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Stock research guides

A ten-part series on researching a listed company carefully: start with the economic backdrop and the business itself, read its valuation, profitability and balance sheet, compare how different investing styles judge the same numbers, and only then turn an idea into rules you can test.

By the dotQuant team · Updated

Before the numbers

  1. Market context: how unemployment and interest rates frame stock research Start with the economic backdrop: what unemployment trends and interest-rate decisions can tell you about demand, borrowing costs and valuations. 8 min read
  2. How to research a company before you look at its ratios Using Microsoft as the example: choose the right security, understand how the business makes money, and read profiles and news with their dates in mind. 8 min readVideo walkthrough
  3. How to read a stock chart: moving averages and candlesticks What a price chart actually shows: the window and bar interval, simple and exponential moving averages, and the open, high, low and close inside each candle. 8 min readVideo walkthrough

Reading the fundamentals

  1. Stock valuation ratios explained: P/E, P/S, P/FCF, EV/EBITDA, PEG and DCF What each valuation multiple compares, how it is calculated, and why a low or high number is a question about expectations rather than an answer. 8 min readVideo walkthrough
  2. Profitability and growth metrics: ROIC, margins, ROE and revenue growth How well a business turns capital into profit, how much revenue survives each layer of costs, and whether growth is durable and backed by cash. 8 min readVideo walkthrough
  3. Financial health and capital allocation: debt, liquidity, dividends and buybacks Whether a company can withstand a difficult period, and whether the cash it generates is reinvested, paid out or spent on buybacks at sensible prices. 8 min readVideo walkthrough

Investing styles

  1. Deep value and quality compounders: two ways to judge the same stock Why a durable business can still look expensive: comparing a deep value framework with a quality compounder framework on the same company. 8 min readVideo walkthrough
  2. Disruptive growth and activist quality: innovation, discipline and the price you pay Two frameworks that can both sound bullish while implying very different valuations, and how to compare the assumptions underneath. 8 min readVideo walkthrough
  3. Economic moats, management quality and macro momentum Durable competitive advantages, disciplined capital management and market momentum, and why missing evidence is not positive evidence. 8 min readVideo walkthrough

From idea to rules

  1. From trading idea to testable rules: strategy specs and honest backtesting How written rules make a strategy inspectable, what separates a hypothesis from a tested result, and what to check before trusting any backtest. 8 min readVideo walkthrough

How these guides are written

Each guide began as a narrated walkthrough of dotQuant's research tools and was expanded into a full written explanation; where the walkthrough is published on the dotQuant YouTube channel, the guide shows it, and the player loads only when you press play. Definitions follow standard financial usage and formulas are shown in full; where data providers define a measure differently, the guide says so. Worked examples use round, hypothetical numbers unless a date and a source are given, and further reading points to primary sources such as company filings, national statistics offices and central banks.

The guides explain methods; they never rate or recommend a security. When the facts or the product change, a guide is revised and its date updated. Signed-in readers can report an error through the support button in the top bar.

Use it on dotQuant

Every measure in these guides can be looked up for any listed company on dotQuant without an account: search a symbol on the home page to see its chart, Key Metrics and the AI analysts' reviews. The documentation explains each tool in detail.

Credits

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