If you had only 1 hour to look at a financial statement, what would you glance at?

Throw traditional balance sheet and income statement analysis out the window for the current market conditions. I'm not saying do this for ever but right now it's all about hype and IPO's and playing the "Stay at Home" or "Return to work" or "Stimulus" stocks as news events are driving the market more than the fundamentals. I am not trying to be a nay sayer, I'm just stating what I have observed over the last 10 months.
Just look at how last earnings season went. A lot of companies did awesome in regards to their earnings but when they announced their stock was severely sold off. Crazy eh?
A prime example is Tesla. The company is crap in regards to its recalls and fundamentals but somehow it keeps going up. Except for today.... Maybe now that its in the S&P500 it will get analyzed using serious metrics you are looking for. Maybe that's why it was down HUGE today.
 
RGLD said:
Net Income, EPS? Does EPS really matter to some companies that just want subscribers like netflix? There are companies that do well with negative cashflow right? Wasn't Amazon and Tesla stock doing well in early days even though they were losing money? I think Amazon just had razor thin profits.
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ET is a forum for trading.

If you're a trader, why do you care about a financial statement? (You should be sharpening your TA skills.)

A financial statement would be a consideration for a long term play... but to be good at that kind of analysis requires LOTS of expertise, experience and resources. Trading requires no knowledge of the financial statement... though it too requires lots of expertise... but different.

"Trading" and "Investing" are like comparing apples and fruit salad. However the notion of a "long term investment objective is to be a good trader" is completely valid.
 
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Scataphagos said:
ET is a forum for trading.

If you're a trader, why do you care about a financial statement? (You should be sharpening your TA skills.)

A financial statement would be a consideration for a long term play... but to be good at that kind of analysis requires LOTS of expertise, experience and resources. Trading requires no knowledge of the financial statement... though it too requires lots of expertise... but different.
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Or.... you can do both.
Well, you can certainly do both. Trade and invest. Why does ET have an options section? Why does Baron have a stock section? I mean the two aren't mutually exclusive. Bigger picture things that are reflected on the 10Q's certainly move stocks near term as sentiment regarding the company drives money flow to (or from) it.

Also I think T/A works best on longer time frames tbh Scat.
 
vanzandt said:
Or.... you can do both.
Well, you can certainly do both. Trade and invest. Why does ET have an options section? Why does Baron have a stock section? I mean the two aren't mutually exclusive. Bigger picture things that are reflected on the 10Q's certainly move stocks near term as sentiment regarding the company drives money flow to (or from) it.
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Disagree.

Trading involves "limited risk control".

"Investing"... even the smart kind includes "giving my judgement/hope the benefit of the doubt when the market appears to disagree".... The market is ALWAYS right. It's the final arbiter of price.

vanzandt said:
Also I think T/A works best on longer time frames tbh Scat.
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Technical indications on longer term charts do carry more weight than on shorter term charts... but that only matters within your "time frame of reference". Price TA works on all issues, all commodities... on all time frames. If one is a trader, there is no better use of his time than to learn Price TA.
 
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Scataphagos said:
Disagree.

Trading involves "limited risk control".

"Investing"... even the smart kind includes "giving my judgement/hope the benefit of the doubt when the market appears to disagree".... The market is ALWAYS right. It's the final arbiter of price.



Technical indications on longer term charts do carry more weight than on shorter term charts... but that only matters within your "time frame of reference". Price TA works on all issues, all commodities... on all time frames. If one is a trader, there is no better use of his time than to learn Price TA.
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Well, there's a lot of time in a day and the human brain is boundless.
Why not learn booth?
That's my opinion anyway.

You see me calling out intraday trades as well as long term short/longs (and earnings plays too.)
A mind is a terrible thing to waste. Most try.
 
100 percent disagree with you....

It appears you look at trading in a very narrow scope,and if you are making money,your method obviously works for you...But that does not discount the value of various financial metrics in another traders approach

The entire system of Canslim,modified Canslim is based on technicals and FUNDAMENTALS..

Sales and Earnings Growth,margin,ROE (flawed due to potential over leverage) , are essential metrics for those type of traders. You may not use them,your backtests(which I highly reccomend) may render them useless,but it works for that crowd..And before you counter,take a look who wins Zadehs's stock trading championship and their returns...rarely is it a 100% price action zealot:)

Where I do agree with you is that a technical/momo sort of filter is absolutely necessary if you are going to trade shorter time frames,and I am not talking day trading.







Scataphagos said:
ET is a forum for trading.

If you're a trader, why do you care about a financial statement? (You should be sharpening your TA skills.)

A financial statement would be a consideration for a long term play... but to be good at that kind of analysis requires LOTS of expertise, experience and resources. Trading requires no knowledge of the financial statement... though it too requires lots of expertise... but different.

"Trading" and "Investing" are like comparing apples and fruit salad. However the notion of a "long term investment objective is to be a good trader" is completely valid.
More...
 
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