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Plain-English guides to options strategy, volatility, valuation, and risk management. Every article includes real signals from AI Stock Monitor so you can see the logic behind each metric we track.
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Data sources, signal logic, and the assumptions behind every score on this site.
Latest Articles
35- Valuation·April 25, 2026·5 min read
Three Floor-Price Methods — Why They Diverge & How to Choose
Dividend, Valuation, and EPV floors answer different questions and rarely agree. Why EPV prints lowest, and how to read the spread for Sell Put strikes and conviction adds.
- Valuation·April 20, 2026·4 min read
Owner Earnings vs Net Income — The Cash View of Profit
Net income is the lawyer-friendly profit; owner earnings is the cash an owner of the whole business could take out without starving it. The gap that matters.
- Valuation·April 20, 2026·4 min read
Cash Flow vs Accounting Profit — Which Comes First
When CFO and net income tell different stories, trust the cash. The 60-second three-statement consistency check that exposes accrual-driven earnings.
- Valuation·April 20, 2026·4 min read
ROE / ROIC: The Three-Factor Quality Decomposition
DuPont decomposes ROE into margin × turnover × leverage. ROIC removes the leverage trick. Why ROIC > cost of capital is the only durable test of quality.
- Valuation·April 20, 2026·4 min read
Margin of Safety: Intrinsic Value Minus Price, Honestly
Graham margin of safety = (intrinsic value − price) / intrinsic value. Why under-20% MOS is essentially none, and Buffett 9,800-pound-truck analogy.
- Valuation·April 20, 2026·4 min read
DCF Assumptions: The 5-Number Fragility Checklist
Every DCF rests on growth, margin, capex intensity, terminal growth, and discount rate. ±20% sensitivity on each often swings intrinsic value by 50%+.
- Valuation·April 20, 2026·4 min read
Management Quality: 5 Quantifiable Signals in Filings
Skip charisma. Five numbers in the filings — buyback timing, M&A discipline, insider buying, comp structure, letter consistency — are the real test.
- Valuation·April 20, 2026·4 min read
Dividend Safety: Payout Ratio + Cash Flow Coverage
EPS payout ratio is the textbook test; FCF payout ratio is the honest test. When the two diverge, the cash version predicts the next dividend cut.
- Valuation·April 20, 2026·4 min read
High Yield vs Dividend Growth — The 30-Year Tradeoff
6% yield + 0% growth vs 2% yield + 10% growth: same 30-year cumulative income, but only if growth holds. Why the resilient mix is a barbell of both.
- Risk Management·April 20, 2026·4 min read
Dividend Traps: The 5 Warning Signs Worth Memorising
High yield can mean opportunity or imminent cut. Five patterns: 2× peer yield, 100%+ payout, rising debt, special-instead-of-hike, structural decline.
- Data Guide·April 20, 2026·4 min read
Special vs Regular Dividends — How to Compute Yield
TTM yield includes specials and can be misleading; forward yield uses only declared regular dividend. Which to use for income planning vs comparison.
- Data Guide·April 20, 2026·4 min read
International Dividend Tax Withholding — Quick Reference
UK 0%, US 15% with W-8BEN, CH 35%, DE 26%, KR 22%, HK 0%. Headline yield is gross; effective yield = gross × (1 − withholding). Why it changes the comparison.
- Valuation·April 20, 2026·4 min read
Dividend Aristocrats and Kings — Filter, Not Thesis
25-year (Aristocrats) and 50-year (Kings) dividend-raise streaks. Useful as quality screen and risk damper — but the alpha premium is thin after sector adjust.
- Options Strategy·April 19, 2026·3 min read
Covered Call Playbook: 30-45 DTE at 0.30 Delta Monthly
A one-line rule for monthly covered-call income on dividend stocks: sell 30-45 DTE calls at delta 0.30. The theta sweet spot, when to skip a month.
- Options Strategy·April 20, 2026·4 min read
How the Covered Call Radar Picks Opportunities
The five filters behind every covered-call row on the dashboard: 60-360 DTE, delta ≤ 0.20, APY ≥ 5%, strike > cost × 1.01, spread ≤ 30%. Plus how the ⭐ best pick is flagged and why the waiting state exists.
- Options Strategy·April 19, 2026·3 min read
Cash-Secured Puts as Entry Orders Below Market
Sell a cash-secured put at your target entry price instead of placing a limit order. Keep the premium whether or not the stock drops to your strike.
- Getting Started·April 19, 2026·3 min read
Floor and Golden Price: Two Watchlist Anchors
Each preset stock has a Floor (put-sell target) and Golden Price (call-sell target). Stock-specific anchors for cash-secured puts and covered calls.
- Getting Started·April 19, 2026·3 min read
Watchlist Tags: Turn One Flat List Into Mini-Lists
Tag your watchlist tickers by strategy with custom labels — dividend, options, growth, anything you choose — to split one flat list into focused views.
- Data Guide·April 19, 2026·3 min read
IV Rank vs IV Percentile: Which to Trust When
IVR and IVP look similar but answer different questions. The math difference, when they give opposite signals, and when each is the better choice.
- Risk Management·April 19, 2026·3 min read
Risk Report: Navigating 29 Rules in 60 Seconds
The Risk Report runs 29 independent rule checks against your portfolio. How to scan rule-by-rule by severity rather than treating every flag equally.
- Risk Management·April 19, 2026·3 min read
Option Gamma: The Acceleration of Your Delta
Delta tells today's position size. Gamma tells how fast that size changes when the stock moves. Why gamma spikes near strike, near expiry, and for sellers.
- Data Guide·April 19, 2026·3 min read
Dividend Yield Percentile: Raw Yield Is Meaningless
4.2% yield is rich for a utility, cheap for a tech name. Yield percentile — where today sits in the stock's own history — is the only useful framing.
- Data Guide·April 19, 2026·3 min read
Two-Layer Data Quality: Vote + LLM Reasonableness
Mechanical vote across N sources picks the majority median; an LLM auditor checks the elected number for context fit and triggers re-fetch when it looks off.
- Opportunities·April 19, 2026·3 min read
Hot Events Feed: What It Shows and Filters Out
Hot Events is a ticker-indexed stream of earnings, guidance, dividend, and material corporate actions for stocks you hold or watch. The 30-second scan.
- Risk Management·April 19, 2026·3 min read
The 40% Sector Concentration Rule for Portfolios
When a single sector exceeds 40% of portfolio market value, the Risk Report flags it. Why dividend investors silently cluster in energy, utilities, REITs.
- Opportunities·April 19, 2026·3 min read
Ex-Dividend 7-Day Window and the Free-Money Trap
The 7 days before ex-date are a specific window for dividend investors. T-7 / T-1 / T+0 timeline, why simple capture trades usually net zero before tax.
- Opportunities·April 18, 2026·3 min read
How to Read the Opportunity Radar Grid in 10 Seconds
Opportunity Radar rows = ticker × day, ranked by signal strength. The badge colors, the top-5 scan routine, and why the grid is a search-narrower.
- Opportunities·April 18, 2026·3 min read
Risk / Taleb / Buffett / Damodaran Council Disagreement
When the four personas — Risk, Taleb, Buffett, Damodaran — disagree on the same hot event, the disagreement itself is the signal. How to read a split.
- Risk Management·April 18, 2026·3 min read
Option Delta as Equivalent Share Count
Delta × 100 = equivalent shares per contract. Why sizing by delta-equivalent shares (not premium collected) is the most important habit in options.
- Risk Management·April 18, 2026·3 min read
Option Theta: What a Flat Market Costs Tomorrow
Theta is the dollars your option loses per day from time alone. How to compute your daily theta bill and why decay accelerates in the final month.
- Data Guide·April 18, 2026·3 min read
P/E Percentile vs Raw P/E: Why It Matters
A 22x P/E says nothing until you know where it sits in the stock's own history. P/E percentile normalises expensiveness per ticker, the 20/80 thresholds.
- Getting Started·April 18, 2026·3 min read
Import Broker Positions from a Screenshot
Drag a screenshot of your IB / Schwab / Fidelity / Robinhood / Tiger Brokers positions page. The parser extracts ticker, quantity, and average cost in seconds.
- Options Strategy·April 14, 2026·5 min read
How to Read Earnings Gap Data and Size Strikes
What earnings gaps mean and how to read historical average gap, up probability, and max gap data to set smarter strike prices. ABT, TSM, JPM examples.
- Getting Started·April 12, 2026·4 min read
Adding UK Stocks: The .L Suffix Rule and 3 Presets
AI Stock Monitor supports LSE equities. The .L naming rule, the three preset UK dividend plays (BP.L, DGE.L, ULVR.L), and data-source routing differences.
- Options Strategy·April 11, 2026·5 min read
Why I Only Sell Options When IV Is High (IVP Guide)
Plain-English guide to implied volatility (IV), historical volatility (HV), and IV percentile (IVP). Why options sellers should only enter at high IV.