#financial-analysis
Financial Analysis
Analyze financial data and metrics to evaluate business performance and health
Tesla Q1 2026: Margins Hit a 5-Quarter High While Deliveries Keep Falling — and a New $25B+ Capex Guide Rattled the Stock
Tesla's Q1 2026 revenue reached $22.4 billion (+16% YoY) with automotive gross margin hitting a 5-quarter high of 19.2% ex-regulatory-credits, but a capex guidance raise to over $25 billion and a $2.0 billion SpaceX equity stake sent the stock down 3.56% despite the earnings beat. Full income statement and balance sheet, FY2021-Q1 2026, in a public Beancount ledger.
Microsoft FY2026 Q3: Azure Hits 40% Growth as the $190 Billion Capex Bet Compounds
Microsoft's FY2026 Q3 revenue rose 18.3% to $82.9B with net income up 23.1% to $31.8B, while Azure re-accelerated to 40% growth — but gross margin compressed for a third straight quarter (69.1% → 68.0% → 67.6%) as capex tracks toward $190B for calendar 2026. Full income statement and balance sheet, FY2020–FY2026 Q3, in a public Beancount ledger.
SpaceX's First Public Earnings: Starlink's $11.4B Profit Machine Is Bankrolling a $6.4B AI Bet
SpaceX's IPO filing shows FY2025 revenue of $18.7B (+33%) and a $4.9B net loss — Starlink earned a $4.4B operating profit at a 38.8% margin while the AI segment (X and xAI) lost $6.4B on $3.2B of revenue and consumed $12.7B of capex. A bull-vs-bear analysis backed by an open double-entry Beancount ledger covering FY2023 through Q1 2026.
Menu Engineering 101: Stars, Plowhorses, Puzzles, and Dogs
Menu engineering classifies every dish by two numbers — contribution margin (menu price minus food cost) and popularity (sales mix) — into four quadrants, Stars, Plowhorses, Puzzles, and Dogs, revealing that a high-volume 32% food-cost burger can generate far more total profit than a "leaner" 38% food-cost entree that rarely sells.
The Altman Z-Score: A Five-Ratio Early Warning System for Business Failure
The Altman Z-Score combines five financial ratios into one number that predicted bankruptcy with 72% accuracy two years out. This guide covers the original formula, the Z' and Z'' versions for private and non-manufacturing firms, a worked example, and how to screen your own company, customers, and suppliers.
Common-Size and Trend Analysis: Turning Financial Statements Into Percentages to Catch Margin Erosion
Common-size analysis restates every line of a financial statement as a percentage of revenue or total assets; trend analysis indexes the same lines across years. Together they expose cost creep, margin erosion, and balance sheet drift that raw dollars hide, and they make a $2M business meaningfully comparable to a $50M peer.
Operating Leverage and the Degree of Operating Leverage (DOL): Why a 10% Revenue Drop Can Eat 30% of Your Profit
Two businesses with identical revenue and operating income can react very differently to the same 10% sales decline. This guide explains the three DOL formulas, walks through a worked SaaS example, identifies which industries carry the highest operating leverage, and lays out a five-step stress test for your own cost structure.
DuPont Analysis Demystified: How to Decompose Return on Equity Into the Three Levers Owners Actually Control
A practical guide to DuPont Analysis — how to split return on equity into net margin, asset turnover, and the equity multiplier (3-step), or further into tax and interest burdens (5-step), with worked examples, trade-offs, and the pitfalls that catch people who apply it mechanically.
WACC for Small Businesses: Calculating Your Hurdle Rate with the Build-Up Method
WACC blends the after-tax cost of debt and the build-up-method cost of equity into one hurdle rate. A worked example yields 15.5% for an equity-heavy small business, the minimum return a project must clear to create value.
Building a Three-Statement Financial Model: Linking Income, Balance Sheet, and Cash Flow
A three-statement financial model links the income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement so one set of assumptions flows through all three — answering whether a business is profitable and when it runs out of cash. This guide covers the seven-step build order, the three links that make the model balance, and the errors that quietly break it.
Quality of Earnings Reports: How Sellers Defend EBITDA, Survive Buyer Due Diligence, and Avoid Last-Minute Price Cuts
A Quality of Earnings (QoE) report decides whether a buyer accepts your EBITDA or re-trades the deal price. This guide breaks down the 12 add-backs buyers accept, the 8 they reject, and how the working capital peg quietly cuts seller proceeds at closing.
Break-Even Analysis and Contribution Margin: The Formula Every Small Business Should Run Monthly
A working guide to break-even analysis covering the contribution margin formula, multi-product weighted approach, margin of safety thresholds, and four pricing scenarios — with a candle-maker example showing why a 10% price cut can erase 25% of unit profit.