching annual dividends per share with the appropriate share price. Hypothetical examples show how historical and expected dividends, current prices, and purchase costs change the result.
Read article →How to Calculate the Dividend Payout Ratio Using the Right Net Income
Learn how to calculate the dividend payout ratio by comparing total dividends with net income. See how consolidated versus separate accounts, profit attributable to owners of the parent, losses, and one-off gains affect interpretation.
Read article →Dividend Record Date vs. Ex-Dividend Date: How to Check Eligibility
Distinguish the record date that determines eligible shareholders from the ex-dividend date when shares begin trading without entitlement. Check company disclosures and market calendars rather than assuming the fiscal year-end applies.
Read article →Why Your Stocks Can Fall When the KOSPI Rises: Weights and Market Breadth
Learn why KOSPI returns can differ from your portfolio's returns through market-cap weights, index contributions, advancing stocks, and the distinction between the KOSPI and KOSPI 200.
Read article →Does the KOSDAQ Index Reflect Conditions Across All Small and Mid-Cap Stocks?
Understand the coverage of the KOSDAQ Composite and KOSDAQ 150, sector concentration, and how to interpret trading value, market breadth, and relative returns together.
Read article →Nasdaq Composite vs Nasdaq-100: Similar Names, Different Investment Exposure
Explore differences in constituent coverage and sector composition between the Nasdaq Composite and Nasdaq-100, why their returns diverge, and what to check in Nasdaq ETFs and futures.
Read article →Samsung Electronics Stock Analysis: How to Read DS and DX Earnings Separately
Samsung Electronics’ total profit alone cannot show how semiconductors and finished products are performing. Learn to connect segment profit contributions, intercompany eliminations, inventory, and capital expenditure to understand earnings changes.
Read article →SK hynix Stock Analysis: Separating Memory Prices from Profitability
SK hynix’s memory earnings depend on shipments, product mix, costs, and investment spending as well as prices. Learn what to check when translating HBM expectations into companywide profit, and where the calculations fall short.
Read article →Samsung Electro-Mechanics MLCC Earnings: Why Product Mix Matters Alongside Volume
Separate demand and pricing mix across automotive, server, and mobile MLCCs at Samsung Electro-Mechanics. Learn how to interpret utilization improvements and why other businesses’ profit contributions and inventory also matter.
Read article →Micron Stock Analysis: What to Separate Before Looking at Memory Prices
Break down Micron's memory cycle into pricing, bit shipments, product mix, and capital spending. Learn how to compare an earnings recovery with stock market expectations.
Read article →NVIDIA Data Center Revenue: How Growth Translates into Profit
Analyze NVIDIA data center revenue through compute, networking, product transitions, inventory, and receivables. Assess rapid growth alongside the quality of cash collection.
Read article →AMD Earnings: Separating Data Center, PC, and Gaming Results
Compare AMD's Data Center, Client and Gaming, and Embedded results using its reporting definitions. Understand how segment reclassifications and adjusted operating income can distort growth comparisons.
Read article →When Do Rising DRAM Prices Translate into Higher Profits?
Explore how DRAM prices affect earnings through shipment volume, product mix, and cost per bit. Calculations also show why applying spot price increases directly to quarterly profits can be misleading.
Read article →How NAND Earnings Can Hold Up Even When Prices Fall
Learn to read NAND prices alongside cost per bit, bits stored per cell, and SSD product mix. Examine how revenue and profit can diverge when falling prices coincide with rising shipments.
Read article →How to Assess Whether HBM Revenue Growth Is Improving Profitability
HBM's high selling prices do not automatically mean high profits. Learn how to assess the quality of HBM revenue by connecting stacking, good-die yields, customer qualification, and production resource allocation.
Read article →Why Automaker Revenue Can Rise as Sales Fall: Understanding Sales Mix
Vehicle sales figures tell only part of the story. Separate wholesale from retail sales, premium vehicle mix, incentives, and exchange rates to understand changes in revenue and profitability.
Read article →EV Battery Capacity Utilization: Why the Denominator Matters
Read battery factory utilization by comparing available capacity with actual output. Examine new factories, yields, inventories, and fixed costs to understand when expansion translates into profit.
Read article →Cathode Material Pricing: Why Falling Metal Prices Are Not an Immediate Benefit
Separate metal price pass-through in cathode materials from inventory timing. Compare how processing returns can hold up as selling prices fall, while expensive raw material inventory can hurt earnings.
Read article →ETFs vs. Mutual Funds: What Changes When They Invest in the Same Assets?
ETFs are funds too, but order execution, pricing, and costs differ. Compare what actually changes in your account when two funds target the same index.
Read article →What Is ETF NAV, and Does a Lower NAV Mean a Cheaper Investment?
An ETF's NAV per share is assets minus liabilities divided by shares outstanding. Learn to distinguish fund growth from inflows and returns earned by existing investors.
Read article →ETF Premiums and Discounts: Three Checks Before You Buy
An ETF's premium or discount measures the gap between its market price and NAV. Check the sign and valuation time, then assess how a narrowing gap affects your trading return.
Read article →Stocks vs. Securities: Understanding the Rights You Own
Stocks are securities that represent ownership in a company. Learn how their rights differ from bonds and funds, and why products traded in the same app need different analysis.
Read article →Common vs. Preferred Stock: Four Rights to Check Before Dividend Yield
Preferred stock is not inherently safer than common stock. Compare dividend priority, voting rights, cumulative dividends, conversion terms, and trading liquidity.
Read article →Why a Large Market Cap Can Still Mean Thin Trading: Understanding Free Float
Market capitalization measures equity market value, while free float estimates the shares available for trading. Explore the calculations and differences in free-float definitions.
Read article →What Candlestick Bodies and Wicks Can—and Cannot—Tell You
Learn to calculate candlestick bodies and wicks from open, high, low, and close prices, why a bullish candle can still mean a daily loss, and why a candle cannot reveal the sequence of price moves.
Read article →How to Identify Uptrends and Downtrends Using Highs and Lows
Distinguish a single day's price change from a trend and compare highs and lows over a consistent period. Learn how to keep your criteria consistent when daily and weekly charts point in different directions.
Read article →Why Support and Resistance Are Better Read as Zones
Learn to mark price areas where past rebounds and reversals occurred, assess possible role changes after support breaks, and distinguish a loss threshold from the price at which an order fills.
Read article →How to Calculate and Read a Simple Moving Average
Learn how to calculate a simple moving average and interpret its slope using hypothetical prices. See how outgoing prices, bar intervals, and adjusted-price settings affect the result.
Read article →How Much More Does an Exponential Moving Average Respond to Recent Prices?
Understand exponential moving average weights and recursive calculations, and compare EMA with SMA. Check differences caused by initialization, historical data length, and intraday changes.
Read article →Golden Cross: What to Check Beyond the Moving Average Crossover
Learn how to interpret a short-term moving average crossing upward as trend confirmation. Examine average slopes, distance from price, and intraday versus confirmed signals.
Read article →How Many Stocks Do You Need for Diversification? Look at What Could Cause Losses
The number of holdings alone cannot tell you how diversified a portfolio is. Learn to map overlap between stocks and ETFs, your largest positions, and shared revenue drivers.
Read article →Sector Concentration Risk: Look Beyond Industry Labels to Customers and Investment Cycles
Companies in different sectors can share exposure to the same customers and capital spending cycle. Calculate shared demand exposure and its contribution to portfolio losses.
Read article →How Much Does Low Correlation Reduce Portfolio Risk?
Correlation measures how closely two assets' returns move together. Use a two-asset volatility calculation to understand diversification benefits and the limits of historical correlations.
Read article →How to Check Stock Prices and Company Information on Naver Securities
Learn how to identify a stock and its quote basis on Naver Securities, then connect company information to original filings. Avoid treating news, discussions, and financial figures as equally reliable.
Read article →How to Read Investing.com Indicators: Names, Units, and Reporting Periods
Learn what to check when reading actual, forecast, and previous values on Investing.com. Understand economic indicators versus market prices and compare release sources and time zones.
Read article →How to Find Company and Industry Research on Hankyung Consensus
Use report dates, categories, authors, and providers to narrow your research on Hankyung Consensus. Connect search results to original reports and identify duplicate material.
Read article →What Is Earnings Consensus? Four Things to Check Before Using Analyst Estimates
Consensus combines analyst estimates on a comparable basis. Learn to check the mean or median, collection date, accounting basis, and contributors before comparing earnings.
Read article →How to Calculate an Earnings Surprise When Expected Profit Is Negative
Learn the basic earnings surprise formula and its pitfalls when losses turn into profits. Fix pre-release estimates and compare revenue, operating profit, and EPS on matching bases.
Read article →Earnings Misses and Base Effects: Why Growing Profits Can Still Disappoint
Year-over-year profit growth can coincide with a consensus miss. Separate a low comparison base from market expectations to assess the causes and persistence of disappointing earnings.
Read article →Share Issue Dilution: Why It Differs from the Increase in Share Count
Calculate how a share issue changes ownership percentages and EPS, and distinguish its economic effects on existing shareholders by accounting for cash raised and subscription decisions.
Read article →Why a Bonus Issue Does Not Automatically Increase Company Value
Distinguish a bonus issue's transfers within equity from its increase in share count, and use hypothetical figures to examine ex-rights pricing and misleading EPS and dividend comparisons.
Read article →Using a Convertible Bond's Conversion Price to Assess Dilution and Repayment Risk
Treat the conversion price as a contractual term rather than a price target, and combine unconverted principal, put rights, and conversion periods to assess dilution and cash repayment risk.
Read article →Does a Weaker Won Always Increase Exporters’ Profits?
Assess a rise in the won–dollar exchange rate through export revenue, import costs, foreign-currency debt, and settlement timing. Calculate net dollar exposure to avoid overstating the benefits.
Read article →Realized FX Gains vs. Translation Gains: What Changes Cash Flow?
Distinguish exchange gains realized at settlement from foreign-currency translation gains at the reporting date. Separate foreign-subsidiary translation differences to assess whether higher net income produced a cash inflow.
Read article →Currency Hedging Contracts: What to Check Before the Notional Amount
Assess currency hedges by matching currencies, maturities, settlement terms, and actual foreign-currency cash flows. A hypothetical calculation connects derivative valuation losses with operating effects.
Read article →Why Operating Profit Can Fall Even When Revenue Rises 20%
Break down the causes of rising revenue and falling profit into the cost-of-sales ratio and SG&A expenses. Learn how to distinguish temporary costs from recurring deterioration in profitability.
Read article →Net Income Is Up but Cash Is Down: What to Check
Reconcile profit and cash through working capital, capital expenditure, and debt repayments. This case examines collectibility and the purpose of spending before treating a cash decline as financial distress.
Read article →How a Stock Price Can Rise While Its P/E Ratio Falls
A P/E ratio can fall when EPS grows faster than the share price. Align actual and forecast earnings bases, then calculate the estimate risk behind a lower multiple.
Read article →Stock and investment research guides
Company, ETF and investing conceptsSMR Stock: How to Assess NuScale’s Projects and Financing Risk
A practical framework for separating NuScale Power’s announced projects from contracts, recognized revenue, cash needs, and potential dilution.
Read guide →RKLB Stock: Reading Rocket Lab Revenue, Backlog, and Cash Flow
Separate Rocket Lab’s launch and space-systems businesses, then assess what must happen before backlog becomes revenue and cash.
Read guide →SNDK Stock: How to Analyze SanDisk as a Standalone NAND Company
A framework for reviewing SanDisk’s NAND cycle, bit shipments, inventory, manufacturing relationships, capital spending, and cash flow.
Read guide →CRCL Stock: Circle’s USDC Reserve Income and Distribution Costs
Analyze Circle through USDC reserve income, distribution-partner costs, circulation, and regulatory exposure.
Read guide →SpaceX Stock: SPCX, the IPO and How to Read Its Financials
Verify SpaceX stock ticker SPCX in its SEC filings, distinguish an IPO price from a market quote, and examine segment economics, cash needs and dilution.
Read guide →AMC Stock: How to Read Attendance, Debt, and Share Dilution
Connect box-office demand with ticket and concession spending, cash rent, debt maturities, and share issuance when researching AMC Entertainment.
Read guide →RBLX Stock: Separating Bookings, Revenue, Developer Payouts, and Cash Flow
A framework for Roblox bookings, revenue recognition, user metrics, developer payouts, safety costs, and cash flow.
Read guide →KORU Stock: Daily 3x Leverage and Compounding Explained
Understand what KORU tracks, why daily leverage differs from a holding-period multiple, and how to calculate a hypothetical return path.
Read guide →VOO Stock: How to Read Vanguard’s S&P 500 ETF
Separate VOO’s share price from valuation, compare total returns, and assess portfolio overlap and costs.
Read guide →EXPE Stock: Expedia Bookings, Revenue and Cash Flow
Analyze Expedia’s gross bookings, revenue conversion, business mix, and cash collected before travel.
Read guide →VZLA Stock: Reading Vizsla Silver’s Project Value and Funding
Connect the Panuco technical study, metal-price assumptions, development spending, and dilution to a shareholder analysis.
Read guide →American Depositary Receipts: ADR Ratios, Fees and Dividends
Learn what an ADR represents and how the depositary ratio, currency conversion, fees, and dividend processing affect the investment.
Read guide →Hugging Face: How to Research Model Cards and Licenses
Use model identity, evaluation context, repository files, and license terms to assess AI claims on Hugging Face.
Read guide →HOOD Stock: Robinhood Trading Revenue, Interest and Customer Assets
Separate Robinhood’s transaction revenue, net interest, and customer-asset growth when researching HOOD stock.
Read guide →MU Stock: Micron Memory Pricing, HBM and Capital Spending
Research Micron Technology stock by separating DRAM and NAND prices, bit shipments, product mix, and cash investment.
Read guide →NASDAQ GOOG: Alphabet Advertising, Cloud and AI Capex
Understand the share class, business segments, and cash-flow effects behind a search for GOOG stock.
Read guide →QCOM Stock: Qualcomm’s QCT, QTL and Growth Beyond Handsets
Read Qualcomm’s semiconductor and licensing economics, customer concentration, and diversification assumptions separately.
Read guide →