ACADEMY · FREE TO READ
Learn how markets work, with every idea checked against real data.
Plain-English explainers on stocks, company accounts, inflation, interest rates, commodities and the rest. Each one is worked through on a real example with real numbers, so you can watch the idea do something rather than read it asserted.
The Academy is also the open documentation of our own method. The models, the construction, the scoring, all free and outside the paywall.
01Start here
Eleven reading paths, each running from the basic idea to the advanced one.
Read a path in order. Each title opens the full guide.
I
Your first investment
From what a share is to buying your first fund.
Show the 13 guides ↓Hide the guides ↑
What Is a Stock?→How Does the Stock Market Work?→What Does a Market Maker Do?→What Is the Bid-Ask Spread?→Market Order vs Limit Order→How Much Money Do I Need to Start Investing?→What Is an Index Fund?→What Is an ETF?→Index Funds vs ETFs→How ETFs Perform in a Crisis→What Is the S&P 500?→S&P 500 vs FTSE All-World vs Nasdaq-100→How to Invest in Stocks
II
Growing your money
What inflation does to cash, and what a portfolio holds instead.
Show the 11 guides ↓Hide the guides ↑
How Much Does Inflation Erode Savings?→What Are Asset Classes?→How Much Cash Should a Portfolio Hold?→SGOV vs SHV vs BIL→What Is a Dividend?→Ex-Dividend Date Explained→How Are Dividends Taxed?→What If You Invest $100 a Month for 10 Years?→What If You Invest $500 a Month for 20 Years?→If You Invested $10,000 in the S&P 500 10 Years Ago→Why Is the Stock Market Down Today?
III
Company accounts and valuation
Start with what a share actually is. Finish able to put a number on one.
Show the 17 guides ↓Hide the guides ↑
What Is a Stock?→How to Read an Income Statement→How to Read a Cash Flow Statement→What Is Free Cash Flow?→What Is ROIC?→What Is the P/E Ratio?→Forward P/E vs Trailing P/E→What Is Enterprise Value?→EV/EBITDA Explained→What Is a DCF?→What Is WACC?→How to Estimate the Cost of Equity→What Is Terminal Value?→What Is a Reverse DCF?→Apple DCF→Alphabet DCF→How to Value a Stock
IV
Inflation and the economy
The releases that move markets, in the order they make sense.
Show the 19 guides ↓Hide the guides ↑
What Is Inflation?→Types of Inflation→What Is CPI?→How to Read the CPI Report→What Is Year Over Year Inflation?→What Is PCE Inflation?→Core vs Headline Inflation→What Is a Real Interest Rate?→What Are Nonfarm Payrolls?→What Is the Unemployment Rate?→What Is GDP?→GDP vs GNP vs GDP Per Capita→What Is a Recession?→What Is Stagflation?→What Is M2 Money Supply?→What Is Fiscal Policy?→Does Money Printing Cause Inflation?→Economic Data Revisions→What Is FRED Economic Data?
V
The Fed and interest rates
From what the Fed is for, to how markets price its next move.
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What Does the Fed Do?→Who Owns the Federal Reserve?→What Is the FOMC?→Why Does the Fed Target 2% Inflation?→How the Fed Sets Rates→What Is the Fed Funds Rate?→What Is the Taylor Rule?→How to Read an FOMC Statement→FOMC Meeting Schedule 2026 and 2027→Interest Rates and Inflation→What Is Quantitative Easing?→Fed Balance Sheet Explained→What Are Bank Reserves?→What Is the Reverse Repo Facility?→What Is the Standing Repo Facility?→Will Interest Rates Go Down?→What Is a Futures Contract?→What Are Fed Funds Futures?→Paul Volcker and the 1980s Rate Shock
VI
Bonds, funding markets and currencies
The plumbing underneath rates, and what moves a currency.
Show the 13 guides ↓Hide the guides ↑
Bond Prices and Yields→What Is the Yield Curve?→The Inverted Yield Curve→Why Mortgage Rates Follow the 10-Year Treasury Yield→What Are TIPS Bonds?→What Is Breakeven Inflation?→What Is the Repo Market?→SOFR vs LIBOR→What Are JGBs?→How Exchange Rates Work→What Moves EUR/USD?→What Moves USD/JPY?→BOJ Meeting Schedule
VII
Commodities and inflation hedges
Gold, oil and Bitcoin, each tested on real data.
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VIII
Reading a chart
The common indicators, each tested rather than asserted.
IX
Companies and sectors
What a company actually does, and how its sector earns.
Show the 16 guides ↓Hide the guides ↑
What Are the 11 Stock Market Sectors?→Magnificent 7 Stocks→The Semiconductor Value Chain→What Does TSMC Do?→What Does ASML Do?→What Does Lam Research Do?→Software Stocks→What Does Netflix Do?→What Does Tesla Do?→How Card Payments Work→Oil and Gas Industry→What Does ExxonMobil Do?→Crypto Stocks Explained→What Does Coinbase Do?→If You Invested $10,000 in Nvidia 10 Years Ago→If You Invested $10,000 in Tesla 10 Years Ago
X
Funds, hedge funds and market history
Who runs money, what they charge, and what the record shows.
Show the 12 guides ↓Hide the guides ↑
Mutual Fund vs ETF→What Is a Hedge Fund?→Hedge Fund Fees→Long/Short Equity Explained→What Is a Multi-Manager Hedge Fund?→Hedge Fund vs Private Equity vs Venture Capital→Do Hedge Funds Beat the Market?→Do Most Stocks Lose to Treasury Bills?→Who Is Aswath Damodaran?→The 1929 Stock Market Crash and the Great Depression→What Was Black Wednesday?→Will the Stock Market Crash?
XI
Systematic investing
How a rule-based process works, and how to tell if it is any good.
Show the 16 guides ↓Hide the guides ↑
What Is Systematic Investing?→Systematic vs Discretionary Investing→What Is Rules-Based Investing?→Quant Investing for Beginners→Systematic vs Passive Investing→What Is Stock Beta?→Does CAPM Work?→What Is Standard Deviation in Investing?→What Is a Drawdown?→What Is the Equity Risk Premium?→What Is Behavioural Finance?→What Is Backtesting?→How to Read a Backtest Report→Can Systematic Investing Beat the S&P 500?→Ensemble Models in Trading→Right for years: edge or luck?
02Browse by topic
Pick the corner of the market you want to understand.
Every explainer sits under one topic. Each is worked through on a real example with real numbers.
Investing BasicsStocks, funds, orders, accounts, market structure.Open →Company Accounts & ValuationEvery statement line with Mag7 examples, ratios, DCF.Open →Companies & SectorsWhat each company does, peer comparisons, how a sector earns.Open →Economy & Macro DataInflation, GDP, jobs, each data release.Open →Rates, Central Banks & FXBonds, yield curves, the Fed and others, currencies.Open →Commodities & CryptoOil, gold, metals, Bitcoin, stablecoins.Open →Trading & Technical AnalysisIndicators, each one tested, plus patterns, futures and options.Open →Portfolio, Risk & QuantRisk, drawdowns, factors, statistics, behavioural finance.Open →Investors, Funds & HistorySoros, Druckenmiller, Burry, hedge funds, pensions, crises.Open →
03Latest first
Every guide published
The written guides, newest first, all open and none of them behind a form. Each one takes a single idea the rest of the site assumes you know and explains it properly.
04 · WHEN YOU HAVE READ IT
Everything the Academy describes is running right now, and you can watch it work.
The guides explain the vocabulary. The pages below are the vocabulary in use: the four models reading every name each morning, the portfolio they build, and the record saying afterwards what came of it. All of it is documented in the open, so nothing here asks you to take a claim on trust.
Published for information and education. It is not personalised advice, not a managed account, and not a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Capital is at risk. Past and backtested performance tell you nothing certain about the future.