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Vol. 01 · Issue 05Education · Teach by doing59 lessons · 6 tracks
Teach where you are · learn what you read

Education isn't a tab.
It's a tab on every metric.

Two forms, working together. The first is contextual: tap any number, anywhere — and you get a plain-English explanation, a worked example, and a link to the deeper lesson. The second is the Education tab itself, with full topic tracks for proactive study. Every lesson is grounded in the live theses currently using the concept.

59 lessons6 tracks0 streaks0 badges
01
Chapter 01 · Two forms, working together
Inline when you need it. Deep when you want it.
Form 01
Tap a metric. Anywhere.

Inline tooltips

Every metric on every thesis card is interactive. Tap "FCF Yield" and you get a plain-English explanation, a worked example using the actual numbers in front of you, and a link to the dedicated lesson.

Tooltip
Free Cash Flow Yield. The free cash a business generates per dollar you pay for it. Higher is generally better. We use it instead of P/E for capital-intensive companies because it reflects what actually ends up in shareholders' pockets.
For COST · today
Free cash flow / year$7.2BMarket cap$232BFCF Yield3.1%
Read the lesson →7 holdings use this →
Form 02
Proactive study · the tab

The Education tab

Six topic tracks, fifty-nine lessons total. Built for sequential reading, but searchable for spot lookups. Every lesson is grounded in the live theses currently using the concept. Tap into the live thesis from the lesson; tap into the lesson from the thesis. The same content, reachable from either side.

Track preview · Valuation metrics
L01Why we use multiples5 min
L02P / E and its lies8 min
L03FCF Yield — the honest version11 min
L04PEG and growth-adjusted thinking9 min
L05ROIC and the quality test12 min
+ 9 more in this track
02
Chapter 02 · The six tracks
Fifty-nine lessons. Sequential or searchable. You choose.
01

Valuation metrics

14 lessons
~110 min

How the numbers on every thesis card are computed and what they actually mean.

Lessons
· P / E and its variants
· P / S and FCF Yield
· EV / EBITDA
· PEG and growth-adjusted comps
· ROIC and ROE
+ 9 more
Open the track →
02

Valuation models

8 lessons
~95 min

The ways analysts actually build the targets you see — and where each one breaks.

Lessons
· DCF, slowly
· Reverse DCF — what is the market implying?
· DDM for slow compounders
· Comparables and the right peer set
· Sum-of-parts
+ 3 more
Open the track →
03

Portfolio concepts

11 lessons
~130 min

How positions fit together. The geometry of allocation.

Lessons
· Diversification, properly understood
· Correlation and why it matters
· Drift and rebalancing
· Glidepath construction
· Asset class definitions
+ 6 more
Open the track →
04

Behavioral finance

9 lessons
~80 min

The mental traps every investor falls into. The Ulysses contracts that make them less costly.

Lessons
· Loss aversion
· Recency bias
· Anchoring
· Confirmation bias
· Overconfidence and the planning fallacy
+ 4 more
Open the track →
05

Taxes & accounts

7 lessons
~70 min

The structural decisions that affect your returns more than picking the next great stock.

Lessons
· IRA vs Roth IRA
· Traditional 401(k) and rollovers
· SEP IRA for the self-employed
· Tax-loss harvesting
· Wash sale rules
+ 2 more
Open the track →
06

Macro concepts

10 lessons
~105 min

Rates, inflation, cycles. The overlay every thesis sits inside whether we say so or not.

Lessons
· What interest rates actually do
· The yield curve, plain
· Inflation and asset prices
· The business cycle
· Recessions, properly defined
+ 5 more
Open the track →
03
Chapter 03 · Anatomy of a lesson
Plain English. A worked example. The footnotes.

Every lesson follows the same four-part structure. The plain-English version. The worked example, using a name actually in coverage. The footnotes — what we glossed over, what to read next, where the concept tends to fail. The live theses currently using it.

The four parts
I.   Plain English
What the concept is, in three to five paragraphs, with no jargon a non-investor wouldn't know.
II.   Worked example
Using actual numbers from a real, currently-covered name. The math is shown step by step.
III.   Footnotes
What we glossed over. Where the concept breaks. What to read next. The honest caveats.
IV.   In the wild
Live theses currently using the concept, with one-line context. Tap into any of them.
Track 01 · Lesson 03
FCF Yield — the honest version
11 min
I · Plain English

Free Cash Flow Yield asks a simple question: for every dollar I pay to own a piece of this business today, how much free cash does that piece generate in a year? A 5% FCF yield means a dollar in gets five cents of cash a year back — before the business decides what to do with it.

II · Worked example · COST
Operating cash flow$11.2B− Capital expenditures$4.0BFree cash flow$7.2B÷ Market cap$232BFCF Yield3.1%
III · Footnotes
  • Stock-based comp is a real expense — we add it back to capex, not to operating cash flow.
  • Working capital swings can distort one year. We use a three-year average for cyclicals.
  • For growth-stage businesses, FCF Yield is often negative. That doesn't make the business bad.
IV · In the wild
Seven currently-held theses use FCF Yield as a primary metric. Tap to read the thesis. COST · TSM · NVO · UNH · CPRT · IDXX · V
04
Chapter 04 · Lessons in the wild
Every lesson links to the live theses using it. And back.

Every concept exists somewhere in the real portfolio. Every lesson page lists the live theses currently using it; every thesis card links to the lesson explaining each of its concepts. The connection runs both directions, automatically, and is updated every time a thesis publishes or breaks.

This is the difference between learning concepts and learning to invest. Concepts in isolation are easy to memorize and easy to misapply. Concepts seen in seven different live theses, against seven different valuations, are concepts you actually own.

What "linked" means in practice
Tap a lesson — see which theses use it. Tap a thesis — see which lessons unpack it. Tap a metric inside a thesis — get the tooltip, with the option to jump to the deeper lesson. Three taps maximum from any number in the product to a complete explanation of why it's there.
Live · Lesson "FCF Yield" → theses
COSTCostco Wholesale3.1%High conf.M. Hale
TSMTaiwan Semi.4.4%High conf.A. Lindqvist
NVONovo Nordisk3.8%High conf.M. Hale
UNHUnitedHealth6.2%Moderate conf.D. Park
CPRTCopart2.9%Moderate conf.M. Hale
IDXXIDEXX Labs2.1%Moderate conf.D. Park
VVisa3.5%High conf.M. Hale
Updated automatically when theses publish or break · last refresh 2 min ago
05
Chapter 05 · What we won't do
Six explicit non-features. None of them by accident.

Education is one of the most heavily gamified surfaces in consumer software. We have ten years of evidence that the gamification is more about app-time than about retained knowledge. Our position is that learning here is for you, not for our retention metrics. Below: what that means we won't build, ever.

✕No streaks

A daily-use platform is a vampire. We will never reward you for opening the app — only for understanding it.

✕No badges

Knowledge is its own badge. We do not gamify it with little pictures.

✕No leaderboards

Investing is not a sport. Comparing yourself to anonymous strangers does nothing good for your returns.

✕No celebratory animations

No confetti when you complete a lesson. No fireworks when a stock rises. Calm, throughout.

✕No "courses" walling

Every lesson is free, no quiz gate, no email required. Account or no account.

✕No social sharing

You will not "share that you completed Lesson 4!" There is no button for it because there should not be a button for it.

06
Chapter 06 · The glossary
Every term, defined plainly. Linked to the lessons that use them.

One hundred and forty terms. Defined plainly. Cross-referenced to the lessons that use them and the live theses that demonstrate them. Free, no signup, no email gate. Bookmark it.

A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
L
M
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
Y
Showing first letters of 20 sections · full glossary has terms under every letter except J, K, X, Z.
07
Chapter 07 · Questions
On lessons, the glossary, and how we keep things accurate.
Do I need to be a Core user to access lessons?＋
No. The entire Education tab — all 59 lessons, all 6 tracks, the full glossary, the worked examples — is free to anyone with an account. We will not paywall investing knowledge.
Can I download a lesson as a PDF?＋
Yes. Every lesson has a "save as PDF" button at the top right. The PDF is formatted for actual reading, not the way the web version is. Print it. Keep it.
Will more lessons be added?＋
Yes, but slowly and deliberately. New lessons get the same two-reviewer treatment as theses. We would rather have 59 lessons we stand behind than 200 we don't.
Are lessons written by the research desk?＋
Yes. Every lesson is authored and signed by one or more analysts from the desk. The author byline is at the top of every lesson page.
Can I ask a question if a lesson doesn't answer it?＋
Core users can submit a question via the Feedback channel. We do not promise individual replies, but the most-asked questions are answered in the quarterly memo and incorporated into the next revision of the relevant lesson.
How is this different from a YouTube finance channel?＋
Lessons here are grounded in the specific theses on the platform, with real numbers, and written by named professionals against an in-house standard. We will not entertain you. We will educate you, and only that.
Keep reading

Continue the issue.

Open a Core account →
02
How it works
From quiz to portfolio in ten minutes.
Read →
03
Pricing
What you pay, in dollars.
Read →
04
Research & Theses
The desk that writes what you read.
Read →
06
About
Who we are and what we won't do.
Read →