Relative Strength and Momentum: Why Leadership Matters
Learn how relative strength and momentum identify market leaders, why institutional capital creates the momentum premium, and how to spot leadership.
Market Education
Learn how stocks, bonds and capital markets work. Explore plain-English explanations, worked examples and charts, then follow related coverage to connect market concepts with current events. Find your way around ECMSource.
Pre-IPO Shares: How Secondary Markets and Tender Offers Work
Learn how pre-IPO shares trade, how secondary markets and employee tender offers work, accredited investor rules, ROFR clauses, and key valuation risks.
Stock Market Crash vs. Correction: What Is the Difference?
Understand the technical differences between market pullbacks, corrections, bear markets, and crashes, with historical data, circuit breaker rules, and charts.
Sovereign Debt Explained: How Nations Borrow and Default
Sovereign debt explained: how nations issue bonds, what separates domestic from foreign borrowing, and how debt restructurings actually work.
How to Read the CPI Report: A Beginner’s Guide
A step-by-step walkthrough of the monthly BLS CPI release: headline vs core, MoM vs YoY, SA vs NSA, category weights, and how to avoid common misreadings.
How Social Security COLA Is Calculated: The CPI-W Formula
How SSA turns the CPI-W into next year’s Social Security raise: the Q3 formula, the no-cut rule, and when the number lands.
The 4% Rule Explained: Bengen, Trinity, and Reality
What the 4% rule is, where it came from, the math, the assumptions that do the work, and where it breaks down.
How Mortgage Rates Are Set: 10-Year Treasury + Spread
30-year mortgage rates aren’t tied to the Fed’s rate. They track the 10-year Treasury plus a mortgage spread. Here’s how the math works.
How an IPO Actually Works: S-1, Bookbuilding, Greenshoe
From S-1 to first trade: how underwriters price an IPO, run the roadshow, use the greenshoe, and why the 7% spread refuses to move.
The Cash Flow Statement Explained: CFO, CFI, and CFF
The cash flow statement shows how a company actually generates and spends cash. How to read the three sections, with a worked example from Apple’s FY2024.