Gauging Corporate Financial Results

New visitors have three ways to become familiar with this blog.

1. A Financial Data Overview section introduces standard corporate financial statements and some of the insights that can be gleaned from them.

2. Our unique financial analysis methodology to characterize corporate performance and value is explained in the Dashboard Gauges section.

3. Analysis summaries for specific companies are listed (by ticker symbol) below under "Labels."

Important disclosures can also be found below and should be carefully considered.

There are many ways to follow GCFR. Choose the one that suits your needs and preferences, or try them all.

1. Visit the web site. Expect several new posts per week, more when many companies are issuing earnings reports.

2. Subscribe to our RSS feed with a web browser or newsreader application.

3. Sign up to receive an email notifications of each new post.

4. Visit a site that aggregates information from many blogs. GCFR is available at Seeking Alpha, iStockAnalyst, Technorati, Wikinvest, pfblogs.org, blogged.com, and mustfeed.com.

Google's Blogger is used to manage GCFR's content and the layout of the web site. The layout is based on the Stretch Denim template created by Darren Delaye. All content is created on an Apple MacBook running OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard). Microsoft Excel 2011 is used for financial statement analysis and gauge score calculations. Most articles are written in Google Docs. Zoho Sheet produces the spreadsheets that are embedded in the blog articles. The speedometer graphics for the gauges are created in Excel using the approach developed by "pointy haired dilbert." We use Charlie Balch's VBA code for converting an Excel range to HTML.

© 2006-2011. Neil A. Carvin. All rights reserved.

This blog describes and gives examples of a particular quantitative methodology, relying on published financial statements, to analyze businesses. The methodology does not evaluate every aspect of a company's finances or operations. Other analytical techniques may be better suited to some evaluations, depending on the type of business or the goals of the analysis. The material in the blog is not investment advice, nor does it constitute an offer or solicitation to buy or sell any security. The author might have, might once have had, or might be considering a position in the companies mentioned. Specific positions will not be disclosed. While good-faith efforts are made to use reliable information sources and to provide accurate analytical results, accuracy is not guaranteed. All results are subject to change without notification. Application of the analytical methodology described in this blog requires that various assumptions be made. The assumptions are generally not disclosed and are subject to error, invalidating some or all of the analysis results. In looking for trends, recent financial data is compared to historical financial data; however, underlying differences in the assumptions or presentation of the data might degrade or invalidate these comparisons and could produce erroneous or misleading results. Readers should independently validate any information in this blog that causes them to consider making or not making a financial transaction.