Accounting is the language of business.
If you buy stocks, you MUST learn how to read a Cash Flow Statement.
Here’s everything you need to know:
The cash flow statement shows how cash moves in and out of a company over a period of time.
The most common time periods are:
▪️1 Quarter
▪️1 Year
▪️Year-to-date (usually 6 or 9 months)
The time period is at the top. Here's $NFLX recent cash flow statement time period.
Some companies show the cash flow statement in their earnings press release, but many don’t.
You can find the cash flow statement by looking at:
▪️10-Q (Quarterly Report)
▪️10-K (Annual Report)
▪️Fnancial aggregators such as @theTIKR,
@CMLviz, @themotleyfool, @YahooFinance
There are three main segments to a cash flow statement.
1. Operating Activities
2. Investing Activities
3. Financing Activities
Companies get some leeway with how they breakout each segment, but they all follow this basic structure.
Let’s start with Operating Activities.
This segment STARTS with net income (the bottom number of the Income Statement).
It shows cash movements from all normal operational business activities.