
How to Read a Cash Flow Statement for Stock Investors
Three sections, one question: is the business actually generating cash?

Three sections, one question: is the business actually generating cash?

The latest SPIVA scorecard shows the long-running gap between active fund managers and their benchmarks persisted across nearly every period measured.
A 0.50% expense ratio versus 0.03% can mean roughly $9,400 less on a $10,000 investment over 30 years. Here is how fund fees compound, with the math and…

A mistimed repurchase can quietly erase a tax loss an investor was counting on. Here is how the IRS defines the window, and where the disallowed loss actually…

The last decade of a forty-year index holding produces more growth than the first three combined — the arithmetic that makes patience a strategy.
The more often investors look, the more loss they feel — behavioral research ties frequent checking to worse decisions, and the fix is a calendar.

There is no fixed date when stocks rotate into the S&P 500 — a committee decides case by case, and decades of research show the price bump that once followed an…

Form 4 shows what corporate insiders bought and sold within two business days — small signals that earn attention only in patterns and in purchases.

The evidence says the calendar matters far less than most investors assume — what matters is having a rule and following it without emotion.

SIPC replaces missing cash and securities up to set limits when a member brokerage collapses, but it never insures against a market decline.

The automatic halts have triggered only twice since 1997, and research suggests they can raise volatility as much as they calm it.

The $500,000 limit protects the securities in an account against a failed brokerage, not against a falling market. Here is where the line sits, and how a…

A plain-language look at how companies repurchase their own shares, the disclosure rules and federal tax now attached to that practice, and what the current…

One envelope, three forms — 1099-DIV, 1099-B, 1099-INT — and a February habit of checking corrections before filing anything.

A repeatable five-step checklist built from free SEC filings separates the business from the sales pitch before a single dollar moves.

The May 6 quarterly refunding kept auction sizes unchanged for a second straight quarter — a $125 billion package raising $41.7 billion of new cash.

A position worth 20% of your portfolio can halve your retirement date — the arithmetic of concentration, from Enron's employees to today's RSU holders.

Broad index funds fell 34% in 2020 and 49% in 2008-2009 and recovered both times — the mechanism is mechanical, and surviving it is behavioral.