How to Invest in Stocks If You Intend to Read the Company
How to invest in stocks in seven steps: six take one afternoon, and the one every guide skips decides the result. See how long it really takes and what to read.
How we read companies
This is where we write about how we read companies and how Taufolio works. Method, sources and product, explained so you can check them. Every post links to the document or report it was built on. We also add things we notice along the way in markets and data.
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50 posts8 on the method
Investing basics
From a first look at a company to deciding whether it is worth your evening.
Reading the filings
The annual report, the balance sheet and the segments: where the numbers that mean something actually sit.
What Is an Annual Report, and Why Only Half of It Is Audited
An annual report has two halves and the auditor signs only one. What is inside, how it differs from the 10-K, which half to trust and the order to read it in.
The business and its moat
What a company really earns its money on, and what stops a rival from taking it.
What Is an Economic Moat? Margin Proves It, Story Doesn't
An economic moat is not a story: it is gross margin held above the industry and prices that rise without volume falling. Five types, and where the proof lives.
Management and earnings calls
What management promised, what they did about it, and how to check the difference in the transcript.
What Is an Earnings Call? Read the Q&A, Not the Script
An earnings call has two halves and only one carries information. How to read the Q&A, catch a dodged number, and compare four quarters instead of one.
Sources and research
Where the primary documents are, and why every sentence about a company should have one behind it.
10-K vs 10-Q: How to Read a Filing Nobody Wrote for You
10-K vs 10-Q in plain terms: what each filing actually tells you, where ESPI and the transcript fit in, and a five-minute test for checking any claim yourself.
Taufolio’s tools
Full report, Earnings brief, Monitoring and credits: what each one does and when to reach for it.
Which Stock Report to Use: Finish One Sentence First
Which stock report to use? A Full report maps the business, an Earnings brief reads the quarter, a Monthly summary catches the month. Here is how to pick one.
Portfolio and monitoring
How to keep an eye on the companies you already own without reading every headline.
How to Monitor Stocks Without Reading the News Daily
How to monitor stocks you own without the daily feed: two to five assumptions, each with a signal and a date. See what to check after results and what to skip.
The market and the noise
Why a price moves between earnings, and which of those moves mean nothing at all.
What Moves Stock Prices When the Company Said Nothing at All
What moves stock prices between earnings: algorithms, correlations and flows, not fundamentals. Market plumbing, and one test that tells a move from an event.
Profitability and cash
Margins, profit and operating cash: how to read profitability ratios before you trust net income.
Financial Ratio Analysis: Three Questions per Number
Financial ratio analysis in three questions: is the number high, which way is it going, and against whom do you measure it. Plus a fourth almost nobody asks.
Fundamentals and stability
Debt, liquidity and interest coverage: what the balance sheet says about surviving a bad year.
Company Financial Health Rules Out Before It Ever Picks
Company financial health tells you what to drop, not what to buy. Why the balance sheet screens fast and selects slowly, and what that changes about order.
Valuation and multiples
P/E, P/S and the other multiples read against a company's own history, not against rumour.
Valuation Multiples Only Mean Something Against History
Valuation multiples carry nothing at face value. What counts is where the reading sits against the company's own band: window, rolling median, four states.
Advanced valuation
DCF and reverse DCF: what the model says, what it does not, and why one assumption can double the answer.
Discounted Cash Flow: Build One, Then Watch It Break
A discounted cash flow in six lines on an invented company, how much of the answer one terminal assumption carries, and the three inputs only you can supply.
Where to start
Five posts in order, from a first look at a company to reading an earnings call.
Posts are produced with AI tools and go through editorial review by the Taufolio team before publishing. RSS feed
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your own stock.
The posts show the method; Taufolio turns it into research on the company you actually hold.
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