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Basics
A small piece of ownership in a company. If the company grows, your piece can become more valuable.
A short code (1–5 letters) that identifies a stock on the exchange.
Valuation
The total value of a company, calculated as share price × number of shares.
Price-to-Earnings ratio: how much investors pay for each $1 of yearly earnings.
Fundamentals
Earnings Per Share — the company's profit divided by number of shares outstanding.
How fast a company's sales are increasing compared to a year ago.
Year-over-year change in net profit. Strong growth often drives stock prices up.
Balance Sheet
How much debt a company has compared to shareholder equity. Lower = safer balance sheet.
Technicals
How much a stock has moved up (or down) over a recent period — recent trend strength.
Income
A cash payment some companies send to shareholders, usually quarterly.
Risk
How much a stock's price swings. Higher volatility = bigger potential gains and losses.
How much a stock moves vs. the market. Beta 1 = moves with market, 2 = twice as much.
Strategy
A durable advantage that protects a company from competitors (brand, network, scale).
Cash left after a company pays operating costs and capital expenses. Real spendable cash.
Exchange-Traded Fund — a basket of stocks you can buy as one ticker.
Bull = prices rising broadly. Bear = prices falling 20%+ from highs.
A worldwide marketplace where people buy and sell tiny pieces of companies (shares).
The chance that an investment loses value. Higher potential reward usually means higher risk.
Spreading money across many investments so one bad one doesn't sink everything.
The total money a company makes from selling its products or services before any costs.
What's left of revenue after paying all costs, taxes and interest — the company's actual profit.
P/E divided by growth rate. A PEG below 1 can signal a stock is cheap for its growth.
How much profit a company generates per $1 of shareholder equity. Higher is usually better.
A model that estimates a company's true value by projecting future cash flows and discounting them back to today.
Market cap plus debt, minus cash. The 'all-in' price to acquire the whole company.
Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization — a rough proxy for operating cash flow.
Studying price charts and patterns to predict short-term moves, instead of company fundamentals.
Repeating phases of expansion, peak, contraction and recovery in the broad market.
A strategy of buying stocks that have been rising and selling those that have been falling.