Fundamentals Evaluation
Read businesses, not tickers. Owner earnings, cash flow primacy, returns on capital, margin of safety, DCF discipline, and what management quality actually means in numbers.
Articles in this series
- Part 1·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.
- Part 2·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.
- Part 3·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.
- Part 4·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.
- Part 5·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%+.
- Part 6·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.