A checklist before buying a share
2 min · beginner
Automated material · TradeAlmanac editorial deskPrepared by a language model from our stored data and checked by an editor.
The list does not replace analysis and guarantees nothing. It does something else: it stops you skipping the check you only remember after the purchase.
About the business
What the company earns from, and on what exactly — in one sentence. If the sentence will not form, the analysis has not started.
Which external factor its revenue depends on: a commodity price, an exchange rate, a tariff, consumer demand — Sector sensitivity: who reacts how to macro conditions.
Whether revenue is growing and whether profit is growing with it over several years — Quarter and year: why the comparison has to be like for like.
About the money
Whether profit converts into cash flow — Earnings quality: how much cash is in the profit.
What the leverage is and what the repayment schedule looks like — Leverage: how much debt is too much.
How much remains after capital expenditure — Free cash flow: what is left for the owner.
About the valuation
How the company looks against its industry and against its own past — Comparing against the sector: why absolute multiple levels are useless.
Whether there is an anomaly in the multiple's denominator — When multiples stop working.
This point is checked against numbers, not against memory. Here they are right now, for three different companies: LUKOIL's P/E (price to earnings) is 42,19, Nornickel's P/B (price to book) is 1,98, and Magnit's debt load is 1,67. They cannot be compared with one another directly: these are different industries with different norms. Each has to be read against its own industry and against itself a year ago.
About the owner
Who controls the company and how it has treated minority holders before — Corporate governance: why a minority shareholder should care.
About the position
What size the position is and why exactly that size — How to assess the risk of a position, step by step.
Whether it duplicates an exposure to the same factor you already hold — Hidden concentration: when twenty securities are one bet.
What would have to happen for you to admit the decision was wrong — A strategy without exit rules is not a strategy.
Prepared by a language model from our stored data and checked by an editor.
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