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HOW-TO apply an indicator that is only available upon request?Recently, I've realized that my typical day involves constant encounters with indicators. For example, when the alarm clock rings, it's an indicator that it's morning and time to get up. I am checking the phone and once again paying attention to the indicators: battery charge and network signal level. I figure out in just one second that such a complex element of the phone as the battery is 100% charged and the signal from the cell towers is good enough. Then I’m going out on a busy street, and it's only because of the traffic light indicator that I can safely cross the road to reach the parking lot. Looking at the on-board computer of my car, with its many indicators, I know that all the components of this complicated mechanism are working properly, and I can start driving. Now, imagine what would happen if none of this existed. I would have to act blindly, relying on luck: hoping that I would wake up on time, that the phone would work today, that car drivers would let me cross the road, and that my own car would not suddenly stop because it ran out of gas. We can say that indicators help to explain complex processes or phenomena in simple and understandable language. I think they will always be in demand in today's complex world, where we deal with a huge flow of information that cannot be perceived without simplifications. If we talk about the financial market, it's all about constant data, data, data. Add in the element of randomness and everything becomes totally messed up. To create indicators that simplify the analysis of financial information, the TradingView platform uses its own programming language — Pine Script . With this language, you can describe not only unique indicators, but also strategies — meaning algorithms for opening and closing positions. All these tools are grouped together under the term "script" . Just like a trade or educational idea, a script can also be published. After this, it will be available to other users. The published script can be: 1. Visible in the list of community scripts with unrestricted access. Simply find the script by its name and add it to the chart. 2. Visible in the list of community scripts, but access is by invitation only. You'll need to find the script by its name and request access from its author. 3. Not visible in the list of community scripts, but accessible via a link. To add such a script to a chart, you need to have the link. 4. Not visible in the list of community scripts; access is by invitation only. You'll need both a link to the script and permission for access obtained from its author. If you have added to your favorites a script that requires permission from the author, you'll only be able to start using the indicators after the author includes you in the script's user list. Without this, you will get an error message every time you add an indicator to the chart. In this case, contact the author to learn how to gain access. Instructions on how to contact the author are located after the script's description and highlighted within a frame. There you will also find the 'Add to favorite indicators' button. The access can be valid until a certain date or indefinitely. If the author has granted access, you will be able to add the script to the chart.
NSE:BANKNIFTYEducation
by Be_Capy
Price/Earnings: amazing interpretation #2In my previous post , we started to analyze the most popular financial ratio in the world – Price / Earnings or P/E (particularly one of the options for interpreting it). I said that P/E can be defined as the amount of money that must be paid once in order to receive 1 monetary unit of diluted net income per year. For American companies, it will be in US dollars, for Indian companies it will be in rupees, etc. In this post, I would like to analyze another interpretation of this financial ratio, which will allow you to look at P/E differently. To do this, let's look at the formula for calculating P/E again: P/E = Capitalization / Diluted earnings Now let's add some refinements to the formula: P/E = Current capitalization / Diluted earnings for the last year (*) (*) In my case, by year I mean the last 12 months. Next, let's see what the Current capitalization and Diluted earnings for the last year are expressed in, for example, in an American company: - Current capitalization is in $; - Diluted earnings for the last year are in $/year. As a result, we can write the following formula: P/E = Current capitalization / Diluted earnings for the last year = $ / $ / year = N years (*) (*) According to the basic rules of math, $ will be reduced by $, and we will be left with only the number of years. It's very unusual, isn't it? It turns out that P/E can also be the number of years! Yes, indeed, we can say that P/E is the number of years that a shareholder (investor) will need to wait in order to recoup their investments at the current price from the earnings flow, provided that the level of profit does not change . Of course, the condition of an unchangeable level of profit is very unrealistic. It is rare to find a company that shows the same profit from year to year. Nevertheless, we have nothing more real than the current capitalization of the company and its latest profit. Everything else is just predictions and probable estimates. It is also important to understand that during the purchase of shares, the investor fixates one of the P/E components - the price (P). Therefore, they only need to keep an eye on the earnings (E) and calculate their own P/E without paying attention to the current capitalization. If the level of earnings increases since the purchase of shares, the investor's personal P/E will decrease, and, consequently, the number of years to wait for recoupment. Another thing is when the earnings level, on the contrary, decreases – then an investor will face an increase in their P/E level and, consequently, an increase in the payback period of their own investments. In this case, of course, you have to think about the prospects of such an investment. You can also argue that not all 100% of earnings are spent paying dividends, and therefore you can’t use the level of earnings to calculate the payback period of an investment. Yes, indeed: it is rare for a company to give all of its earnings to dividends. However, the lack of a proper dividend level is not a reason to change anything in the formula or this interpretation at all, because retained earnings are the main fundamental driver of a company's capitalization growth. And whatever the investor misses out on in terms of dividends, they can get it in the form of an increase in the value of the shares they bought. Now, let's discuss how to interpret the obtained P/E value. Intuitively, the lower it is, the better. For example, if an investor bought shares at P/E = 100, it means that they will have to wait 100 years for their investment to pay off. That seems like a risky investment, doesn't it? Of course, one can hope for future earnings growth and, consequently, for a decrease in their personal P/E value. But what if it doesn’t happen? Let me give you an example. For instance, you have bought a country house, and so now you have to get to work via country roads. You have an inexpensive off-road vehicle to do this task. It does its job well and takes you to work via a road that has nothing but potholes. Thus, you get the necessary positive effect this inexpensive thing provides. However, later you learn that they will build a high-speed highway in place of the rural road. And that is exactly what you have dreamed of! After hearing the news, you buy a Ferrari. Now, you will be able to get to work in 5 minutes instead of 30 minutes (and in such a nice car!) However, you have to leave your new sports car in the yard to wait until the road is built. A month later, the news came out that, due to the structure of the road, the highway would be built in a completely different location. A year later your off-road vehicle breaks down. Oh well, now you have to get into your Ferrari and swerve around the potholes. It is not hard to guess what is going to happen to your expensive car after a while. This way, your high expectations for the future road project turned out to be a disaster for your investment in the expensive car. It works the same way with stock investments. If you only consider the company's future earnings forecast, you run the risk of being left alone with just the forecast instead of the earnings. Thus, P/E can serve as a measure of your risk. The higher the P/E value at the time you buy a stock, the more risk you take. But what is the acceptable level of P/E ? Oddly enough, I think the answer to this question depends on your age. When you are just beginning your journey, life gives you an absolutely priceless resource, known as time. You can try, take risks, make mistakes, and then try again. That's what children do as they explore the world around them. Or when young people try out different jobs to find exactly what they like. You can use your time in the stock market in the same manner - by looking at companies with a P/E that suits your age. The younger you are, the higher P/E level you can afford when selecting companies. Conversely, in my opinion, the older you are, the lower P/E level you can afford. To put it simply, you just don’t have as much time to wait for a return on your investment. So, my point is, the stock market perception of a 20-year-old investor should differ from the perception of a 50-year-old investor. If the former can afford to invest with a high payback period, it may be too risky for the latter. Now let's try to translate this reasoning into a specific algorithm. First, let's see how many companies we are able to find in different P/E ranges. As an example, let's take the companies that are traded on the NYSE (April 2023). As you can see from the table, the larger the P/E range, the more companies we can consider. The investor's task comes down to figuring out what P/E range is relevant to them in their current age. To do this, we need data on life expectancy in different countries. As an example, let's take the World Bank Group's 2020 data for several countries: Japan, India, China, Russia, Germany, Spain, the United States, and Brazil. To understand which range of P/E values to choose, you need to subtract your current age from your life expectancy: Life Expectancy - Your Current Age I recommend focusing on the country where you expect to live most of your life. Thus, for a 25-year-old male from the United States, the difference would be: 74,50 - 25 = 49,50 Which corresponds with a P/E range of 0 to 50. For a 60-year-old woman from Japan, the difference would be: 87,74 - 60 = 27,74 Which corresponds with a P/E range of 0 to 30. For a 70-year-old man from Russia, the difference would be: 66,49 - 70 = -3,51 In the case of a negative difference, the P/E range of 0 to 10 should be used. It doesn’t matter which country's stocks you invest in if you expect to live most of your life in Japan, Russia, or the United States. P/E indicates time, and time flows the same for any company and for you. So, this algorithm will allow you to easily calculate your acceptable range of P/E values. However, I want to caution you against making investment decisions based on this ratio alone. A low P/E value does not guarantee that you are free of risks . For example, sometimes the P/E level can drop significantly due to a decline in P (capitalization) because of extraordinary events, whose impact can only be seen in a future income statement (where we would learn the actual value of E - earnings). Nevertheless, the P/E value is a good indicator of the payback period of your investment, which answers the question: when should you consider buying a company's stock ? When the P/E value is in an acceptable range of values for you. But the P/E level doesn’t tell you what company to consider and what price to take. I will tell you about this in the next posts. See you soon!
Editors' picks
NSE:HDFCBANKEducation
by Be_Capy
8
Price / Earnings: Interpretation #1In one of my first posts , I talked about the main idea of ​​my investment strategy: buy great “things” during the sales season . This rule can be applied to any object of the material world: real estate, cars, clothes, food and, of course, shares of public companies. However, a seemingly simple idea requires the ability to understand both the quality of “things” and their value. Suppose we have solved the issue with quality (*). (*) A very bold assumption, I realize that. However, the following posts will cover this topic in more detail. Be a little patient. So, we know the signs of a high-quality thing and are able to define it skilfully enough. But what about its cost? "Easy-peasy!" you will say, "For example, I know that the Mercedes-Benz plant produces high-quality cars, so I should just find out the prices for a certain model in different car dealerships and choose the cheapest one." "Great plan!" I will say. But what about shares of public companies? Even if you find a fundamentally strong company, how do you know if it is expensive or cheap? Let's imagine that the company is also a machine. A machine that makes profit. It needs to be fed with resources, things are happening in there, some cogs are turning, and as a result we get earnings. This is its main goal and purpose. Each machine has its own name, such as Apple or McDonald's. It has its own resources and mechanisms, but it produces one product – earnings. Now let’s suppose that the capitalization of the company is the value of such a machine. Let's see how much Apple and McDonald's cost today: Apple - $2.538 trillion McDonald's - $202.552 billion We see that Apple is more than 10 times more expensive than McDonald's. But is it really so from an investor's point of view? The paradox is that we can't say for sure that Apple is 10 times more expensive than McDonald's until we divide each company's value by its earnings. Why exactly? Let's count and it will become clear: Apple's diluted net income - $99.803 a year McDonald's diluted net income - $6.177 billion a year Now read this phrase slowly, and if necessary, several times: “The value is what we pay now. Earnings are what we get all the time” . To understand how many dollars we need to pay now for the production of 1 dollar of profit a year, we need to divide the value of the company (its capitalization) by its annual profit. We get: Apple - $25.43 McDonald’s - $32.79 It turns out that in order to get $1 profit a year, for Apple we need to pay $25.43, and for McDonald's - $32.79. Wow! Currently, I believe that Apple appears cheaper than McDonald's. To remember this information better, imagine two machines that produce one-dollar bills at the same rate (once a year). In the case of an Apple machine, you pay $25.43 to issue this bill, and in the case of a McDonald’s machine, you pay $32.70. Which one will you choose? So, if we remove the $ symbol from these numbers, we get the world's most famous financial ratio Price/Earnings or P/E . It shows how much we, as investors, need to pay for the production of 1 unit of annual profit. And pay only once. There are two formulas for calculating this financial ratio: 1. P/E = Price of 1 share / Diluted EPS 2. P/E = Capitalization / Diluted Net Income Whatever formula you use, the result will be the same. By the way, I mainly use the Diluted Net Income instead of the regular one in my calculations. So do not be confused if you see a formula with a Net Income – you can calculate it this way as well. So, in the current publication, I have analyzed one of the interpretations of this financial ratio. But, in fact, there is another interpretation that I really like. It will help you realize which P/E level to choose for yourself. But more on that in the next post. See you!
NSE:NIFTYEducation
by Be_Capy
What can financial ratios tell us?In the previous post we learned what financial ratios are. These are ratios of various indicators from financial statements that help us draw conclusions about the fundamental strength of a company and its investment attractiveness. In the same post, I listed the financial ratios that I use in my strategy, with formulas for their calculations. Now let's take apart each of them and try to understand what they can tell us. - Diluted EPS . Some time ago I have already told about the essence of this indicator. I would like to add that this is the most influential indicator on the stock market. Financial analysts of investment companies literally compete in forecasts, what will be EPS in forthcoming reports of the company. If they agree that EPS will be positive, but what actually happens is that it is negative, the stock price may fall quite dramatically. Conversely, if EPS comes out above expectations - the stock is likely to rise strongly during the coverage period. - Price to Diluted EPS ratio . This is perhaps the best-known financial ratio for evaluating a company's investment appeal. It gives you an idea of how many years your investment in a stock will pay off if the current EPS is maintained. I have a particular take on this ratio, so I plan to devote a separate publication to it. - Gross margin, % . This is the size of the markup to the cost of the company's product (service) or, in other words, margin . It is impossible to say that small margin is bad, and large - good. Different companies may have different margins. Some sell millions of products by small margins and some sell thousands by large margins. And both of those companies may have the same gross margins. However, my preference is for those companies whose margins grow over time. This means that either the prices of the company's products (services) are going up, or the company is cutting production costs. - Operating expense ratio . This ratio is a great indicator of management's ability to manage a company's expenses. If the revenue increases and this ratio decreases, it means that the management is skillfully optimizing the operating expenses. If it is the other way around, shareholders should wonder how well management is handling current affairs. - ROE, % is a ratio reflecting the efficiency of a company's equity performance. If a company earned 5% of its equity, i.e. ROE = 5%, and the bank deposit rate = 7%, then shareholders have a reasonable question: why invest equity in business development, if it can be placed in a bank deposit and get more, without expending extra effort? In other words, ROE, % reflects the return on invested equity. If it is growing, it is definitely a positive factor for the company and the shareholders. - Days payable . This financial ratio is an excellent indicator of the solvency of the company. We can say that it is the number of days it will take the company to pay all debts to suppliers from its revenue. If the number of days is relatively small, it means that the company has no delays in paying for supplies and therefore no money problems. I consider less than 30 days to be acceptable, but over 90 days is critical. - Days sales outstanding . I already mentioned in my previous posts that when a company is having a bad sales situation, it may even sell its products on credit. Such debts accumulate in accounts receivable. Obviously, large accounts receivable are a risk for the company, because the debts may simply not be paid back. For ease of control over this indicator, they invented such a financial ratio as "Days sales outstanding". We can say that this is the number of days it will take the company to earn revenue equivalent to the accounts receivable. It's one thing if the receivables are 365 daily revenue and another if it's only 10 daily revenue. Like the previous ratio: less than 30 days is acceptable to me, but over 90 days is critical. - Inventory to revenue ratio . This is the amount of inventory in relation to revenue. Since inventory includes not only raw materials but also unsold products, this ratio can indicate sales problems. The more inventory a company has in relation to revenue, the worse it is. A ratio below 0.25 is acceptable to me; a ratio above 0.5 indicates that there are problems with sales. - Current ratio . This is the ratio of current assets to current liabilities. Remember, we said that current assets are easier and faster to sell than non-current, so they are also called quick assets. In the event of a crisis and lack of profit in the company, quick assets can be an excellent help to make payments on debts and settlements with suppliers. After all, they can be sold quickly enough to pay off these liabilities. To understand the size of this "safety cushion", the current ratio is calculated. The larger it is, the better. For me, a suitable current ratio is 2 or higher. But below 1 it does not suit me. - Interest coverage . We already know that loans play an important role in a company's operations. However, I am convinced that this role should not be the main one. If a company spends all of its profits to pay interest on loans, it is working for the bank, not for the shareholders. To find out how tangible interest on loans is for the company, the "Interest coverage" ratio was invented. According to the income statement, interest on loans is paid out of operating income. So if we divide the operating income by this interest, we get this ratio. It shows us how many times more the company earns than it spends on debt service. To me, the acceptable coverage ratio should be above 6, and below 3 is weak. - Debt to revenue ratio . This is a useful ratio that shows the overall picture of the company's debt situation. It can be interpreted the following way: it shows how much revenue should be earned in order to close all the debts. A debt to revenue ratio of less than 0.5 is positive. It means that half (or even less) of the annual revenue will be enough to close the debt. A debt to revenue ratio higher than 1 is considered a serious problem since the company does not even have enough annual revenue to pay off all of its debts. So, the financial ratios greatly simplify the process of fundamental analysis, because they allow you to quickly draw conclusions about the financial condition of the company, without looking up and down at its statements. You just look at ratios of key indicators and draw conclusions. In the next post, I will tell you about the king of all financial ratios - the Price to Diluted EPS ratio, or simply P/E. See you soon!
NSE:RELIANCEEducation
by Be_Capy
Financial ratios: digesting them togetherI hope that after studying the series of posts about company financial statements, you stopped being afraid of them. I suggest we build on that success and dive into the fascinating world of financial ratios. What is it? Let's look at the following example. Let's say you open up a company's balance sheet and see that the amount of debt is $100 million. Do you think this is a lot or a little? To me, it's definitely a big deal. But can we say the company has a huge debt based only on how we feel about it? I don't think so. However, if you find that a company that generates $10 billion in annual revenue has $100 million in debt (i.e. only 1% of revenue), what would you say then? That's objectively small, isn't it? It turns out that without correlating one indicator with another, we cannot draw any objective conclusion. This correlation is called the Financial Ratio . The recipe for a normal financial ratio is simple: we take one or two indicators from the financial statements, add some market data, put it all into a formula that includes a division operation - we obtain the financial ratio. In TradingView you can find a lot of financial ratios in the section Financials -> Statistics . However, I only use a few financial ratios which give me an idea about the financial situation of the company and its value: What can you notice when looking at this table? - Profit and revenue are frequent components of financial ratios because they are universal units of measurement for other reporting components. Just as length can be measured in feet and weight in pounds, a company's debts can be measured in revenues. - Some financial ratios are ratios, some are percentages, and some are days. - There are no financial ratios in the table whose data source is the Cash Flow Statement. The fact is that cash flows are rarely used in financial ratios because they can change drastically from quarter to quarter. This is especially true for financial and investment cash flow. That's why I recommend analyzing cash flows separately. In my next post, I'll break down each financial ratio from this table in detail and explain why I use them specifically. See you soon!
Editors' picks
NSE:BANKNIFTY1!Education
by Be_Capy
1
Cash flow vibrationsIn the previous post we started to analyze the Cash flow statement. From it, we learned about the existence of three cash flows - operating cash flow, financial cash flow, and investment cash flow. Like three rivers, they fill the company's "lake of cash" (that is, they go with a "+" sign). However, there are three other rivers that flow out of our lake, preventing it from expanding indefinitely. What are their names? They have absolutely identical names: operating cash flow, financial cash flow, and investment cash flow (and they go with a "-" sign). Why so? Because all of the company's outgoing payments can also be divided into these three rivers: Operating payments include the purchase of raw materials, the payment of wages - everything related to the production and support of the product. Financial payments include repayment of debt and interest on it, payment of dividends, or buyback of shares from shareholders. Investment payments include the purchase of non-current assets (say, the purchase of additional buildings or shares in another company). If the inflows from the three rivers on the left are greater than the outflows into the rivers on the right, then our lake will increase in volume, meaning that the company's cash balances will grow. If the outflows into the three rivers on the right are greater than the inflows from the rivers on the left, the lake will become shallow and eventually dry up. So, the cash flow statement shows how much our lake has increased or decreased over the period (quarter or year). This report can be presented as four entries: Each value of A, B, and C is the difference between what came into our lake from the river and what flowed out of the lake by the river of the same name. That is, the value can be either positive or negative. How can we interpret the meanings of the different flows? Let's break down each of them. Operating cash flow . In a fundamentally strong company, it is the most stable and powerful river. The implication is that it should be the main source of "water" for our lake. Negative operating cash flow is an indicator of serious problems with the business because it means it is not generating money. Investment cash flow . This is the most unpredictable river, as sometimes it can be very powerful and sometimes it can flow like a thin trickle. This is due to the fact that the purchase or sale of non-current assets (recall that these may be buildings, equipment, shares in other companies) does not occur as regularly as operational activities. A sudden negative investment flow tells us about some big purchase. Shareholders do not always view such events positively, as they may consider it an unwise expenditure or a threat to dividend payments. Therefore, they may start to sell their shares, which causes their price to drop. If a big purchase is perceived as an opportunity to reach the next level and capture more market share, then we may see exactly the opposite effect - an increase in share price. Financial cash flow . A negative value of this cash flow can be seen as a very positive signal because it means that the company is either actively reducing its debt to creditors, or using the money to pay dividends, or spending the money to buy its own stock (*), or maybe all of these together. (*) Here you may ask, why would a company buy its own stock? Management sometimes does this when they are confident in the success of their business and want to support the growth of their stock. The company becomes a major buyer of its own stock for some time so that it begins to grow. The process itself is called share buyback . Positive financial cash flow, on the other hand, signals either an increase in debt or the sale of its own stock. As far as debt is concerned, you can't say that loans are bad for business. But there has to be a measure. But the sale by a company of its own shares is already an alarming signal to the current shareholders. It means that the company doesn't have enough money coming out of operating cash flow. There is another type of cash flow that is not a separate "river," but is used as information about how much cash the company has left to meet its obligations to creditors and shareholders. This is Free cash flow . It is simple to calculate: just subtract one of the components of the investment cash flow from the operating cash flow. This component is called Capital expenditures (often abbreviated as CAPEX). Capital expenditures include outgoing payments that go toward the purchase of non-current assets , such as land, buildings, equipment, etc. (Free cash flow = Operating cash flow - Capital expenditures) Free cash flow can be characterized as the "living" money that a company has created over a period, which can be used to repay loans, pay dividends, and buyback stocks from shareholders. If free cash flow is very weak or even negative, it is a reason for creditors, shareholders and investors to think about how the company is doing business. This concludes my discussion of the cash flow statement topic. Next time, let's talk about the magic ratios that you can get from a company's financial statements. They greatly facilitate the process of fundamental analysis and are widely used by investors around the world. We will talk about the so-called Financial Ratios . See you soon!
NSE:TATAMOTORSEducation
by Be_Capy
2
Cash flow statement or Three great riversToday we're going to start taking apart the third and final report that the company publishes each quarter and year - it's Cash flow statement. Remember, when we studied the balance sheet , we learned that one of the company's assets is cash in accounts. This is a very important asset because if the company doesn't have money in the account, it can't buy raw materials, pay employees' salaries, etc. What, in general, is a "company" in the eyes of an accountant? These are assets that have been purchased on credit or with equity, for the purpose of earning a net income for its shareholders or investing that income in further growth. That is, the source of cash in a company's account may be profits . But why do I say "may be"? The point is that it's possible to have a situation where profits are positive on the income statement, but there is no money physically in the account. To make sense of this, let's remember the workshop I use in all the examples. Suppose our master sold all of his boots on credit. That is, he was promised payment, but later. He ended up with a receivable in assets and, most interestingly, generated revenue. The accountant will calculate the revenue for these sales, despite the fact that the shop hasn't actually received the money yet. Then the accountant will deduct the expenses from the revenue, and the result will be a profit. But there is zero money in the account. So what should our master do? The orders are coming in, but there is nothing to pay for the raw materials. In such circumstances, while the master is waiting for the repayment of debts from customers, he himself borrows from the bank to top up his current account with money. Now let us make his situation more complicated. Let us assume that the money borrowed he still does not have enough, and the bank does not give more. The only thing left is to sell some of his property, that is, some of his assets. Remember, when we took apart the assets of the workshop , the master had shares in an oil company. This is something he could sell without hurting the production process. Then there is enough money in the checking account to produce boots uninterrupted. Of course, this is a wildly exaggerated example, since more often than not, profits are money, after all, and not the virtual records of an accountant. Nevertheless, I gave this example to make it clear that cash in the account and profit are related, but still different concepts. So what does the cash flow statement show? Let's engage our imagination again. Imagine a lake with three rivers flowing into it on the left and three rivers flowing out on the right. That is, on one side the lake feeds on water, and on the other side it gives it away. So the asset called "cash" on the balance sheet is the lake. And the amount of cash is the amount of water in that lake. Let's now name the three rivers that feed our lake. Let's call the first river the operating cash flow . When we receive the money from product sales, the lake is filled with water from the first river. The second river on the left is called the financial cash flow . This is when we receive financing from outside, or, to put it simply, we borrow. Since this is money received into the company's account, it also fills our lake. The third river let's call investment cash flow . This is the flow of money we get from the sale of the company's non-current assets. In the example with the master, these were assets in the form of oil company stock. Their sale led to the replenishment of our notional money lake. So we have a lake of money, which is filled thanks to three flows: operational, financial, and investment. That sounds great, but our lake is not only getting bigger, but it's also getting smaller through the three outgoing flows. I'll tell you about that in my next post. See you soon!
Editors' picks
NSE:HDFCBANKEducation
by Be_Capy
8
What should I look at in the Income statement?The famous value investor, Mohnish Pabrai , said in one of his lectures that when he visited Warren Buffett, he noticed a huge handbook with the financial statements of thousands of public companies. It's a very dull reading, isn't it? Indeed, if you focus on every statement item - you'll waste a lot of time and sooner or later fall asleep. However, if you look at the large volumes of information from the perspective of an intelligent investor, you can find great interest in the process. It is wise to identify for yourself the most important statement items and monitor them in retrospect (from quarter to quarter). In previous posts, we've broken down the major items on the Income statement and the EPS metric: Part 1: The Income statement: the place where profit lives Part 2: My precious-s-s-s EPS Let's now highlight the items that interest me first. These are: - Total revenue The growth of revenue shows that the company is doing a good job of marketing the product, it is in high demand, and the business is increasing its scale. - Gross profit This profit is identical to the concept of margin. Therefore, an increase in gross profit indicates an increase in the margin of the business, i.e. its profitability. - Operating expenses This item is a good demonstration of how the management team is dealing with cost reductions. If operating expenses are relatively low and decreasing while revenue is increasing, that's terrific work by management, and you can give it top marks. - Interest expense Interest on debts should not consume a company's profits, otherwise, it will not work for the shareholders, but for the banks. Therefore, this item should also be closely monitored. - Net income It's simple here. If a company does not make a profit for its shareholders, they will dump its shares*. *Now, of course, you can dispute with me and give the example of, let's say, Tesla shares. There was a time when they were rising, even when the company was making losses. Indeed, Elon Musk's charisma and grand plans did the trick - investors bought the company's stock at any price. You could say that our partner Mr. Market was truly crazy at the time. I'm sure you can find quite a few such examples. All such cases exist because investors believe in future profits and don't see current ones. However, it is important to remember that sooner or later Mr. Market sobers up, the hype around the company goes away, and its losses stay with you. - EPS Diluted You could say it's the money the company earns per common share. So, I'm finishing up a series of posts related to the Income statement. This statement shows how much the company earns and how much it spends over a period (quarter or year). We've also identified the items that you should definitely watch out for in this report. That's all for today. In the next post, we will break down the last of the three financial statements of a public company - the Cash flow statement. Goodbye and see you later!
NSE:NIFTYEducation
by Be_Capy
My precious-s-s-s EPSIn the previous post , we began looking at the Income statement that the company publishes for each quarter and year. The report contains important information about different types of profits : gross profit, operating income, pretax income, and net income. Net income can serve both as a source of further investment in the business and as a source of dividend payments to shareholders (of course, if a majority of shareholders vote to pay dividends). Now let's break down the types of stock on which dividends can be paid. There are only two: preferred stock and common stock . We know from my earlier post that a stock gives you the right to vote at a general meeting of shareholders, the right to receive dividends if the majority voted for them, and the right to part of the bankrupt company's assets if something is left after paying all debts to creditors. So, this is all about common stock. But sometimes a company, along with its common stock, also issues so-called preferred stock. What advantages do they have over common stock? - They give priority rights to receive dividends. That is, if shareholders have decided to pay dividends, the owners of preferred shares must receive dividends, but the owners of common shares may be deprived because of the same decision of the shareholders. - The company may provide for a fixed amount of dividend on preferred shares. That is, if the decision was made to pay a dividend, preferred stockholders will receive the fixed dividend that the company established when it issued the shares. - If the company goes bankrupt, the assets that remain after the debts are paid are distributed to the preferred shareholders first, and then to the common shareholders. In exchange for these privileges, the owners of such shares do not have the right to vote at the general meeting of shareholders. It should be said that preferred shares are not often issued, but they do exist in some companies. The specific rights of shareholders of preferred shares are prescribed in the founding documents of the company. Now back to the income statement. Earlier we looked at the concept of net income. Since most investments are made in common stock, it would be useful to know what net income would remain if dividends were paid on preferred stock (I remind you: this depends on the decision of the majority of common stockholders). To do this, the income statement has the following line item: - Net income available to common stockholders (Net income available to common stockholders = Net income - Dividends on preferred stock) When it is calculated, the amount of dividends on preferred stock is subtracted from net income. This is the profit that can be used to pay dividends on common stock. However, shareholders may decide not to pay dividends and use the profits to further develop and grow the company. If they do so, they are acting as true investors. I recall the investing formula from my earlier post : give something now to get more in the future . And so it is here. Instead of deciding to spend profits on dividends now, shareholders may decide to invest profits in the business and get more dividends in the future. Earnings per share or EPS is used to understand how much net income there is per share. EPS is calculated very simply. As you can guess, all you have to do is divide the net income for the common stock by its number: - EPS ( Earnings per share = Net income for common stock / Number of common shares issued). There is an even more accurate measure that I use in my analysis, which is EPS Diluted or Diluted earnings per share : - EPS Diluted ( Diluted earnings per share = Net income for common stock / (Number of common shares issued + Issuer stock options, etc.)). What does "diluted" earnings mean, and when does it occur? For example, to incentivize management to work efficiently, company executives may be offered bonuses not in monetary terms, but in shares that the company will issue in the future. In such a case, the staff would be interested in the stock price increase and would put more effort into achieving profit growth. These additional issues are called Employee stock options (or ESO ). Because the amount of these stock bonuses is known in advance, we can calculate diluted earnings per share. To do so, we divide the profit not by the current number of common shares already issued, but by the current number plus possible additional issues. Thus, this indicator shows a more accurate earnings-per-share figure, taking into account all dilutive factors. The value of EPS or EPS Diluted is so significant for investors that if it does not meet their expectations or, on the contrary, exceeds them, the market may experience significant fluctuations in the share price. Therefore, it is always important to keep an eye on the EPS value. In TradingView the EPS indicator as well as its forecasted value can be seen by clicking on the E button next to the timeline. We will continue to discuss this topic in the next publication. See you soon!
Editors' picks
NSE:RELIANCEEducation
by Be_Capy
4
The income statement: the place where profit livesToday we are going to look at the second of the three main reports that a company publishes during the earnings season, the income statement. Just like the balance sheet, it is published every quarter and year. This is how we can find out how much a company earns and how much it spends. The difference between revenues and expenses is called profit . I would like to highlight this term "profit" again, because there is a very strong correlation between the dynamics of the stock price and the profitability of the company. Let's take a look at the stock price charts of companies that are profitable and those that are unprofitable. 3 charts of unprofitable : 3 charts of profitable : As we can see, stocks of unprofitable companies have a hard enough time growing, while profitable companies, on the contrary, are getting fundamental support to grow their stocks. We know from the previous post that a company's Equity grows due to Retained Earnings. And if Equity grows, so do Assets. Recall: Assets are equal to the sum of a company's Equity and Liabilities. Thus, growing Assets, like a winch attached to a strong tree, pull our machine (= stock price) higher and higher. This is, of course, a simplified example, but it still helps to realize that a company's financial performance directly affects its value. Now let's look at how earnings are calculated in the income statement. The general principle is this: if we subtract all expenses from revenue, we get profit . Revenue is calculated quite simply - it is the sum of all goods and services sold over a period (a quarter or a year). But expenses are different, so in the income statement we will see one item called "Total revenue" and many items of expenses. These expenses are deducted from revenue gradually (top-down). That is, we don't add up all the expenses and then subtract the total expenses from the revenue - no. We deduct each expense item individually. So at each step of this subtraction, we get different kinds of profit : gross profit, operating income, pretax income, net income. So let's look at the report itself. - Total revenue This is, as we've already determined, the sum of all goods and services sold for the period. Or you could put it another way: this is all the money the company received from sales over a period of time. Let me say right off the bat that all of the numbers in this report are counted for a specific period. In the quarterly report, the period, respectively, is 1 quarter, and in the annual report, it is 1 year. Remember my comparison of the balance sheet with the photo ? When we analyze the balance sheet, we see a photo (data snapshot) on the last day of the reporting period, but not so in the income statement. There we see the accumulated amounts for a specific period (i.e. from the beginning of the reporting quarter to the end of that quarter or from the beginning of the reporting year to the end of that year). - Cost of goods sold Since materials and other components are used to make products, accountants calculate the amount of costs directly related to the production of products and place them in this item. For example, the cost of raw materials for making shoes would fall into this item, but the cost of salaries for the accountant who works for that company would not. You could say that these costs are costs that are directly related to the quantity of goods produced. - Gross profit (Gross profit = Total revenue - Cost of goods sold) If we subtract the cost of goods sold from the total revenue, we get gross profit. - Operating expenses (Operating expenses are costs that are not part of the cost of production) Operating expenses include fixed costs that have little or no relation to the amount of output. These may include rental payments, staff salaries, office support costs, advertising costs, and so on. - Operating income (Operating income = Gross profit - Operating expenses) If we subtract operating expenses from gross profit, we get operating income. Or you can calculate it this way: Operating income = Total revenue - Cost of goods sold - Operating expenses. - Non-operating income (this item includes all income and expenses that are not related to regular business operations) It is interesting, that despite its name, non-operating income and operating income can have negative values. For this to happen, it is sufficient that the corresponding expenses exceed the income. This is a clear demonstration of how businessmen revere profit and income, but avoid the word "loss" in every possible way. Apparently, a negative operating income sounds better. Below is a look at two popular components of non-operating income. - Interest expense This is the interest the company pays on loans. - Unusual income/expense This item includes unusual income minus unusual expenses. "Unusual" means not repeated in the course of regular activities. Let's say you put up a statue of the company's founder - that's an unusual expense. And if it was already there, and it was sold, that's unusual income. - Pretax income (Pretax income = Operating income + Non-operating income) If we add or subtract (depending on whether it is negative or positive) non-operating income to operating income, we get pretax income. - Income tax Income tax reduces our profit by the tax rate. - Net income (Net income = Pretax income - Income tax) Here we get to the income from which expenses are no longer deducted. That is why it is called "net". It is the bottom line of any company's performance over a period. Net income can be positive or negative. If it's positive, it's good news for investors, because it can go either to pay dividends or to further develop the company and increase profits. This concludes part one of my series of posts on the Income statement. In the next parts, we'll break down how net income is distributed to holders of different types of stock: preferred and common. See you soon!
Editors' picks
NSE:BANKNIFTYEducation
by Be_Capy
2
At the beginning was the EquityWith this post, I am concluding the analysis of the company's balance sheet. You can read the previous parts here: Part 1 - Balance sheet: taking the first steps Part 2 - Assets I prioritize Part 3 - A sense of debt Now we know that every company has assets on one side of the balance sheet and liabilities and equity on the other side. If you add liabilities and equity together you get the sum of assets. And vice versa, if you subtract all of the company's liabilities from the assets, you get what? That's right, you get Equity . Let's discuss this important component of the balance sheet. When a company is first established, it must have initial equity. This is the money with which any business starts. It is used for the first expenses of the new company. In the case of our workshop , the equity was the master's savings, with which he bought the garage, equipment, raw materials and other assets to start his business. As sales progressed, the workshop received the revenue and reimbursed expenses. Whatever was left over was used to boost the company's profit. So, our master invested his capital in the business to increase it through profits. Making a profit is the main purpose for which the company's assets work, loans are raised, and equity is invested. Let's see which balance sheet items are in the Equity group: - Common stock (The sum of nominal values of common stock issued). Remember, when our master decided to turn his company into a stock company , he issued 1 million shares at a price of $1,000 per share. So $1,000 per share is the par value of the stock. And the sum of the nominal values of the stocks issued would be $1 billion. - Retained earnings . It is clear from the name of this item that it contains profits that have not been distributed. We will find out where it can be allocated in the next post, when we start analyzing the income statement. - Accumulated other comprehensive income (Profit or loss on open investments). The profit or loss of a company can be not only from its core business, but also, for example, from the rise or fall in the value of other companies' shares that it bought. In our example, the workshop has oil company shares. The financial result from the revaluation of these shares is recorded in this item. So, the equity is necessary for the company to invest it in the business and make a profit. Then the retained earnings themselves become equity, which is reinvested to make even more profits. It's a continuous cycle of the company's life that bets on equity growth. Which balance sheet items are of interest to me in the Equity group? Of course, I am interested in the profit-related items: retained earnings and profit or loss on open investments. The sum of nominal share values is a static indicator, so it can hardly tell us anything. However, it is better to use information from the income statement rather than the balance sheet to analyze earnings, because only this report allows us to see the entire structure of a company's income and expenses. So we conclude the general analysis of a company's balance sheet. To fully understand why it is needed, let's engage our imagination once again. Do you remember the example with the hotel ? We imagined that a joint stock company is a hotel with identical rooms, where you, as an investor, can buy a certain number of rooms (one room = one share). Think about what you would want to look at first before buying? Personally, I'd rather see photos of the rooms. So, the balance sheet can be compared to such photos that we get from the hotel at quarterly and annual intervals. Of course, in such a case, the hotel will try to use special effects as much as possible in order to improve investors' impression of the photos released. However, if we track and compare photos over multiple periods, we can still understand: is our hotel evolving, or have we been watching the same couch in a standard room for 10 years in a row. We can say that the balance sheet is a "photo" of the company's assets, debts and equity at the balance sheet date. And the balance sheet items I've chosen are what I look at first in this photo. In the next series of posts, we will break down an equally important report, the income statement, and explore the essence of earnings. See you soon!
NSE:TATAMOTORSEducation
by Be_Capy
A sense of debtIn the previous two posts, we explored how assets are grouped in a company's balance sheet. Part 1: Balance sheet: taking the first steps Part 2: Assets I prioritize Now let's deal with Liabilities and Stockholders' equity. Let me remind you that these are the sources of funds that give a company assets. And indeed, with what funds can a company have assets? Either with its own funds (stockholders' equity), or with funds borrowed (liabilities). For simplicity, we will call them Debts and Equity. Debts can vary in maturity, so we've divided them into two categories in the balance sheet: Current liabilities and Non-current liabilities . Current liabilities include: - Current debts are debts that need to be paid back within a year after they are incurred. Do you remember our master took a loan from the bank to make a large batch of boots? That loan will be recorded in this item (assuming the loan is up to one year in repayment). - Accounts payable (debts to suppliers of goods and services). You can borrow money not only from the bank, but also from your suppliers, for example. In other words he is giving you raw materials now, but is ready to accept payment later. Such debts are reflected in this item. - Accrued liabilities (Provisions for future expenses on unpaid bills in the form of wages, rent, taxes). The word "debt" is in many ways synonymous with the word "liability." A company may have many such liabilities: payment of wages, rent and taxes. In essence, these are also debts to be paid during the year. For convenience, cash reserves are set aside for them. They are spent at the moment when the payment is due. Such reserves are recorded in this item. - Other current liabilities . Debts or liabilities with a maturity of up to one year that are not included in the categories above are shown here. Non-current liabilities include: - Long term debt - these are debts that need to be paid back more than one year after they are incurred. If our master had borrowed from the bank for two years, such a loan would fall into this category. - Deferred taxes liabilities (Provision for taxes to be paid in a future period). Tax rates are subject to change, and new taxes may come into effect in a year or more. But even now, the company can set aside money for future taxes. - Other long term liabilities . Here are debts or liabilities with a maturity of more than one year that are not included in the categories above. In short, debts are loans taken by the company, provisions for tax liabilities, and debts to suppliers. The amount of debt is a very important indicator in the fundamental analysis of a company. On the one hand, the mere presence of debt is not scary, because it demonstrates that banks trust the company and give it loans for development. On the other hand, a substantial amount of debt can cause serious problems and losses in the period of weak sales of goods or services. Banks are unlikely to suspend interest charges on loans if a company is doing poorly. This means the company will incur expenses in the form of interest on loans that are not offset by revenue. Also a reminder that if a company goes bankrupt, the owners of the stock get the assets of that company only after all debts have been settled . If the debts are so large that they exceed the value of all the property, the shareholders get nothing. For these reasons, I select companies with small debt loads. What liabilities do I focus on? - Current debt; - Accounts payable; - Long term debt. For me, these are the items that most clearly reflect the company's debt situation. In the next post, we will conclude our study of the balance sheet and look at the basic source of assets, which is Equity. See you soon!
NSE:HDFCBANKEducation
by Be_Capy
Assets I prioritizeIn the previous post Balance sheet: taking the first steps , we began parsing the balance sheet of the imaginary workshop and focused on assets. Today, I suggest looking at what types of tangible and intangible property are classified as current assets and what types are classified as non-current assets. Current assets contain the following items: - Cash and cash equivalents - in our case we can include a safe with money, which, in general, corresponds to the company's cash in its current bank accounts. - Net receivables - here we would include the IOU from a friend. That is everything that clients owe the company for goods or services. - Inventory - this includes a bag with leather, rubber and thread. That is all raw materials, from which goods are made, as well as stocks of finished goods in warehouses. - Other current assets - this can include other current assets that do not belong to the previous items. Non-current assets include the following items: - Net property, plant and equipment - we include a garage, table, chair, sewing machine and tools. Depreciation is deducted from the original cost of the property when reporting it. Depreciation is the cost to repair and renew the property. - Equity and other investments - in our example, this would include oil company stocks (and in general, any company investment in stocks or bonds of other companies). - Goodwill - let's say our company wants to buy another company and is willing to pay $11 million for it. The assets of the other company are $10 million, and the debts that our company will have to pay for the other company are $2 million. So the assets net of debt are $8 million. After the purchase, the assets and debts of that company will become the assets and debts of our company. So, the difference between the purchase amount of $11 million and the net assets of $8 million is a goodwill equal to $3 million. For our workshop, this item is not relevant, as it didn't buy any company. Nevertheless, remember that goodwill is the difference between the purchase price of another company and its net assets. - Intangible assets - this can include the value of the customer base in the master's phone book, as well as any other assets that have no tangible basis (such as purchased trademarks). - Other long term assets - this item includes other non-current assets that don't belong to the previous items. Once we understand which asset belongs to which item, its value (or rather, the sum of the values of all assets belonging to this item) is written in the balance sheet. For example, let's say we've determined that the Inventory item includes leather, rubber, and thread. The accountant adds up the value of the leather, rubber, and thread and writes the total amount in monetary terms against the Inventory item. This is how the numbers appear in the balance sheet. Now let's discuss which balance sheet items we should pay attention to during the fundamental analysis of assets. I have formulated the following rule for myself: pay attention to the assets that are directly related to the sale of the company's goods or services . If a company does not sell its goods or services well, its bank account balance will shrink, huge inventories of unsold goods and raw materials will accumulate in its warehouses, and accounts receivable (customers debt) will grow. The fact is that when sales are bad, the company is ready to lend out goods as debt. If sales are going well, then, on the contrary, the money in the account will grow, and accounts receivable and inventory will start to shrink. All other assets can influence sales only indirectly, so I don't consider them. Thus, I have identified my priority assets : - Cash and cash equivalents; - Net receivables; - Inventory. As you can see, they are all quick current assets. Non-current assets only indirectly affect sales, so they are not a priority benchmark for me. In the next post, we'll start looking at the right side of our disclosed book, called the Balance sheet. That's where the company's liabilities and equity belong. See you next time!
NSE:NIFTYEducation
by Be_Capy
Balance sheet: taking the first stepsToday we are going to start learning about fundamental analysis of companies. In my opinion, this is the basic skill you should have when picking stocks to invest in. Once again, the main principle of the strategy I follow is to pick outstanding companies and buy their stocks at a discounted price. You may have noticed that first-class products are occasionally discounted in stores, but not for long, because such products are quickly swept off the shelves, and almost the next day the price is again without a discount. Exactly the same strategy is applicable to the stock market. Now, fundamental analysis is a method for picking outstanding companies (that is, companies with strong fundamentals). How can we tell if a company has a strong foundation or not? There is only one way - by analyzing its financial statements. Every listed company has to disclose this information publicly on its website. In other words, we don't have to extract that information - it is publicly available. You can also find it on TradingView and see the data in dynamics. What is the content of this information? The company publishes three reports : balance sheet, income statement and cash flow statement. The balance sheet, like the order book , can be presented as an open book. The left side of the book lists the company's assets and their valuation in monetary terms, and the right side lists the company's liabilities and equity , and their valuation in monetary terms. What are company assets? These are everything that belongs to the company: buildings, equipment, trademark, shares of other companies, cash in the cash register. In general, all tangible and intangible property of a company are assets. What are liabilities and equity of a company? These are the sources of funds that gave rise to the assets. For example, if you bought a computer for $1000 with your savings, then the computer is an asset, and your own savings are equity. If a friend lent you $100, and you put the money in your pocket, the money in your pocket is an asset, and the debt to your friend is a liability. Based on these examples, you can make an imaginary balance sheet: As you can see, the entry in the balance sheet is the name of the asset, liability or equity and their monetary value. Assets, liabilities and equity are inextricably linked, so the sum of assets is always equal to the sum of liabilities and equity . If we were to write every asset in this way on the balance sheet of a large company, it would turn into an endless book of hundreds of pages. However, if we look at the balance sheets of huge corporations, they can fit on a single sheet of paper. This is due to the fact that over time invented to group the same type of balance sheet items. Let's look at how the company's balance sheet items are grouped: Don't be frightened. Now we will try to digest this table with the help of an example we are already familiar with. Let's think back to our master cobbler , specifically to the period when he was just starting out. Let's assume what exactly he had at that time: a garage, a table, a chair, a sewing machine, tools, a bag with leather and rubber, thread, a safe with money, a phone book with clients' contact information, a IOU from his friend, and oil company stocks. I have now listed the assets of our master, or should I say, of his workshop. I should note that what is listed here is exactly what is directly related to his business. Even the money in the safe, the debt from his friend, and the oil company shares came about because of the existence of the business. Let's say the master's apartment or the bicycle he rides in the park are not assets, because they don't belong to the workshop. They belong to the master, but not to his business. Let's categorize the workshop's assets into groups. There are two big groups: Current assets and Non-current assets . How should you distinguish them? The general rule is this: Current assets are what a company's product is made of, and what can turn into money in the near future, so they can be called quick assets . Non-current assets are where and with what we create the product, and what can turn into money not so soon (so they can be called long-term assets ). So, here we go: - A garage, a table, a chair are where we create a product, so a long-term (non-current) asset. - A sewing machine, tools - this is what we use to create a product - a long-term (non-current) asset. - A bag with leather and rubber and thread is what a product is made from - a quick (current) asset. - A safe with money is already real money - a quick (current) asset. - A phone book with customer numbers - it's hard to sell it to someone quickly, such assets are also called intangible assets and are placed in long-term (non-current) assets. - IOU from a friend, i.e. a friend bought boots from a master, but can pay only after receiving his salary - a quick (current) asset. - Shares of an oil company - let's assume that a customer once paid for the boots with them - a long-term (non-current) asset. So, we've just categorized the master's assets into two groups: current assets (quick assets) and non-current assets (long-term assets). In the next post, we'll break down the components of these two large groups. See you then!
Editors' picks
NSE:RELIANCEEducation
by Be_Capy
6
Man on the shoulders of giantsIsaac Newton, who turned people's view of the world upside down, once said: "If I have seen further than others, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants". And indeed, each of us has a chance to discover something new for ourselves and others by drawing on the wisdom of our predecessors. I want to say a big thank you to Benjamin Graham, David Dodd, Warren Buffett and Peter Lynch, who openly shared their ideas with the world and inspired more than one private investor in their first investments. I'm sure Mohnish Pabrai will join me in saying the same. Born in Mumbai, an engineer by training, he had no interest in the subject of stock investing until he was 30 years old. But by chance, after reading a book by Peter Lynch, he began to study the subject more deeply. Centimeter by centimeter he climbed the shoulders of the giants of value investing to see hitherto unknown horizons. He is now known as a successful investor, author of books on investing, and creator of incredibly kind philanthropic initiatives. Listening to Mohnish Pabrai's lectures, I noted his ideas, which in many ways coincide with my own. I am happy to share them with you: 1. The market is always concerned about what will happen to the company in the future, so it cannot be 100% efficient (*). (*) Let me remind you that according to "efficient market" theory, a company's current price reflects its "fair value" because any publicly known information instantly affects the price. Thus, an investor is unlikely to make a profit on any information, such as a company's strong financial statements, because the market has already reflected the event. However, this theory does not take into account the future, which we all think about every day and act in the present, including the market, based on those thoughts. For example, someone may think that a company's future is murky because of the news that has come out. This concern will be picked up by the crowd, and the stock will go down. Or on the contrary, the success of the company may be perceived as over-optimistic, and a real stir will start around the stock. No one knows the future, but thinking about it affects the present. For this reason, the current price of the company may not reflect its fair value, contrary to the "efficient market" theory. 2. Continuing with the first thought, the waves of pessimism and optimism will always be present in the market. They distort a company's value so much that they give us private investors a chance to buy and sell a company's stock profitably. 3. The more time you spend analyzing a company, the more you "fall in love" with it. Try to grasp this idea. After all, by spending a lot of time studying something, such as a company's excellent financial statements, we set ourselves up for what it must pay off as a profitable investment. Remember: the market doesn't owe you anything. 4. Often the decision to invest in a company can be made based on just a few surprising figures. For example, if the value of a company is equal to 50% of the amount of cash in its checking account. Mohnish Pabrai said that Warren Buffett used a reference book with the statements of thousands of companies, not to spend months studying each of them, but to find something that would really surprise him. 5. Mohnish Pabrai admitted that he has never once played the short and has no intention of doing so for the rest of his life. His math is really simple. If you play the short by selling a stock at $100, your maximum earnings are capped at $100 (which will happen when the stock drops to zero). Whereas a buyer of a $100 stock has a chance to sell it at both $1,000 and $2,000. There is no upside restriction by its very nature. 6. And the thought I want to conclude this post with is don't look for people to hand you a treasure on a platter. Looking for treasure is much more interesting! It's about not trying to replicate someone else's trades or portfolio positions. Try to make your own decisions. Try to see your horizon. The unwavering shoulders of giants will help you in all of this.
SP:SPXEducation
by Be_Capy
A pill for missed opportunitiesPrevious parts of the post: Part 1: My Three Comrades: the Chart, the Screener, and the Watchlist Part 2: Two captains of the same ship The market is an element we take for granted. It can't stop when we're busy doing other things, and it can't work if the stock market is off and you personally have work days. The small investor's impact on the market is close to zero. Some may not like it, but I see it as a big plus. I'm not the only one. Even Peter Lynch wrote about this . It is because of our size that we small investors have the ability to get the best buy and sell prices on stocks. Just imagine an elephant and a mouse trying to drink water from a coffee mug. Who has a better chance? Like the best sales, attractive stock prices don't last long. This also applies to the period of increased stock prices that are interesting to sell. To make sure you don't miss this time, TradingView has an alert service. Why do we need an alert system? For our convenience. Once we have selected fundamentally strong companies, our next step is to keep an eye on their stock price so we can buy them at a price we can benefit from. You remember our strategy, right? Buy rooms in a great hotel, and even during a sale period. How do you monitor these "sales"? You have two options: to monitor the price chart yourself during the trading period, or set up alerts so that if the stock price reaches a certain level, you will receive an SMS message to your phone or email, or a push-notification in the TradingView app (depending on your settings). Agree, this is very convenient. So how do you set up the alerts? 1. First of all, you must open the chart of the stock you are going to configure the alerts for. 2. Then click on the "Alert" button at the top toolbar of the chart. 3. Set the alert parameters in the settings menu. How do I read the settings in this picture? If the Apple stock price is less than $130 per share, I will receive an alert every minute, all the time the stock is trading below $130. The alert I will receive will contain the following message: AAPL Less Than 130.00 If you don't want to get an alert every minute, set the trigger to "Only Once". 4. In the "Notifications" tab, you can configure where the alerts and the sound will go. The system of customized alerts will allow you to use your time effectively. You will not be chained to the monitor and you can calmly wait for the cherished message. In the picture you can see that alerts can come as: - push notification to your phone (if you have the TradingView app installed); - a pop-up window on your monitor; - a letter to your email address; - a message to a web address (advanced feature for developers); - SMS to your phone, but via email (i.e. your email service must have the ability to send copies of emails via SMS). As for my investment strategy, it's quiet enough to work on it even without alerts. Mr. Market doesn't often come with insanely interesting prices, so it takes time to get to the target values. It's like waiting for an astronaut from the Moon: he can't return to Earth in a day, you have to wait patiently, with the occasional peek at the situation. So, I'm concluding my series of posts dedicated to the basic functions of TradingView. I advise you to "play" with the platform for a while to get used to it as quickly as possible. In fact, it has a lot of features that you will discover over time. For now, that's it. In the following posts, we will begin to examine perhaps the most important aspect of an investment strategy, which is fundamental analysis. Get ready, here comes the part that will require the most concentration. But then you will be able to navigate this topic with ease. See you next time!
Editors' picks
NSE:TATASTEELEducation
by Be_Capy
4
Two captains of the same shipPrevious part of the post: My Three Comrades: the Chart, the Screener, and the Watchlist Now let's move on to the fundamental analysis. Remember in this post I gave the example that a joint stock company can be thought of as a hotel, and owning shares can be thought of as owning one or more rooms in that hotel. So, imagine now that our hotel has a terrible foundation with lots of holes in it. What would happen to such a hotel? Of course, it could collapse, dragging everything down with it. It would also affect the value of the stock, and in our case, the value of the rooms. Because no one will want to buy rooms in such a hotel, on the contrary, they will try to sell them at any price, and then the value of rooms (stocks) will go down. The purpose of fundamental analysis is to understand how financially stable and profitable the chosen company is. Sometimes they say that a company has a strong or weak foundation - a generalized conclusion based on analysis of its financial statements. So, our task will be to find stocks of companies with strong foundations. Let's go to "Chart+" and select "Indicators" in the upper toolbar. A menu will open for you, where on the left we will select "Financials". Here we can select data from company reports: Balance Sheet, Income Statement and Cash Flow. They are issued quarterly and annually. Accordingly, you can select any indicator from the statements, such as revenue, select the period - quarter or year, and add it to the chart. In this way, you can study the dynamics of this indicator over time. In addition to the reporting data, you can add so-called multipliers to the chart. They are placed in the same menu after the "Cash Flow" > subsection called "Statistics". What is a multiplier and how to analyze the statements, we will discuss in our separate posts on the fundamental analysis, and now let's move on to the technical analysis. Technical analysis is a search for recurring patterns on a price chart in order to predict its future behavior. Let's go back to the time when candlesticks were invented. These charts appealed to traders so much that they began to look for repeating combinations of candlesticks, which served as signals of future price movement. For example, there is a combination called "bearish engulfing" . When the market has a clear upward trend, and in one day, a massive bearish candle appears, the body of which closes the body and shadows of the previous candle - it can herald the reversal of the uptrend. Or, if the market for three days in a row is drawn three black candles with massive bodies - they are called "three crows" . Traders interpret this as a sign that the downtrend is continuing. Doesn't that sound like an omen to you? In fact, people have made up dozens of similar patterns and many more that, like weather forecasts, don't always come true. You must have sensed that I cover this topic rather cursorily? This is due to the fact that I do not use technical analysis at all. That is, I do not make predictions based on recurring situations from the past. I do, however, use one of the tools of technical analysis, which is the average value of the stock price over the year. Not to make predictions, but to have a guideline: when to buy and when to sell stocks of companies with strong fundamentals. I will surely elaborate on this in my next posts, but for now, wrapping up the topic of technical analysis, I want to give one analogy. Stock price movements can be compared to the sea: sometimes it is calm and sometimes it is subject to strong waves. An investor can be compared to the captain of a ship who has to decide whether to put to sea now or not (i.e. whether to buy stocks or not). A captain who looks at the official weather reports and gauges is like an investor who uses fundamental analysis. And a captain who is only guided by omens and his gut is like an investor making a decision based on technical analysis. You can be captain number two without me, but how to become captain number one is the subject of my blog.
AMEX:SPYEducation
by Be_Capy
My Three Comrades: the Chart, the Screener, and the WatchlistToday we will continue to explore the fascinating world of stock investing. And TradingView will help us with that. I sincerely recommend making friends with this platform, as I haven't found anything more convenient to implement my strategy yet. After you have registered on the site, move to the main menu "Products" > "Chart+" . This is where you'll spend most of your time with the platform. What opportunities are in front of you: - Find companies to invest in; - Make a fundamental analysis of the companies; - Make a technical analysis of stock charts; - Receive alerts on the buy or sell price of a stock that is right for you. So, let's break down each item. How to search for stocks on TradingView? Hopefully, you've already entered the "Chart+" section. In the upper left corner is a line to enter the ticker of the stock. If you don't know the ticker, just enter the first letters of the company name: the system will find the ticker that corresponds to that company on its own. However, keep in mind that stocks of the same company may be traded on different exchanges from different countries, so sometimes one company may have several tickers. As an example, let's enter the name "Tesla" in the search bar to open a chart of their stock. As we can see, the system tells us that Tesla is traded on NASDAQ and some exchanges in other countries. To the right of the search bar is a button with a choice of time frame. You can try different time frames, but for me the most important is the time frame of 1 day (i.e. one candle shows the price change for 1 day). So, the way of selecting a company via the search bar is convenient when you know at least its name. But there are thousands of companies listed on the stock exchange, and it is impossible to know the name of every company. In this case, the "Stock Screener" will help us. It is located in the lower left corner. Clicking on the Screener will open a list of stocks, filtered according to the parameters you set (you can customize the parameters by clicking on the bright blue button "Filters" on the right). Let's go to filters and configure the parameters we need. First of all, let's select the country - (for example), the USA . In the second turn, on the tab with general parameters, let's choose the instrument type - common stocks , and let's choose the exchanges - NYSE , NASDAQ , and one more American exchange - NYSE ARCA . Now we have a list of all stocks, which are traded on the exchanges that we have chosen. What we are interested in, we can add to the "Watchlist" . This is the first (top) button in the menu on the right. Just right-click on the ticker from the screener and select "Add to Watchlist". The same can be done by right-clicking on a chart. Switching between the tickers in the Watchlist you will consequently switch between the charts. So, we have figured out how to find the shares of a company. In the next post, let's see what we have in terms of fundamental analysis of companies.
NASDAQ:TSLAEducation
by Be_Capy
A little bit about volumes and the master of all averagesSo, let's refresh our knowledge from the previous posts (read part 1 and part 2 at the links): - The chart is based on the data from the tape; - The X-axis is the time scale, and the Y-axis is the price scale; - To avoid having to analyze a huge number of trades, interval charts were invented for convenience; - The most popular chart type is the Candlestick chart; - The candlestick consists of a body and shadows (upper and lower). The body is drawn at the open and close prices of the interval. The shadows are built by the maximum price (high), and the minimum price (low); - The time interval for one candle is called a time frame. The smaller the time frame, the more detailed information we get about the price changes. In addition to information about the price dynamics, from the stock chart, we can get information about the dynamics of trading volume. These are bars that we see below the candlesticks. They are also drawn on the basis of information from the tape. Let's return to our example: FB $110 20 lots 12/03/21 12-34-59 FB $115 25 lots 12/03/21 12-56-01 FB $100 10 lots 12/03/21 12-59-12 FB $105 30 lots 12/03/21 12-59-48 If you add up all the lots of trades in the interval from 12-00-00 to 12-59-59, we get 85 lots. Then the lots need to be multiplied by the number of stocks in one lot, for example, 100. It turns out that 8500 shares changed their owners in 1 hour. This information is displayed as a bar below each candlestick. My strategy does not use a trading volume analysis, but it is important to understand that increasing trading volumes are a sign of increasing attention to the stock. However, this attention does not always translate into higher prices. If there is negative news about a company, we will see both a drop in the stock price and an increase in volume. What is constantly used in my investment strategy is the moving average . What is it? This is the average of the close prices of a selected number of candles, starting with the last one. I use the average of the close values of the last 252 candlesticks. Why this number? The number 252 corresponds to the average number of trading days per year on the NYSE and the NASDAQ. That is, in fact, the average annual moving price . Why is it moving? Because every day there is a new candlestick with a new close value, and it begins a new calculation of the average value of the last 252 daily candlesticks. You can plot the moving average chart on a candlestick chart and see how far the current price has "run away" from the annual average price. I will tell you exactly how to apply this in investing in the next posts, and that's all for today. Finally, I will ask you to reflect on one thought: One who is true to the golden mean will always find something that someone else missed and give it to someone who is afraid to miss it. See you in future posts.
NSE:BANKNIFTYEducation
by Be_Capy
2
Japanese Candlesticks: Game of Body and ShadowsSo, in the last post we learned how to build a simple line chart based on the tape. Each point on the chart is defined by coordinates from the time (X scale) and price (Y scale) of a trade. But some stocks are traded at a frequency of hundreds of trades per second, at different prices. The question arises: which trade price to choose from this set? Interval charts were invented to solve this question. The most popular is the Candlestick Chart . They appeared in Japan three hundred years ago, when the Japanese exchanges were trading rice. They were invented by a trader named Homma. Apparently, being tired of drawing a lot of points on charts, he decided that it would be more convenient to show the price change over the time interval. So, what he came up with. Let's take a time frame equal to one hour and plot a 1-hour candle on the basis of the following tape: FB $110 20 lots 12/12/22 12-34-59 FB $115 25 lots 12/12/22 12-56-01 FB $100 10 lots 12/12/22 12-59-12 FB $105 30 lots 12/12/22 12-59-48 A candle consists of a body and upper and lower shadows. Like a float. The body is formed from the open and close prices of a certain time frame. In our case the hour interval is from 12-00-00 till 12-59-59. Only 4 deals were concluded in this time interval. The price of the first deal is $110, which is the opening price of the period or the so-called " open ". The price of the last deal was $105, which is the period closing price or " close ". These two prices are enough to form the body of the candle. Now let us move on to the shadows . The upper shadow is drawn at the maximum price of the interval (115$) and is called " high ". The lower shadow is drawn at the minimum price of the interval ($100) and is called " low ". The shape of our candle is ready. However, it should also have a content, namely the color. What is it for? Let's take a look at another candle. Here we can see where is the high and where is the low. But how do we know which is the open or the close? After all, the open is not always at the bottom of the candlestick body, as in the previous example, it can be at the top. To understand where is the open and where is the close, Homma has invented to paint the body of a candlestick in black, if close is lower than the open, i.e. if the price in the interval is falling (falling candle or bearish candle ). But if close is higher than open, the body of the candle remains white, it will indicate the growth of price during the interval (rising candle or bullish candle ). Sometimes a candlestick has shadows, and the close price is equal to the open price. Then it will look like a cross. This candlestick is called a doji . White and black are the classic colors for the bodies of Japanese candles. However, you can come up with your own colors. If you want the rising candles, for example, to be blue, and the falling orange - you're welcome. The main thing is to make it convenient and understandable for you. So, one candlestick allows us to understand where we had the first trade, the last trade, the price maximum and minimum in a given time frame. But it does not allow us to understand how the price changed within the interval: when the maximum or minimum was reached and what was happening within this price range. But the problem can be easily solved if we switch to a smaller time frame. If we look at the daily candlesticks (this is when the time frame of one candle is equal to one day), and we want to see what was during the day - we switch to the hourly time frame. If we want to see even more details - we switch to 15-minute candles and so on down to the seconds. But you and I will most often use daily timeframes, so as not to be distracted by the fluctuations that occur during the day. To be continued :)
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NSE:TATAMOTORSEducation
by Be_Capy
2
The birth of the chart. The evolution of the tapeLast time we studied how the exchange price is formed, and we found out that it is important to learn how to read charts correctly in order to analyze price changes correctly. Let's see how a chart is made and what it can tell us. Everyone who went to school probably remembers: to draw a function, we need the X and Y axes. In stock charts, the X-axis is responsible for the time scale, and the Y-axis is responsible for the price scale. As we already know, a chart is built on the basis of data from a tape. At the previous post , we have produced the following tape: FB $110 20 lots FB $115 5 lots FB $100 10 lots Actually, in addition to ticker, price and volume the tape also fixes time of trade. Let's add this parameter to our tape: FB $110 20 lots 12/08/22 12-34-59 FB $115 5 lots 12/08/22 12-56-01 FB $100 10 lots 12/08/22 12-59-02 That's it. Now this data is enough to put points on the chart. We draw three points, connect them with straight lines and get a chart. At one time, this was enough, because trades on the exchange were not frequent. But now some popular stocks, such as Apple or Google, have hundreds of trades per second with different prices. If the minimum division on the X scale is one second, what price point should we put if there were many trades at different prices in one second? Or let's place all the points at once? We will discuss that in the next post. And now, as a postscript, I want to show you some pictures describing how the tape was born and evolved. Here is a picture of a stock player, looking through a tape with quotations, which is given by a special telegraph machine. Each telegraph machine is connected by wires which, like a spider's web, entangle New York City. 1930's broker's office with several telegraph machines and a quotation board. An employee of the exchange looking through a tape of quotes. It won't be long before all this is replaced by the first computers. We'll continue today's theme soon.
NSE:HDFCBANKEducation
by Be_Capy
Market order or the hunger games of stock tradingThe previous parts of the post can be found at the links: Part 1 - How is the share price formed on the stock exchange? We do it Part 2 - Bid/Offer: The Yin and Yang of Stock Prices So, let's continue. So why don't we ever see some orders in the order book? Because such orders don't have a price, which means they can't be arranged in a book where all orders are sorted by price. This type of order is used by buyers or sellers who don't want to wait for a counter offer with a suitable price. "But how can you buy or sell something without specifying a price?" - you ask. It turns out it's possible. When you put out an order without specifying a price, the order simply "eats up" the number of lots you need at the prices currently on the books. Such an order is called a " market order ". We can say that the most "hungry" investors who want to satisfy their "hunger" right now use the market order. Remember yourself: when you really want, for example, a cake, you won't stand at the counter and wait for the seller to set the price you want, you'll just buy the cake at the price that's valid at the moment. So, let's imagine that someone sent the following order to the exchange: " to sell FB stocks in the volume of 20 lots". Such an order will not appear in the book, but it will "eat" all bids within 20 lots, starting with the most expensive ones. In our example, there were a total of 15 lots left in the book, so the following concluded trades will be printed in the tape: FB $115 5 lots FB $100 10 lots What will happen to the remaining market order of 5 lots (20-15) that couldn't be filled? The exchange will cancel the order for this remainder, as there are no counter offers in the book. So, let's review what we learned in the current series of posts: - For each company, the exchange maintains its own order book for buying and selling stocks; - A buy order is called a "bid"; - A sell order is called an "offer"; - The order must contain the ticker (abbreviated name of the stock), the direction of the transaction (buy or sell), the price per share and the volume in lots; - The lot size is set by the exchange. It may be equal to 1 share, 100 shares or some other quantity; - All orders in the book are called "limit orders"; - There is a special type of orders, which are called "market orders". They have the following parameters: ticker, trade direction, volume in lots, and have no "price" parameter. - The intersection of buy and sell orders by price creates a trade; - The volume and price of a trade depends on how much volume was "eaten" in the counter offer and at what price; - The trade is recorded in the tape. Each company has its own tape. By the way, our book became empty because all limit orders were filled and no new ones came in. As a result, we have a tape of three trades. The trades are recorded in the tape according to when they were made: FB 110$ 20 lots FB 115$ 5 lots FB $100 10 lots So, when you see a flashing stock price somewhere, like in the broker's app, know that it's the last trade in the tape as of the current second. Or if you hear that Tesla stock has reached $2,000 a share, that means that there's a $2,000-a-share deal imprinted in the Tesla tape. To show how the stock price has changed over time, a chart is made based on the prices of the trades and when they were made. At its core, a chart is a demonstration of how the stock tape has changed over time. Knowing how to read a price chart is a basic skill that you will use as you invest. I will tell you how to read charts at our next meeting.
NSE:NIFTYEducation
by Be_Capy
2
Bid/Offer: The Yin and Yang of Stock PricesRead the first part of this post at the link: How is the share price formed on the stock exchange? We do it So at what price and what volume will the deal eventually be made? To understand this, let's go back to the "price" parameter of the order. When a buyer placed an order "to buy 25 lots at $115 a share", the exchange takes it as "to buy 25 lots at a price not more than $115 a share". That is the purchase price can be less than the price stated in the order, but not more. And when the seller earlier submitted an order "to sell 20 lots at $110 a share", the exchange takes it as "to sell 20 lots at a price not less than $110 a share". That is, it is possible to sell at a price higher than that specified in the order, but not less. Once again: buyers always put orders "buy at no more than such-and-such a price", and sellers always put orders "sell at no less than such-and-such a price". So, we return to the situation with the crossing of prices. When the exchange detects a crossover, it begins to execute the order that has caused this crossover. In our case, it is an order for 25 lots at $115 per share. This order kind of "eats up" all sell orders that are on the way to the price of $115 (that is, everything cheaper than $115), until it reaches 25 lots. Which orders were "eaten up" in our case? One single order to sell is 20 lots at $110 per share. What was "eaten" is recorded as a buy and sell trade in what's called a tape. It's similar to the way a cash register punches a check with a price. The record looks like this: FB $110 20 lots However, we have a remainder after the trade is 5 lots, the remainder of those 25 at a price of $115. Since at this price (or lower) nothing can be "eaten", the order remains in the left page of the book until a suitable offer. Let's see how the FB order book looks now, after the deal is done: Let me note again that all orders in the book are sorted in descending order from top to bottom. The concept of "book" is very useful for understanding how the exchange price is formed. In the past, when there were no electronic trading systems, there were so-called floor brokers, who used to collect and record prices and volumes of orders in a real book. Nowadays you may encounter alternative terms like Depth of Market (DOM), Level II, but they are all identical to the notion of an "order book". The orders to buy that we see in the order book are called "bids", and the orders to sell are called "offers". So, in our order book there are two bids and no offers. All bids and offers are called "limit orders" because they have a price limit. But there's also a type of order that we will never see in the book. Why? I'll tell you in the next post.
NSE:RELIANCEEducation
by Be_Capy