I thought it might be handy to do a quick TLDR of the fed's beige book just to keep myself (and hopefully you) up to speed on where the economy stands and where we might be headed. Let me preface this by saying I'm not an economist and most of you probably already know most of this stuff. If you want to read the whole thing, it's here and is a good way to get a broad outlook on the US economy as a whole. I read it almost every release and it's quite an easy read and pretty enjoyable. …

THIS IS A GUEST POST. CLICK HERE TO READ PART ONE!

In part one, we looked at the Red Flag Analysis tool as well as a few functions of the ChartMachine to get a deeper look at the fundamentals of General Dynamics Corp. In this section we are going to use the ChartMachine to compare two companies.

When researching prospect stocks, it is important to manage our expectations. Each company belongs to an industry and each industry is different. Comparing a defense contractor such as Boeing to a technological conglomerate such as Apple is not going to get you …

LazyFA is fast approaching 10,000 users. As I spend a large majority of my time on the site developing features, testing code and fixing bugs, I often wonder how users are actually using the site, which features they're finding most helpful, and which ones need improvement. To that point I recently reached out to an avid LazyFA user and asked him to share with me what his analysis process is like when investigating a new opportunity. He wrote up an excellent two part article explaining the basics of how he delves into the financials, using LazyFA to compare the company's …

In the investing world, there's a concept known as cookie jar accounting. This is for all intents and purposes a friendly way of saying legal financial manipulation. Cookie jar accounting is not illegal, but it can be a troubling indicator if it's done chronically, and even in a singular instance it can indicate a potentially significant detriment to future cash flows and earnings. To that end, the intention of this post is not to take a positive or negative position on companies that employ cookie jar accounting or other earnings management tactics, but instead to educate and inform on …

Throughout my trading career I’ve interacted with many traders. I have been a member of several different trading communities where I could watch some new traders blossom and others blow up their accounts. I have worked personally, on a daily basis, with many different brand new traders as well as some vastly experienced ones to both tweak my own style as well as to try to help newer traders tweak theirs. Ultimately, some of these traders have stuck it out and become profitable, some are still working on it, and some have decided that trading is not for them.

Personally, …