Tools › Investing

Investing

50 tools in 9 sections. Each tool page shows the method with the numbers substituted, its references and the published examples it reproduces.

See also the company pages: ten years of key figures for each company on file, taken from its SEC filings, with links that open these tools for that company, and the Macro Dashboard.

Bonds and Rates 7

  • Bond Price and Yield Price of a fixed-coupon bond from its yield to maturity, or the yield from its price, with every step shown: the coupon, the discounted cash flows, current yield,…
  • Yield Curve and Forward Rates Turns a par yield curve into spot (zero-coupon) rates, discount factors and implied forward rates, step by step.
  • Bond Ladder Build a ladder of bonds or CDs that mature one after another. Enter the amount, the number of rungs, the first maturity, the spacing and a yield for each rung; the page…
  • Credit Spread and Default Risk What a bond's yield spread says about default. Enter the bond's yield, the risk-free yield of the same maturity, the maturity and a recovery rate; the page works out the…
  • Callable Bond and OAS Values a callable bond on a binomial interest-rate tree, step by step. The tree (lognormal short rate with constant volatility) is fitted to a flat yield or a par yield…
  • Convertible Bond Values a convertible bond step by step: a bond the holder may exchange for a fixed number of shares.
  • Bond Immunization Match bonds to a payment you owe in the future so that a change in interest rates moves both by the same amount.

Portfolio and Risk 9

  • Portfolio Risk and Return Risk and return of a portfolio from the returns or prices of its holdings, with every step shown.
  • Efficient Frontier Mean-variance portfolios of up to twelve holdings by Markowitz's method, with the steps shown.
  • Factor Exposure Measures how a fund's or portfolio's returns have moved with a set of factor returns, step by step.
  • Portfolio Rebalancing What to buy and sell to bring a portfolio back to its target mix. Enter each holding with its current value and its target percent, any new cash to add (or a withdrawal…
  • Position Size and Risk How many shares to buy so that being stopped out loses a chosen amount. Enter the account size, the percent of it risked on one trade, the entry price and the stop…
  • Kelly Criterion The Kelly criterion for a repeated opportunity with a known payoff: the probability the quoted payoff implies, the edge against your own estimate of the true…
  • Portfolio Backtest How a fixed-weight portfolio would have done on your own price history, with every step shown.
  • Performance Attribution Why did a portfolio beat or trail its benchmark? Enter each segment (a sector, a country, an asset class) with its weight and return in the portfolio and in the…
  • Black-Litterman The Black-Litterman model blends the returns implied by the market portfolio with an investor's own views, with the steps shown.

Stock Valuation 7

  • Reverse DCF What growth does today's share price assume? The page turns the price into the market's enterprise value, sets a two-stage discounted cash flow model equal to it and…
  • DCF Valuation Enterprise and equity value of a business by discounted cash flow: the projected unlevered free cash flows are discounted at the weighted average cost of capital, built…
  • Cost of Capital Weighted average cost of capital with every component worked out on the page. Cost of equity by the capital asset pricing model with size, company-specific and country…
  • Financial Quality Scores Three well-known accounting screens computed from two years of a company's financial statements, each shown step by step so you can see what it tests: the Piotroski…
  • Dividend Discount Model Value a share from the dividends it is expected to pay. The page grows last year's dividend at the rates you enter, brings each future dividend back to today's money at…
  • Valuation Range Several valuation methods side by side for one company, each with a low and a high value per share that follow from your own range of assumptions: a price-to-earnings…
  • Sum-of-the-Parts Valuation Value a company as the sum of its businesses. Enter each segment with a figure such as its EBITDA or revenue and a low and a high multiple, then the net debt, any other…

Saving and Planning 10

  • Compound Growth and Fees How saving, time, return and fees combine. Enter a starting amount, a regular contribution, the years, an expected yearly return, the yearly fee and inflation; the page…
  • Retirement Planner Retirement savings and withdrawal plan in one currency: a deterministic projection at the expected return (balance by year, the year the money runs out or the terminal…
  • Capital Gains and Tax Lots Which purchase lots a sale takes, and the gain or loss that results. Paste the lots (date, shares, cost per share), enter the sale and choose a lot method; the page…
  • Personal Rate of Return What did my account actually earn? Enter the opening and closing value of an account with their dates and paste the deposits and withdrawals in between; the page works…
  • Inflation Calculator What an amount of U.S. dollars from one year is worth in another. Enter an amount and two years; the page looks up the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers…
  • Traditional versus Roth Which retirement account leaves more after tax: a Traditional account, where the money goes in untaxed and is taxed when withdrawn, or a Roth account, where the money is…
  • Social Security Claiming Age The monthly U.S. Social Security retirement benefit at each claiming age from 62 to 70, and the ages at which a later claim catches up with an earlier one.
  • Required Minimum Distributions The yearly withdrawal that U.S. federal rules require from a tax-deferred retirement account such as a traditional IRA, and how the account runs down under it.
  • Pay Off Debt or Invest An extra sum each month can prepay a loan or be invested. Enter the loan balance, its rate and the months left, the extra per month, an expected investment return and…
  • Rent versus Buy Compares buying a home with renting an equivalent one, in money. Enter the price, down payment, mortgage rate and term, the rent, how long you expect to stay and three…

Options 3

  • Option Strategy Payoff The profit and loss of an option position at expiry. Pick a strategy (long call or put, covered call, protective put, cash-secured put, bull call or bear put spread,…
  • Option Pricing Option values for analysts and valuation memoranda. Black-Scholes-Merton European calls and puts with a continuous dividend yield or cash dividends by the escrowed…
  • Volatility Cone and Smile How much a price has moved, set against its own history, and what volatility option prices imply.

Mergers and Buyouts 2

  • LBO Model A one-page leveraged buyout: a buyer pays a multiple of a company's EBITDA, borrows part of the price, uses the company's cash to repay the debt and sells after a few…
  • Merger Accretion and Dilution Does a deal raise or lower the buyer's earnings per share? Enter the net income, shares and share price of a buyer and a target, the premium offered, how much is paid in…

Private Markets 3

  • Fund Waterfall How a private fund's distributions are split between its investors (limited partners) and its manager (general partner).
  • Venture Capital Method The value a venture investor's target return implies for a young company. Enter the investment, the value expected at exit (or exit-year revenue or earnings times a…
  • Cap Table and Dilution Venture financing model: the fully diluted capitalization table after each priced round, with safes and convertible notes converting at the first round (post-money and…

Company Financials 8

  • Company Financial Statements Type a ticker or a company name and read ten fiscal years of its income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement side by side, as the company filed them with the…
  • Peer Comparison Up to six U.S. listed companies side by side for one fiscal year, from the annual figures they filed with the SEC: size, profitability, growth, financial strength and…
  • Fundamental Screener Filter the companies in the site's SEC filing data by your own criteria: up to six, each a measure, at least or at most, and a number.
  • Capital Allocation History Type a ticker or a company name and see where the company's cash went over up to ten fiscal years, from the cash flow statements it filed with the U.S.
  • Dividend Sustainability Type a ticker or a company name and see whether the company's dividend has been covered by what it earned, from the annual reports it filed with the U.S.
  • Earnings Quality Trend Type a ticker or a company name and see up to ten fiscal years of the accounting checks that analysts apply to reported profit, from the annual reports the company filed…
  • Insider Transactions Type a ticker or a company name and read the transactions that the company's directors, officers and ten-percent owners reported to the U.S.
  • Fund Holdings (13F) Choose one of 25 of the largest institutional investment managers and read the U.S. listed shares it reported to the U.S.

Economy and Rates 1

  • Economic Indicators The main series of the U.S. economy on one page, for reading: Treasury yields and the yield curve, inflation, the labour market, output and income, money and public…