Preferred Stock vs Common Stock: What’s the Difference?
Preferred stock vs common stock: voting rights, dividend priority, liquidation order, cumulative vs non-cumulative, and where preferreds fit.
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.
The Yield Curve: Shape, Inversion, and What It Predicts
How the U.S. Treasury yield curve works, why its shape matters, what inversion has and hasn’t predicted, and how to read today’s curve.
Covered Calls Explained: How They Work and When They Don’t
A plain-English guide to covered calls: mechanics, payoff, breakeven, a real worked example, when the strategy earns its premium, and when it costs you.
Payment for Order Flow (PFOF): How Free Trades Work
Payment for order flow (PFOF) is how zero-commission brokers get paid. Here’s exactly who pays whom, what Rule 606 discloses, and why regulators disagree about it.
Yield to Maturity Explained: YTM, YTC, and YTW
How yield to maturity, yield to call, and yield to worst work — with formulas, worked examples, current Treasury yields, and why bond desks quote YTW.
The Index Effect: How S&P 500 Additions Move Stocks
How S&P 500 inclusion moves a stock: the pre-announcement drift, run-up to effective date, decay after, and why the effect has shrunk since 2010.
Options 101: Calls, Puts, Strike, Expiration Explained
Options primer: how calls and puts work, what strike, expiration, and premium really mean, plus intrinsic vs time value.
Factor Investing: Value, Momentum, Quality, Size, Low-Vol
Factor investing in plain English: the five equity factors, where they came from, how Ken French and AQR build them, and where each one breaks.
T-Bills vs T-Notes vs T-Bonds: Treasury Securities 101
T-Bills, T-Notes, and T-Bonds explained: maturities, coupon math, auction schedule, and the live June 2026 yield curve, with worked examples.
What Is the P/E Ratio and When Does It Mislead You?
P/E ratio formula, trailing vs forward, sector benchmarks, Shiller CAPE, and the five cases where price-to-earnings flat-out misleads investors.