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Stocks

What you own when you buy a share, how orders really fill, and how to read what a company reports. All ten topics are here.

1. 1What a share isOwnership, market cap, and how shareholders gain or lose. How small is 100 shares of Apple?
2. 2Orders and the spreadBid and ask, market, limit and stop orders, and why a stop can fill far below its price.
3. 3Reading an income statementRead Apple's real fiscal 2024 report and work out its margins and earnings per share.
4. 4Dividends and stock splitsWhy neither one makes you richer by itself, with Apple's dividend and its 2020 split as examples.
5. 5Short sellingHow to profit from a fall, why the possible loss has no limit, and what else can go wrong.
6. 6Buying on marginHow borrowing makes results larger in both directions, and how a margin call happens.
7. 7Reading a balance sheetRead Apple's real balance sheet, check that it balances, and work out two key ratios.
8. 8Reading a cash flow statementWhy profit and cash differ. Follow Apple's real cash flows and work out free cash flow.
9. 9The P/E ratioWhat price-to-earnings tells you, what it does not, and how one-off items can distort it.
10. 10DiversificationWhy spreading your money limits the damage from one company, what it cannot protect you from, and how index funds work.
11. 11Capstone: through the crashHold a portfolio through a sudden crash, graded on how you handled the risk and not on your profit, then a test on the whole course.

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