Updated May 24, 2026 · 798 articles
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Educational guides about 13F filings, insider trading, institutional investing, and how to track smart money moves.
Return on Equity (ROE): A Core Test of Business Quality
Return on equity measures how much profit a company earns on its owners' capital, and high, consistent ROE is a signature of business quality. Learn why quality investors prize it, what counts as good, and the leverage and buyback traps that can mislead.
Sarah MitchellMr. Market: Graham's Parable of Price Versus Value
Benjamin Graham's Mr. Market is a moody partner who quotes you a price every day, sometimes euphoric, sometimes despairing. Learn the parable, the price-versus-value lesson at its core, and how it explains the behavior of disciplined value managers.
Sarah MitchellRecurring Revenue: Why Subscription Businesses Command a Premium
Two companies can sell the same dollar of product and be worth very different amounts, depending on whether that sale repeats. Learn why recurring revenue commands a premium, how retention drives the math, and why not all subscription revenue is equally sticky.
Sarah MitchellOwner Earnings: Buffett's Truer Measure of Profit
Frustrated by misleading earnings, Warren Buffett popularized owner earnings: an estimate of the sustainable cash a business can hand its owners after staying competitive. Learn how it's built, why maintenance capital is the hard part, and how it shapes quality portfolios.
Sarah MitchellCompounding: The Math Behind Patient, Long-Term Investing
Compounding is growth that builds on itself, and its back half dwarfs the front. Learn why the math rewards inactivity, what actually makes a business a true compounder, and why a long-held 13F position is the strategy, not staleness.
Sarah MitchellSwitching Costs: The Moat That Keeps Customers From Leaving
Switching costs keep customers from leaving even when a rival is cheaper, handing a business pricing power and recurring revenue. Learn this most durable type of economic moat and why it appears again and again in quality-focused portfolios.
Sarah MitchellFree Cash Flow Yield: A Quality Investor's Valuation Tool
Earnings can be dressed up; free cash flow is harder to fake. Free cash flow yield measures the cash a business throws off against its price, letting you compare it like a bond. Learn why quality investors lean on it, and the traps to avoid.
Sarah MitchellIndex Inclusion and Institutional Ownership Explained
When a stock joins the S&P 500, every index fund must buy it, regardless of price. Learn how that mechanical demand reshapes ownership and float, and why a jump in institutional ownership around an inclusion date is not a vote of confidence.
Sarah MitchellReading 13F Holdings Alongside Short Interest
A 13F shows only long positions, leaving you blind to who's betting against a stock. Pair it with short interest and you can spot battleground names, crowded trades, and squeeze setups that neither data set reveals on its own.
Sarah MitchellDo Stocks Rise After a 13F Is Filed? The Lag Problem
Can you profit by copying what the smart money bought? The 45-day reporting lag means you're reading stale positions, and the research on post-filing drift is sobering. Learn why filings are a research starting point, not a real-time buy list.
Sarah MitchellRelative-Value Investing: The Flat-Weighted Value Approach
Relative-value managers don't chase the single most undervalued stock; they assemble a flat basket of names cheap versus their own history and peers. Learn how to spot the style in a 13F and why the largest position isn't the signal you think it is.
Sarah MitchellQuality Growth vs Deep Value: Two Kinds of Value Investing
Both deep value and quality growth want to pay less than a business is worth, but they disagree on where worth comes from. Learn how to tell the two camps apart in a 13F, and why the same ticker can be a very different bet depending on who owns it.
Sarah MitchellWhat Is a Margin of Safety? The Core of Value Investing
Benjamin Graham called margin of safety the three most important words in investing. It means buying below a conservative estimate of value so that ordinary errors cost your buffer, not your principal, and it leaves clear fingerprints in how value managers hold.
Sarah MitchellReading REIT and Real-Estate Exposure in a 13F
REITs trade on rates, rents, and property cycles, not normal earnings. Here's what a fund's real-estate exposure signals and why the type of REIT matters.
Marcus ChenPatient Investing: Time Horizon as an Edge
A longer time horizon is one of the few durable edges in markets. Here's why patience pays, how it shows up in a 13F, and why it's so rare.
Sarah MitchellTotal Shareholder Yield: Beyond the Dividend
Dividend yield is only half the story. Total shareholder yield adds buybacks — here's why it reframes how you read a fund's income and capital-return tilt.
Sarah MitchellCyclical vs Defensive: A Fund's Economic Tilt
Whether a 13F leans cyclical or defensive reveals a fund's implicit economic view. Here's the split, what each tilt signals, and how to read shifts between them.
Marcus ChenThe Value-Investing Lineage: Graham to Buffett to Today
Value investing has a family tree — from Graham to Buffett to the Sequoia school. Here's how that shared DNA shows up across value managers' 13Fs.
Marcus ChenMid-Cap Investing: The Overlooked Middle Ground
Between megacaps and small-caps lies the mid-cap sweet spot. Here's what mid-cap investing is, why managers favor it, and how a mid-cap 13F reads.
Sarah MitchellValue Traps: When Cheap Stocks Stay Cheap
The biggest risk in value investing isn't overpaying — it's the value trap, a cheap stock that's cheap for a reason. Here's how to spot one in a value 13F.
Sarah Mitchell