Guides: one report, one route
Longer walks through real Indian annual reports and filings. Each one tells you where to look, what to skip, and which words to read up on next.
- How to read an AGM notice: what you're actually voting on:An AGM notice looks like legal wallpaper. It's really a ballot paper. Here is one notice, taken apart one question at a time. 9 min
- Applying for your first IPO: from bid to listing day, day by day:An IPO application takes five minutes. What follows takes a week, on a clock SEBI sets to the hour. Riya's mum bid in Sameer Chai's ₹40 IPO, and this is how her week ran. 9 min
- Bonus, split, buyback or rights: what's happening to my shares?:Four corporate actions, one confusing headline. Answer three yes-or-no questions and you'll know which one landed in your inbox, and what it does to a holding of 200 shares. 8 min
- How to check related party transactions in an annual report:Every related party deal is supposed to be disclosed. Disclosed isn't the same as easy to find. We hunt for one real-sized deal, Sameer's sister's dairy, the way an outsider would. 9 min
- Dividend or buyback: two ways a company hands back cash:Sameer Chai has ₹15 crore it could hand back. It can post it to every shareholder as a dividend, or buy back shares from those who want to sell. Same money, two very different results. 8 min
- Does CSR apply to your company? Working out the 2% step by step:CSR is three yes-or-no questions, one average and one percentage. Get the order right and the answer falls out. Get it wrong and the law has a penalty table waiting. 8 min
- Finding your way around the notes to accounts: a beginner's map:The notes are the longest part of any set of accounts, and nobody reads them in order. You search them. Here is a map of the ten worth knowing, with the word that finds each one in seconds. 8 min
- Five ratios to compare two companies side by side, explained:One company's ratio means little alone. Put it next to a rival's and the five numbers start telling one story. Riya lines up Sameer Chai against an older chain, row by row. 8 min
- How a company raises money: IPO, QIP, rights issue or a loan:A company that needs money can sell shares to the public, to institutions or to its own shareholders, or it can borrow. Each route has a different price, and the price isn't always in rupees. 9 min
- How to read a DRHP without drowning: a section-by-section guide:A DRHP can run to hundreds of pages, but SEBI fixes what goes in it. Know the six sections that matter, and the one question to ask each, and the brick becomes a book. 10 min
- How to read an annual report in 30 minutes:You don't read an annual report cover to cover. You follow a route: eight stops, about four minutes each, and you know more than most people at the AGM. 30 min
- How to read quarterly results on results day, column by column:Results day brings one short filing, out within half an hour of the board meeting. Read it top to bottom with six questions, and watch for the five traps that fool people. 9 min
- Is this company borrowing too much? A five-check debt test:One number never tells you whether a company owes too much. Five checks, each from a different page of the annual report, usually do. We run them on Sameer Chai and say what would change the answer. 8 min
- Profit vs cash: when the two numbers disagree:Sameer Chai made ₹9 crore of profit last year, its business brought in ₹14 crore of cash, and its bank balance fell by ₹8 crore. All three are true. Here's the arithmetic that joins them. 8 min
- Which part of the business makes the money? Reading segment results:Two businesses, four numbers, and a question every investor asks: which part pays the bills? We work it out on Sameer Chai's segment table, sum by sum, then ask what an analyst would ask next. 7 min
- Reading the auditor's report: clean, qualified, adverse or disclaimer:The auditor's report runs to ten pages or more, and the first ten lines matter most. Here is one report, read in the order it's printed, with one question for each part. 9 min
- From chai stall to listed company: Sameer Chai's journey in 10 filings:A chai stall files nothing. A listed company files something almost every month. These ten documents mark the road between the two, and each one is written for a different reader. 9 min
- Standalone or consolidated: which numbers should you quote?:Sameer Chai made ₹9 crore last year. It also made ₹9.5 crore. Both are true. Which one you quote depends on the job, and one question at the top of a short tree sorts it out. 7 min
- The cheap-stock trap: what P/E, EPS and book value don't tell you:A share can look cheap in four different ways, and each one has a way of fooling you. We test all four on Sameer Chai and on a struggling rival, and find out what "cheap" was hiding. 7 min
- What actually happens at a board meeting, from notice to minutes:Most people only see a board meeting's last 30 seconds: a filing on the stock exchange website. Here is the whole of one, Sameer Chai's FY26 results meeting, from the notice a week before to the minutes a month after. 8 min
- Who owns this company? How to read a shareholding pattern:Every quarter, each listed company tells the exchanges who owns it. The table looks dull. Run five checks on it and it tells you who's in charge, who's nervous and who's arriving. 8 min
- How a dividend reaches your bank: the timeline, step by step:Between a board saying "dividend" and ₹100 landing in a savings account sit 105 days, five dates and one tax rule. We follow a single dividend the whole way. 8 min