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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