Guides
Guides to how the market works
Every guide here is free to read, with no account and no paywall. Each one is built from primary documents — annual reports, regulatory material and market rules — and carries a publication and review date, because the rules and standards it describes change over time.
Our guides explain how markets, documents and measures work. They are general information only, prepared without considering your objectives, financial situation or needs. They contain no recommendations about any security and are not financial product advice. GreenValley does not hold an Australian Financial Services Licence.
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Guide
How to read an Australian annual report without being misled by it
An annual report is written to be read in a particular order, and the figures that matter most are rarely on the first page you open. This guide covers the four primary statements, the notes that qualify them, the five figures worth checking, and the presentation choices that can make results look better than the underlying business.
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Explainer
What market data does and does not tell you
Most numbers quoted about listed companies are ratios built from other numbers. This guide explains what the price-to-earnings ratio, dividend yield, price-to-book and debt measures are actually calculating, which inputs are reported facts and which are estimates, and why a price target is not a prediction with a track record.
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Explainer
The ASX explained for investors used to other markets
Australian market structure is not a smaller version of the United States or United Kingdom. This guide covers market concentration, who regulates what, how companies list, why reporting is half-yearly rather than quarterly, how settlement and franking work, and what the indices are really measuring.
What is coming next
We publish slowly and deliberately, because a guide that explains a method properly takes longer to write than several that summarise someone else's opinion. The subjects currently being researched are:
- Reading a cash flow statement: how to tell profitable growth from growth that is consuming cash.
- Understanding industry economics: why the same profit margin means different things in different sectors.
- Diversification and its limits: what spreading investments does and does not protect against.
- Company announcements: how to read an ASX release and identify what is actually material.
If you would like to suggest a subject, or ask a question you think a guide should answer, write to info@yichetx.com. Reader questions shape what we research, and we will tell you if a suggestion falls outside our scope.
How these guides are produced
Sources are ranked, and primary documents always come first: annual reports, financial statements and their notes, ASX and regulatory announcements, and official notices. Every figure is traced to a document, every calculation is re-performed independently, and statements drawn from company documents are checked against the original wording. Our full method, including how we handle corrections, is set out in our editorial policy.
What our guides will never contain
- Buy, sell or hold recommendations, ratings, or lists of favoured stocks.
- Price targets, forecasts of returns, or predictions about any security's future price.
- Statements that now is a good time to invest, in any wording.
- Coverage of crypto assets, options and derivatives strategies, forex, or penny stocks.