Venture Capital Explained: Stages, Term Sheets, and Down Rounds
How VC actually works: seed through growth, what’s in a term sheet, how dilution stacks up round by round, and what happens when a down round hits.
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.
Whisper Numbers and PEAD: Why Beats Drift After Earnings
What earnings whisper numbers are, what post-earnings announcement drift (PEAD) is, and why a ‘beat’ sometimes sends a stock lower.
Treasury Basis Trade Explained: Repo, Leverage, Risk
How the Treasury cash-futures basis trade actually works: repo-financed long bonds, short futures, the convergence math, and why hedge funds risk $1T+ on it.
Options Greeks Explained: Delta, Gamma, Theta, Vega, Rho
What the option Greeks actually measure, with a worked Black-Scholes example and a clear table showing how delta, gamma, theta, vega, and rho behave.
What Is WACC? Cost of Capital Formula and Worked Example
WACC blends a company’s cost of equity and after-tax cost of debt by their weights in capital structure. The formula, a worked example, and the traps.
Leveraged Buyouts Explained: Capital Structure and IRR
How LBOs work: capital structure, the IRR math behind private-equity returns, and the deals that defined the playbook from RJR Nabisco to Electronic Arts.
IPO Lock-Up Periods Explained: When Insider Selling Hits
How IPO lock-up periods work, why 180 days is standard, the SEC and FINRA rules behind them, and what tends to happen to the stock when they expire.
13F Filings Explained: How to See What Hedge Funds Own
Big institutional managers must publish their US equity holdings 45 days after each quarter on Form 13F. Here is what is in it, what is not, and how to read it.
NPV vs IRR Explained: When They Disagree and Why
NPV adds dollar value at your cost of capital. IRR is the rate that zeros it out. When they disagree on scale or timing, NPV wins. Here is why.
The Yield Curve Explained: Shape, Inversion, and What It Signals
What the Treasury yield curve is, why its shape matters, how inversions have historically preceded U.S. recessions, and how to read it.