Sarah Mitchell
Education Editor
Investment Education Editor at 13F Insight. Breaks down complex institutional data into actionable insights for individual investors.
A note from Sarah
Hi, I'm Sarah. I spent four years at Vanguard's Investor Education team, where my whole job was making 401(k) statements feel less like tax forms and more like something a person could actually understand.
I'm here at 13F Insight to do the same thing for institutional data. If you've ever read a headline like "Berkshire Bought Apple" and thought "okay but what does that actually mean for me," that's the gap I want to close.
I'll never assume you know what a CUSIP is. I'll always tell you why a number matters before I give you the number. And if a guide of mine ever leaves you more confused than you started, that's on me — let me know and I'll rewrite it.
Articles by Sarah Mitchell (818)
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Reinvestment and Return on Incremental Capital
Two companies with the same profits can have wildly different futures, depending on what they can do with each new dollar. Learn return on incremental capital and the reinvestment runway, the engine behind true compounders, and why a cash cow is a different kind of investment.
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The Sharpe Ratio: Measuring Return Against Risk
A 20% return isn't automatically better than 12%, it depends on the risk taken. Learn how the Sharpe ratio measures excess return per unit of volatility, why a steadier portfolio can be the more skillful one, what the ratio misses, and why risk-adjusted thinking matters.
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Holding Cash: Why Dry Powder Is an Active Decision
For disciplined value investors, holding cash is an active choice, not leftover money. Learn why managers keep dry powder when stocks look expensive, how it cushions drawdowns and funds bargains in a panic, the real cost of cash drag, and why a 13F can't show it.
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Emerging Markets Investing: Higher Growth, Different Risks
Emerging markets offer some of investing's most compelling growth stories alongside its sharpest risks, volatile currencies, abrupt policy shifts, thinner liquidity. Learn what makes EM different, why investors are drawn to it, and how to read emerging-markets exposure in a 13F.
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Network Effects: The Moat That Widens With Scale
A network effect makes a product more valuable as more people use it, the rare moat that strengthens with scale instead of eroding. Learn how it powers payment networks, marketplaces and platforms, why two-sided networks are hardest to dislodge, and how it shapes quality portfolios.
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Operating Leverage: Why Profits Swing More Than Sales
Operating leverage explains why a company's profits can jump 30% on 10% more revenue, or collapse far faster in a downturn. Learn how fixed costs act as a profit multiplier in both directions, why software soars and airlines suffer, and how it shapes the risk in a 13F's holdings.
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The Math of Drawdowns: Why Avoiding Losses Matters Most
A 50% loss needs a 100% gain just to break even, and the math only gets crueler from there. Learn why this asymmetry makes capital preservation central to compounding, how avoiding deep drawdowns protects the long-term runway, and how the discipline shows up in a 13F.
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Country Risk and Home Bias: Where a Stock Lives Matters
A company's home country shapes its risk through currency, rates, politics and the local economy, and investors quietly overweight their own. Learn country risk and home bias, and how to spot a 13F that is really a concentrated bet on a single nation rather than a diversified book.
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Active Share: How Active Is a Fund Really?
Active share measures how much of a fund's portfolio differs from its benchmark, from 0% for a pure index-hugger to 100% for no overlap. Learn how it exposes closet indexers charging active fees, why it signals activity but not skill, and how to gauge it from a 13F.
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Core-Satellite Investing: Index Core, Active Bets on Top
Core-satellite investing pairs a broad, low-cost index core with smaller active bets where conviction is highest. Learn how the approach works, how to spot it in a 13F that holds ETFs alongside individual stocks, and why the two layers must be read completely differently.
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Capital-Light vs Capital-Intensive: Why It Shapes Returns
Some businesses generate revenue with little investment in physical assets; others must keep pouring cash into factories and equipment just to compete. Learn why capital-light franchises are prized for free cash flow, why intensity isn't destiny, and how the split shapes quality portfolios.
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Gross Margin: An Early Read on Business Quality
Gross margin, what a company keeps after the direct cost of its goods, is often the first quantitative fingerprint of a competitive advantage. Learn why high margins signal pricing power, why the trend matters as much as the level, and how it shapes quality portfolios.
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Book Value and Price-to-Book: The Balance-Sheet Yardstick
Book value, assets minus liabilities, was once value investing's starting point, and price-to-book its key ratio. Learn why it still anchors bank and insurer valuations, why intangible-rich businesses broke it, and how to tell when a low price-to-book is a clue or a trap.
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Concentration Risk: When One Position Is Too Big
Concentration turns conviction into outsized returns, or outsized losses. Learn the unforgiving math of position sizing, why a 25% holding that halves can define a year, why concentration amplifies risk most when paired with uncertainty, and how to read it directly in a 13F.
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Private Credit Explained: The Lending Boom Outside the Banks
Private credit, lending by asset managers instead of banks, has grown into a multi-trillion-dollar market since the financial crisis. Learn how it works, why quality investors own the fee-earning platforms like Apollo and Blackstone, and the risks hidden beneath the growth story.
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Dividend Payout Ratio: How to Judge if a Dividend Is Safe
A dividend yield is a promise, not a guarantee. Learn how the payout ratio, the share of earnings or free cash flow paid out, reveals whether a dividend is safe, why a fragile 8% is worth less than a dependable 3%, and how high-dividend value managers screen for durability.
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Pricing Power: The Rare Trait Quality Investors Hunt For
Pricing power, the ability to raise prices without losing customers, is one of the rarest and most valuable traits a business can have. Learn where it comes from, how to test for it, and why it becomes decisive when inflation squeezes everyone else's margins.
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Circle of Competence: Investing Within What You Know
The circle of competence isn't about how much you know, but how well you know its edge. Learn the Buffett-Munger idea, why misjudging the boundary causes the worst mistakes, and why a borrowed stock idea is only useful if it falls inside your own circle.
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Earnings Yield: Valuing a Stock Like a Bond
Earnings yield flips the P/E ratio to show profit as a percentage of price, letting you weigh a stock like a bond. Learn how it works, its starring role in Joel Greenblatt's magic formula, and why it only works paired with a measure of quality.
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Intrinsic Value: The True Worth Behind a Stock's Price
Every value judgment is really a comparison between price, which the market hands you, and intrinsic value, which you must estimate. Learn what intrinsic value is, how investors approximate it, why it's inherently uncertain, and how that uncertainty creates opportunity.