Index fund vs. ETF: what's the difference? — Index fund describes a strategy, ETF describes a trading wrapper — how the two relate, and what actually differs in practice.
What is liquidity in stock trading? — How easily a stock can be bought or sold without moving its own price — and why thin liquidity is a real risk for retail order execution.
What is the 52-week high/low? — A stock's highest and lowest price over the trailing year — a descriptive range marker, not a prediction.
What is asset allocation? — How you split capital across stocks, bonds, and cash — the single biggest driver of a portfolio's risk and return, and the questions investors use to choose a mix.
What are bonds, and how do they differ from stocks? — A loan to a government or company that pays interest — how bonds differ from stocks, why they cushion a portfolio, and the interest-rate and credit risks they still carry.
What is correlation in investing? — How two investments move together on a −1 to +1 scale — the real coefficient, why low correlation is what makes diversification work, and why correlations tend to rise in a crisis.
What is diversification in investing? — Spreading capital across holdings to reduce single-position risk — what it protects against, what it can't, and how it pairs with asset allocation.
What is a fund expense ratio? — A fund's annual fee as a percentage of assets — the real formula, a worked $10,000 example, and why a small percentage compounds into a large long-run cost.
What is portfolio rebalancing? — Periodically trading back to your target stock/bond mix after it drifts — why drift happens, schedule vs threshold methods, and why it is a risk-control discipline, not a return trick.
What is a target-date fund? — A one-fund diversified mix that automatically shifts from stocks toward bonds as a target year nears — the glide path, why same-year funds differ, and the fee angle.
What is short selling? — Borrowing and selling shares to bet on a price decline — why the risk profile is the mirror image of a long position, and what a short squeeze is.
What is a bull market? — A sustained period of rising prices — and why being in one isn't, by itself, a reason to buy any particular stock.
What is a bear market? — A sustained period of falling prices, conventionally a 20% or greater decline from a recent high.
What is the bid-ask spread? — The implicit cost of trading immediately: the gap between what buyers offer and sellers ask, and why it varies by stock.
What is compound interest (and why start early)? — Return earned on your returns, not just your original investment — the real formula, an illustrative worked example, and why starting early is the biggest lever a young investor has.
What is dividend yield? — Annual dividend income as a percentage of price — and why an unusually high yield deserves a second look, not automatic trust.
What is dollar-cost averaging? — Investing a fixed dollar amount on a regular schedule regardless of price — why it lowers timing risk, a worked example, and where it helps versus a lump sum.
What is the forward P/E ratio? — Share price divided by estimated next-12-month earnings instead of trailing actual earnings — the real formula, a worked trailing-vs-forward example, and why the estimate quality is the whole ballgame.
What is a ticker symbol? — The short letter code — e.g. AAPL, MSFT — that uniquely identifies a stock for trading and quoting.
What is book value? — A company’s assets minus its liabilities — its net worth on the accounting books — and, per share, the denominator of the price-to-book ratio. The real formula, a worked example, and why it can differ wildly from market value.
What is earnings yield? — Earnings per share divided by share price, as a percentage — the P/E ratio flipped upside down (1 ÷ P/E). The real formula, a worked example, and why a yield lets you compare a stock directly to a bond.
What is EPS growth (year-over-year)? — The year-over-year change in earnings per share, why it can diverge from total earnings growth, and why one quarter isn't a trend.
What is market capitalization? — Share price times shares outstanding — the standard way to size a company and bucket it as large-, mid-, or small-cap.
What is return on investment (ROI)? — Profit or loss expressed as a percentage of the amount invested — the formula, a worked example, and why a raw ROI is misleading without time horizon and risk.
What is a 401(k)? — A US employer-sponsored retirement account — traditional vs Roth tax treatment, the employer match, and why it is a tax wrapper, not an investment itself (not tax advice).
What is a blue-chip stock? — A large, well-established, financially sound company with a long history of stable earnings — and why the label isn't a safety guarantee.
What are capital gains? — The profit from selling an investment for more than you paid — the realized-vs-unrealized distinction, why holding period usually changes the tax treatment, and why exit timing matters.
What is cost basis? — What you paid for an investment, used to compute your taxable gain or loss — a worked example, tax lots, and FIFO vs specific-ID (US examples; not tax advice).
What is the current ratio? — Current assets divided by current liabilities — a liquidity test of whether a company can pay its near-term bills. The real formula, a worked example, why a very high ratio can be a warning, and why inventory is its blind spot.
What is a holding period? — How long you own an investment — and why the US one-year line splits higher-taxed short-term gains from lower-taxed long-term gains, and governs qualified dividends (not tax advice).
What is a qualified dividend? — A dividend taxed at lower US long-term capital-gains rates instead of ordinary income — the holding-period requirement around the ex-dividend date, and why it saves tax (US concept; not tax advice).
What is revenue growth (year-over-year)? — The year-over-year change in total revenue, why it's distinct from EPS growth, and why growth without margin improvement can be a warning sign.
What is a Roth IRA? — A US retirement account funded with after-tax money where qualified withdrawals — including all growth — are tax-free; the mirror image of a traditional IRA (US account; not tax advice).
What is tax-loss harvesting? — Selling a losing position to realize a loss that offsets taxable gains — a worked example, the wash-sale trap, and why it mainly shifts tax timing (US framing; not tax advice).
What is a traditional IRA? — A US retirement account with a possible up-front tax deduction and tax-deferred growth, taxed on withdrawal — the mirror image of a Roth IRA (US account; not tax advice).
What is the wash-sale rule? — The US rule that disallows a tax loss if you rebuy the same investment within 30 days — how the 61-day window works, where the deferred loss goes, and why harvesters get caught (not tax advice).
What is anchoring bias? — Leaning too hard on a reference number like your purchase price (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974) — why 'I'll sell when it gets back to what I paid' loses money, and the fix.
What is capitulation in the stock market? — The moment a falling market surrenders and holders sell all at once — why it often marks a bottom only in hindsight, and why a pre-set exit beats panic-selling.
What is confirmation bias? — Seeking evidence that fits what you already believe and ignoring what disproves it — how it hides red flags on a stock you own, and why a written bear case and invalidation level are the fix.
What is the debt-to-equity ratio? — How much a company relies on borrowed money versus owner capital, why the same ratio reads differently by sector, and why it matters more when rates rise or growth slows.
What is the disposition effect? — Selling winners too early and holding losers too long (Shefrin & Statman, 1985; Odean, 1998) — why it is backwards, and how trailing stops and rule-based exits fix it.
What is FOMO (fear of missing out) in investing? — The fear of missing a rising move, and the chase it triggers — why FOMO makes you buy late with no exit plan, and how pre-set entries counter it.
What is herd behavior in investing? — Following the crowd instead of judging an investment on its merits — why herding drives bubbles and crashes, and how an independent thesis and an invalidation level counter it.
What is loss aversion? — The tendency to feel a loss more than an equal gain (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979) — how it drives holding losers and panic-selling, and why pre-committed exits are the fix.
What is overconfidence bias in investing? — Overrating your own knowledge, skill and luck — why it drives overtrading and oversized bets, and how a fixed risk-per-trade and written invalidation levels counter it.
What is overtrading? — Trading far more than your strategy needs (Barber & Odean, 2000, found the most active traders lagged after costs) — where spread, tax and bad timing leak money, and why trading less wins.
What is prospect theory? — Kahneman & Tversky's model of how people really decide under risk — losses hurt more than gains, we judge from a reference point, and the wrong risks tempt us. The root of loss aversion and the disposition effect.
What is the quick ratio (acid-test ratio)? — Current assets minus inventory, divided by current liabilities — the stricter “acid-test” version of the current ratio. The real formula, a worked example, and why the gap between the two ratios is itself a signal.
What is recency bias? — Overweighting the most recent moves and assuming they continue — why it drives buying high and selling low, and how zooming out and a mechanical plan counter it.
What is a stock split? — More shares at a proportionally lower price, with total value unchanged — a worked example, why companies do it, and why a split alone doesn't change what a company is worth.
What is the sunk-cost fallacy in investing? — Letting money you already lost drive a decision that should be about the future — why it makes investors hold losers and average down, and the one question that fixes it.
Growth vs. value investing: what's the difference? — Two broad stock-picking styles — paying up for fast growth versus buying cheap-looking companies — how they differ, the risk each one takes on, and why many investors blend both.
What is a market order? — Buy or sell immediately at the best available price — guaranteed execution, never a guaranteed price.
What is a NAV premium or discount? — The gap between a fund’s market price and the net asset value (NAV) of what it holds — a premium above, a discount below. The real formula, a worked example, and why ETFs stay near NAV while closed-end funds can drift far from it.
What is return on equity (ROE)? — How efficiently a company turns shareholder capital into profit, why an unusually high reading can signal leverage rather than strength, and how it compares across sectors.
What is a limit order? — Buy or sell only at a specified price or better — price control, but no guaranteed fill.
What is a stop order (stop-loss)? — The order that caps a loss automatically — and the gap risk that means it caps your loss in an orderly market, not in a violent one.
What is short percent of float? — How much of a stock's float is sold short, updated bi-monthly by FINRA, and why a high reading can mean a negative view or squeeze risk.
What is institutional 13F flow? — Whether the largest institutional investors are net buying or selling, from lagged SEC Form 13F filings, and why very high buying breadth is read with caution rather than pure confirmation.
What is the VIX (Volatility Index)? — The CBOE Volatility Index — the options market's real-time estimate of expected S&P 500 volatility over the next 30 days.
What is the Fear & Greed Index? — CNN's composite sentiment score — 7 signals from momentum to volatility, blended 0-100, and how Quantustik treats it as contrarian context rather than a trade trigger.
What is the high-yield credit spread (HY OAS)? — The extra yield junk-rated bonds pay over Treasuries — priced by real credit investors daily, and one of the earliest warning signals in Quantustik's Market Conditions score.
What is the yield curve (10Y-2Y spread)? — The 10-year minus 2-year Treasury yield spread — a classic recession leading indicator when it inverts, and one input to Quantustik's Market Conditions score.
What is market breadth? — How many stocks are actually participating in a market move — and why a narrow, few-names rally is historically more fragile than a broad-based one.
What is a moving average? — A rolling average price that smooths a chart to reveal the trend — simple vs. exponential, a worked example, and the honest limits of crossover signals.
What are the golden cross and death cross? — When the 50-day moving average crosses the 200-day — up is a golden cross, down is a death cross — with a worked example and why these lagging signals carry little edge.
What is the Relative Strength Index (RSI)? — A 0-100 momentum gauge marking 'overbought' above 70 and 'oversold' below 30 — the real formula, a worked example, and why 'overbought' doesn't mean 'sell'.
What is MACD (Moving Average Convergence Divergence)? — A momentum indicator built from two moving averages — the MACD line, signal line, and histogram, a worked example, and the honest limits of crossover signals.
What are Bollinger Bands? — A moving average wrapped in two standard-deviation bands that widen with volatility — how they're built, a worked example, and why touching a band says little on its own.
What are support and resistance? — Price levels where a stock has repeatedly stopped falling (support) or rising (resistance) — why they form, what breakouts mean, and why they describe the past rather than predict the future.
What is VWAP (volume-weighted average price)? — The average price weighted by traded volume, reset every session — the real formula, a worked example, and why it's the benchmark institutions judge their own fills against.
What is alpha in investing? — The return an investment earned above what its risk alone would predict — how it's measured against a benchmark and beta, and why genuine, repeatable alpha is rare.
What is earnings per share (EPS)? — A company's profit divided by its share count — the formula, a worked example, why buybacks can flatter it, and how it feeds the price-to-earnings ratio.
What is a discounted cash flow (DCF)? — The most direct way to estimate what a business is worth — and the one that exposes how much you are assuming, since most of the answer comes from the years you know least about.
What are the Quality, Growth and Value scores? — Three quick screening scores on the Fundamentals card: Quality reflects profitability (return on equity + margin), Growth reflects revenue and earnings growth, and Value is based on the P/E ratio (higher = cheaper). Heuristic screens, not probabilities.
What is intrinsic value? — What a business is actually worth — the value today of all the cash it will ever hand its owners — and why that is an estimate you build, not a number the market prints.
What is a margin of safety? — Benjamin Graham's rule: buy far enough below your estimate of value that you survive being wrong — and the uncomfortable truth about what that discipline costs you.
What is the price-to-book (P/B) ratio? — A stock's price versus its accounting net worth (book value) — the formula, a worked example, and why it works for asset-heavy companies but not asset-light ones.
What is free cash flow (FCF)? — The cash left after running and investing in the business — the formula, a worked example, and why cash flow is harder to fake than reported profit.
What is a stock buyback (share repurchase)? — When a company repurchases its own shares, shrinking the share count and lifting EPS — the worked math, and why that boost is arithmetic, not real growth.
What is the price-to-sales (P/S) ratio? — How many dollars investors pay for each $1 of a company's revenue, why it's useful when earnings are negative, and why ignoring profitability is its key limitation.
What is the PEG ratio? — The P/E ratio divided by expected earnings growth — a worked example, the 'PEG near 1' rule of thumb, and why the growth estimate it relies on makes it fragile.
What is enterprise value (and EV/EBITDA)? — The true cost to buy a whole company — market cap plus debt minus cash — a worked example, and why EV/EBITDA compares differently-financed companies fairly where P/E can't.
What are shares outstanding (and float)? — The total number of a company's shares, and the float that trades freely — why the count sets market cap, why a low price isn't cheap, and how buybacks and issuance change it.
What is an earnings report (and earnings season)? — A company's quarterly results — revenue, profit, and EPS — why the stock reacts to beating or missing expectations, and why guidance can matter more than the quarter itself.
What is an earnings (EPS) surprise? — How far reported earnings came in above or below what analysts expected — a bar the company itself helped set, which is why beating it is closer to routine than to an achievement.
What are insider cluster buys? — How many S&P 500 companies had 3 or more distinct insiders buy within a 10-day window — a stronger smart-money confirmation than any single purchase.
What is congressional trading disclosure data? — Net USD volume of recently disclosed Congress-member trades, z-scored against its own trailing history — a lagged, supplementary market-conditions input, not a real-time signal.
What is the Social Hype Score for a stock? — A 0-100 composite of Google Trends momentum and optional social sentiment for a ticker — why attention isn't the same as a strong view.
What is the News Sentiment score for a stock? — The average polarity of recent headlines for a ticker, scored -1 to +1 by a finance-domain language model — a lagging read, not a prediction.
What is Smart Money Flow? — A directional indicator estimating whether large, institutional-sized orders dominate buy or sell side flow — noisy on any single day.
What is an SEC Form 4 open-market purchase? — The SEC filing insiders must submit within two business days of trading their own stock; an open-market purchase (code P) is a discretionary buy with the insider's own cash — the signal Quantustik keys on.
What is an unusually large insider buy? — A single insider purchase flagged because it is at least 2× that insider's own median buy — large relative to their own history, not just a big absolute number.
What is profit margin? — How much of each revenue dollar a company keeps as profit, why margin tells you more than headline sales, and why you can only compare it against sector peers.
What is gross margin? — The share of revenue left after only the direct cost of making a product — how it differs from operating and net margin, and why it reveals a company's pricing power.
What is the S&P 500? — The default benchmark for the U.S. stock market — what market-cap weighting means, why the index can rise while most stocks fall, and how a first-time investor actually owns it.
What is operating margin? — The share of revenue left after all the costs of running the business, before interest and taxes — where it sits between gross and net margin, and why a rising trend signals operating leverage.
What is the VIX term structure? — Near-term vs. longer-term expected volatility (VIX / VIX3M) — what contango and backwardation mean, and why an inversion flags right-now market stress.
What are initial jobless claims? — The most timely read on the U.S. labor market — why a rising trend in weekly unemployment filings is an early economic-slowdown warning, and why the 4-week trend beats any single week.
What is the put/call ratio? — How options positioning reveals crowd sentiment — how to read the call/put balance, and why extremes are often a contrarian warning rather than confirmation.
What is Google search interest for a stock? — A 0–100 proxy for how much retail attention a stock is getting — why a search spike leads volume, and why it flags attention, not direction.
What is unusual options activity? — When call-option volume spikes far above normal — why it can hint at informed positioning, and why 'unusual' is genuinely ambiguous, not a signal on its own.
What is StockTwits sentiment? — A real-time thermometer for retail mood — the share of positive-tagged posts on a stock, and why extreme readings are often a contrarian tell.
What is the contrarian Fear & Greed signal? — The CNN Fear & Greed Index read contrarian — extreme fear leans positive, extreme greed leans negative — with fear persistence-weighted but greed capped.
What is the Zweig Breadth Thrust? — A rare momentum signal — fires when the 10-day NYSE advance ratio swings from below 0.40 to above 0.615, marking a broad-based buying surge.
What is the AAII Investor Sentiment Survey? — The weekly AAII bull/bear survey of individual investors — read contrarian at extreme readings, since retail sentiment tends to peak near market turns.
What is the analyst price-target consensus? — Median analyst price target vs. current price across the S&P 500 — a wide premium signals optimism, a discount signals pessimism, read as a slow-moving sentiment gauge.
What is the analyst upgrade/downgrade shift? — Net (upgrades − downgrades) / total across S&P 500 analyst actions over 30 days — a lagging, consensus-following read of whether the sell side is turning positive or negative.
What is a GICS sector? — The Global Industry Classification Standard sorts every public company into 11 sectors — the single most useful label for understanding how a stock behaves and diversifying a portfolio.
What is the 13F whale amount? — The quarter-over-quarter dollar change in one large institution's position from its SEC Form 13F filing — green means it added, red means it trimmed. Always filed up to 45 days late.
What is an activist investor (SC 13D/13G) alert? — Flags an SEC Schedule 13D or 13G filing after an investor crosses 5% ownership — 13D signals active intent to push for change, 13G is a passive large-holder disclosure.
What does Upgrades (30d) mean for a stock? — How many analysts raised their rating on this stock (e.g. Hold → Buy) in the trailing 30 days — a per-ticker count of rating improvements, and a lagging, confirming signal.
What is the average analyst price target? — The consensus 12-month price target that covering analysts expect — how it's averaged, why the high/low spread and the lag matter, and how to read it as one opinion, not a promise.
What is analyst target upside? — The consensus analyst price target as a percentage gap from today's price — why it's almost always positive, and why the change matters more than the absolute number.
What is analyst coverage? — The number of analysts actively rating a stock — a neutral confidence weight: high coverage makes the consensus meatier, low coverage makes it noisier and easily swung by one voice.
What is the analyst buy-ratings count? — How many analysts rate a stock Buy or Strong Buy — meaningful only relative to the hold and sell counts, and a lagging signal given the sell side's structural positive skew.
What is the analyst hold-ratings count? — How many analysts rate a stock Hold — the neutral middle rung. A wall of Holds signals a 'wait and see' Street, and a downgrade to Hold often functions as a soft sell.
What is the analyst sell-ratings count? — How many analysts rate a stock Sell or Strong Sell — rare by design, which is exactly what makes a cluster of Sells a louder reading than an equal cluster of Buys.
What is an SEC Form 10-K? — The comprehensive, audited annual report every public company files with the SEC — business overview, risk factors, MD&A, and audited financial statements. The single most complete document a company produces about itself.
What does the VIX’s absolute level signal? — Reading the VIX's raw level as a contrarian market-conditions clue — above ~30 is panic (often near bottoms), below ~15 is complacency — and why that's a tendency, not a precise timing tool.
What is an SEC Form 10-Q? — The lighter, unaudited quarterly report a public company files with the SEC the three quarters it does not file an annual 10-K — the timeliest full look at the business between annual reports.
How is the high-yield credit spread a market-conditions signal? — The extra yield junk bonds pay over Treasuries, read as an early-warning market-conditions signal — credit stress tends to widen before equities fall, and a peaking-and-falling spread signals it easing.
What is an SEC Form 8-K? — The SEC 'current report' companies must file within four business days of a material event (earnings, M&A, exec changes, restatements, financing) — and how Quantustik classifies each one.
What is the Risk Factors section of a 10-K? — Item 1A of a 10-K, where a company lists in its own words the specific threats to its business — and where year-over-year wording changes can be the most telling signal in the filing.
What is the MD&A section of a 10-K? — Item 7 of a 10-K, where management explains in narrative form why the numbers moved — the bridge between the raw financial statements and a plain-English read on the business.
What is the Sharpe ratio (90-day estimate)? — Return per unit of risk taken, estimated from the trailing 90 trading days — why a high raw return can still be a weak risk-adjusted one.
What is max drawdown? — The largest peak-to-trough decline over a period — and why recovering from a deep one is much harder than the percentage alone suggests.
What is the dividend payout ratio? — The share of a company's earnings paid out as dividends, and why a ratio above 80-100% is a warning sign, not a bonus.
What is standard deviation? — How spread out numbers are around their average — the statistic behind volatility, Sharpe and confidence-band width, with a worked example.
What is the 5-year dividend CAGR? — How fast a company's dividend has grown on average over 5 years, and why consistency matters more than any single year's raise.
What is Value at Risk (VaR)? — The loss you could see on a normal bad day at a chosen confidence level — a worked example, and the tail-risk blind spot it hides.
What is dividend payout frequency? — How often a company pays its dividend, why most US large-caps default to quarterly, and why frequency isn't a safety signal.
What is the Sortino ratio? — Return per unit of downside risk — the Sharpe ratio's cousin that stops penalising a stock for jumping the good way, with a worked example.
What is the Calmar ratio? — Annualised return divided by the worst peak-to-trough drawdown — reward per unit of worst-case pain, with a worked example.
What is the ex-dividend date? — The ownership cutoff that decides who receives the next dividend — and why buying just to grab it isn't free money.
What is a Dividend Aristocrat? — An S&P 500 company with 25+ straight years of dividend increases — a badge of durability, not of high yield, and not advice.
What is the risk-free rate? — What you can earn with no market risk — the bar every investment has to clear, and the number Sharpe and Sortino subtract before measuring anything.
What is EBITDA? — Profit before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation — the flattering number companies like to lead with, and why it is not cash flow.
What is CAGR (compound annual growth rate)? — The smooth annual growth rate drawn through a bumpy reality — and why it is always more honest than an average of yearly returns.
What is mean reversion? — The rubber-band effect: why a stretched series tends to pull back toward its average — and why betting on that is how people catch falling knives.
What is total return? — Price change plus dividends — the number that explains how a flat-looking stock chart can still have made its holders money.
What is a call option? — The right to buy a stock at a fixed price before a deadline — and the worked example showing why the stock rising 12% can still leave you down.
What is a put option? — The right to sell at a fixed price — fire insurance for a portfolio, with a premium you pay whether or not the house burns down.
What is a market correction? — A 10% fall from the peak — the reporting convention everyone quotes, and why crossing that round number tells you nothing about what comes next.
What is ROIC (return on invested capital)? — Profit per dollar of ALL capital in the business — the metric that tells a genuinely good company apart from a heavily borrowed one.
What is a t-statistic? — The number that answers "could this result just be luck?" — and why a great-looking result with a t-statistic below 2 proves nothing yet.
What is portfolio concentration (HHI)? — How concentrated your portfolio really is — the measure that catches a "ten-stock portfolio" that is actually one big bet with nine decorations.