Learning

An investor’s field guide — the financial and investment concepts behind every InvestSkill framework, explained from first principles. No finance degree required. Read it straight through as a course, or jump to the lesson you need. New to the tools? See Concepts for the mental models and the Glossary for any single term.

Who this is for: anyone who wants to understand why an analysis says what it says — not just read the output. Every skill in InvestSkill computes something an experienced investor would look at. This guide teaches the ideas underneath, so the numbers become decisions.

The learning path

Two parts. Part I — Analyze a business (Lessons 1–8) covers everything the plugin measures — from what a share is, to what a business is worth, to how to hold a portfolio without getting hurt — and puts it all together on real stocks. Part II — Practical foundations (Lessons 9–13 and a capstone) covers what a person meets in the first months of actually investing: accounts and orders, an ETF core, taxes, earnings season, and the psychology that protects the plan — ending with a case where the right answer is no.

Part I — Analyze a business

#	Lesson	What you’ll learn	Related skills
1	Investing Foundations	Shares, markets, risk vs. return, compounding, diversification, total return	`stock-eval`
2	Reading Financial Statements	Income statement, balance sheet, cash flow, free cash flow, red flags	`financial-report-analyst`, `10k-digest`, `fundamental-analysis`
3	Judging Business Quality	ROIC vs. WACC, margins, moats, leverage, capital allocation	`stock-eval`, `fundamental-analysis`, `competitor-analysis`, `dividend-analysis`
4	Valuation Essentials	Price vs. value, DCF, multiples, comparables, margin of safety	`dcf-valuation`, `stock-valuation`
5	Reading the Market	Technicals, insider & institutional signals, short interest, options, macro & sectors	`technical-analysis`, `insider-trading`, `institutional-ownership`, `short-interest`, `options-analysis`, `economics-analysis`, `sector-analysis`
6	Portfolio & Risk	Allocation, position sizing, rebalancing, risk-adjusted return, behavioral pitfalls	`portfolio-review`, `stock-screener`, `result-validator`
7	The Professional’s Playbook	A worked end-to-end case study on a real stock: plan, research, decision, trading plan, and tracking	all of them
8	Case Study: AMD	The playbook run end-to-end on AMD — a cyclical AI-semiconductor name, and how the same loop yields a different plan	all of them

Part II — Practical foundations

#	Lesson	What you’ll learn	Related skills
9	Before Your First Trade	Money you don’t invest, risk capacity vs. tolerance, a one-page IPS, account types (US and non-US), choosing a broker, order types, T+1	`portfolio-review`, `tax-lens`
10	ETFs & Index Investing	Expense ratio, tracking difference vs. error, liquidity, what you actually own, overlap, core-satellite, structure warnings	`etf-analysis`, `portfolio-review`
11	Taxes & Account Types	Short vs. long-term, wash sale, qualified dividends, lots, harvesting, placement — and a full non-US investor section (W-8BEN, withholding, estate tax, UCITS)	`tax-lens`, `dividend-analysis`
12	Earnings Season, Explained	The quarterly cycle, consensus and guidance, beat-and-drop, the implied move, what’s priced in, the scenario grid, what not to do	`earnings-preview`, `earnings-call-analysis`, `thesis-tracker`
13	Psychology & Process	Process vs. outcome, the biases that cost most and their antidotes, pre-mortems, checklists, a journal template, sell rules	`thesis-tracker`, `bear-case`, `learning-coach`
★	Case Study: When the Answer Is No	The same loop ending in a pass, twice — PFE (a value trap) and UPST (a no-trade) — and what would have made each a yes	all of them

Every Part II lesson ends with a five-question Check yourself; learning-coach --quiz <lesson> generates more on demand.

How to use this guide: if you’re brand new, start at Lesson 1 and go in order — later lessons assume the vocabulary from earlier ones. If you already invest, skim the table and jump to the gaps. Lesson 7 is the Part I capstone: it runs the whole process on one company, so read it once you’ve met the ideas in 1–6. If you are about to open an account, read Lesson 9 first — it is the only lesson that comes before the first trade. Each lesson ends with key takeaways and a link to the next.

The one-paragraph version

A stock is part-ownership of a real business (Lesson 1). To judge that business you read its financial statements (Lesson 2), which tell you whether it’s a high-quality operation earning more than its cost of capital (Lesson 3). Quality alone isn’t enough — you also need to know what it’s worth and to buy with a margin of safety (Lesson 4). The market adds timing and confirmation through price action, positioning, and the macro backdrop (Lesson 5). You hold your ideas inside a portfolio that’s diversified, correctly sized, and protected from your own behavior (Lesson 6). And in the capstones, a professional runs all of it on real stocks — thesis, research plan, valuation, a written trading plan, and ongoing tracking — first on a mature compounder (Lesson 7), then on a cyclical AI-semiconductor name, AMD (Lesson 8). Part II adds the operating layer: how to set up accounts and orders before the first trade (Lesson 9), why an ETF core is where most portfolios start (Lesson 10), what tax does to the return and how a non-US investor is treated (Lesson 11), how earnings season actually works (Lesson 12), and the psychology that keeps the plan intact (Lesson 13) — closing with a case where the loop’s correct answer is no.

How the lessons map to InvestSkill

InvestSkill is a set of educational analysis frameworks (“skills”) that turn any AI assistant into a structured investment analyst. This guide teaches the concepts; the skills apply them to a real ticker and end each analysis in a plain-English signal block (direction, confidence, horizon, action, conviction — decoded in Concepts).

Want to do an analysis? See Choose a Skill to map your goal to the right framework.
Want the mental models the skills encode? See Concepts.
Want a term defined fast? See the Glossary.
Want to see it end-to-end? See Use Cases.

Start here: Investing Foundations →

Educational content only. Not financial advice.