Glossary

What the words on Thaler mean.

92 terms

Product

Thaler: This research product: company figures from SEC filings, with a page for each covered company.
Certificate of coverage: The summary of what Thaler has on file: how many facts, filings, securities, and figures, and when they were last updated.
Source trail: The path from any figure back to its origin: the filing it came from, the form type, the accession number, and the raw value as reported.
Data checks: The tests run on each data update, such as every security having a profile and every source trail resolving. The full list, with the latest results, is on the Provenance page.
Coverage: What Thaler has on file: which companies are covered, and, for each metric, how many companies report it.
Facts on file: Every raw fact read from SEC filings, before any selection or computation. The headline count on the Certificate of coverage.
Current figures: The latest value of each metric for each company. This is the set a company page shows at the top.

Filings and the SEC

SEC EDGAR: The SEC’s public filing system: Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval. Thaler’s reported figures come from filings on EDGAR.
CIK: Central Index Key, the SEC’s permanent identifier for a filer. It stays the same when tickers or company names change.
Accession number: The unique identifier EDGAR assigns every filing, such as 0000320193-25-000123. A source trail ends at one.
Form 10-K: A company’s annual report to the SEC, with audited financial statements for the fiscal year.
Form 10-Q: A quarterly report, with unaudited financial statements for the quarter.
Form 8-K: A current report, filed when something material happens between the regular reports.
XBRL: The machine-readable tagging embedded in filings. It is what lets figures be read as data instead of prose.
us-gaap: The standard XBRL taxonomy for U.S. accounting concepts. Raw facts arrive tagged with us-gaap concept names, which Thaler maps to its metrics.
Fiscal period: A company’s own reporting calendar. FY25 means fiscal year 2025, and Q1 2026 is its first fiscal quarter, which may not line up with the calendar year.

Figures

Income statement: A company’s revenue, expenses, and profit or loss over a fiscal period.
Balance sheet: A company’s assets, liabilities, and stockholders’ equity at a reporting date.
Cash flow statement: Cash received and spent over a fiscal period, grouped into operating, investing, and financing activities.
Fiscal year: A company’s annual reporting period. It may end in a different month from the calendar year.
Trailing twelve months: A flow over the twelve months to the latest quarter a company reported: the year to date, plus the fiscal year before it, less that year’s same year to date. Also called TTM. Against today’s price it is fresher than the last fiscal year.
Prior year: The fiscal year before the one shown. Prior-year figures give the comparison for annual growth.
Reported figure: A value taken from a filing exactly as the company filed it.
Derived figure: A value Thaler computes from reported figures. It is always marked derived and lists its inputs. Free cash flow is one: operating cash flow minus capital expenditures.
Derived quarter: A quarter the company never filed on its own, computed from the longer spans it did file: the first half less Q1, the nine months less the first half, the year less the nine months. Each span comes from its 10-Q or 10-K. Per-share figures are never derived.
YoY: Year over year: how a figure compares with the same fiscal period one year earlier.
Filing lag: How many days a company usually takes to file after a period ends. Thaler measures it per form from past filings.
Projected window: The span of dates the next report is likely to land in, computed from the company’s own past filing lag. Projected windows are always drawn dashed.

Income statement

Revenue: Income from selling goods or services, before expenses are deducted. Returns and allowances are deducted where reported.
Net interest income: Interest a bank earned less interest it paid, before provision for credit losses. With noninterest income it makes up a bank’s revenue.
Noninterest income: What a bank earns other than interest: fees, service charges, trading and other income. With net interest income it makes up a bank’s revenue.
Cost of revenue: The direct cost of the goods or services a company sold during the period.
Gross profit: Revenue less cost of revenue. Thaler uses the figure reported in the filing.
Operating expenses: Costs a company reports as operating expenses, such as research, sales, and administration. The items included depend on the company’s presentation.
Operating income: Profit or loss from a company’s operations, before income taxes and items outside those operations.
Interest expense: The cost of borrowing recognized during the period.
Pretax income: Profit or loss from continuing operations before income taxes.
Income tax expense: Income taxes recognized against earnings for the period. A tax benefit reduces the expense.
Net income: Profit or loss after expenses and income taxes.
EPS, basic: Earnings per share: income available to common shareholders divided by the weighted average number of common shares outstanding.
EPS, diluted: Earnings per share after allowing for additional shares from options, convertible securities, and other awards that would reduce earnings per share.
Weighted average shares, basic: The average number of common shares outstanding during the period, weighted by how long they were outstanding. Used to calculate basic EPS.
Weighted average shares, diluted: The share count used to calculate diluted EPS. It includes additional shares from securities and awards that would reduce earnings per share.
Share-based compensation: Compensation expense for shares, options, and other awards tied to the company’s stock. Also called SBC.

Balance sheet

Total assets: Resources a company owns or controls, at the values recorded on its balance sheet.
Current assets: Cash and other assets expected to be collected, sold, or used within a year or the normal operating cycle, whichever is longer.
Cash and equivalents: Cash and short-term investments readily convertible to known amounts of cash. Some reported figures also include restricted cash.
Accounts receivable: Amounts customers owe for goods or services already provided, after allowances for amounts the company does not expect to collect.
Property, plant, and equipment, net: The recorded value of physical assets used in the business, after accumulated depreciation and impairments.
Total liabilities: Obligations recorded on a company’s balance sheet, including borrowings, unpaid bills, and other amounts owed.
Current liabilities: Obligations due within a year or the normal operating cycle, whichever is longer.
Accounts payable: Amounts a company owes suppliers for goods or services already received.
Stockholders’ equity: The shareholders’ recorded interest in a company: assets less liabilities.
Retained earnings: Accumulated earnings kept in the company after dividends and other adjustments. An accumulated loss is reported as a deficit.
Additional paid-in capital: Capital recorded above the shares’ stated value, including amounts from share issuance and share-based compensation.
Liabilities and equity: Total liabilities plus stockholders’ equity. This equals total assets on the balance sheet.

Cash flow

Operating cash flow: Net cash received or spent through the company’s operating activities during the period.
Capital expenditures: Cash spent to acquire property, plant, equipment, and similar assets used in the business. Also called capex.
Free cash flow: Operating cash flow less capital expenditures. Thaler computes it from the cash flow statement and lists both inputs. Also called FCF.
Investing cash flow: Net cash received or spent on investments, acquisitions, and assets used in the business.
Financing cash flow: Net cash received or spent through borrowing, debt repayments, share issuance, dividends, and share repurchases.
Dividends paid: Cash paid to shareholders as dividends during the period.
Share repurchases: Cash spent buying back the company’s own shares.
Dividends per share: Cash dividends declared or paid per common share, as reported for the period.
Capital returns: Cash returned to shareholders in a fiscal year: dividends paid plus share repurchases, both as filed in the cash flow statement.
Depreciation and amortization: Expenses that spread the cost of assets over their useful lives. The reported figure may also include depletion of natural resources.
Cash change: The increase or decrease in cash and equivalents over the period, including restricted cash where reported.

Shares and prices

Shares outstanding: Common shares held by shareholders at a stated date. Shares held by the company as treasury stock are excluded.
Public float: The reported market value of common shares held by non-affiliates, outside the company’s controlling interests. Thaler takes it from the 10-K cover page.
Price: The price per share shown for a security, with its source and date.
Market cap: The market value of a company’s outstanding common shares. Thaler computes it from the latest price and reported share count, allowing for stock splits between their dates.

Ratios and growth

Gross margin: Gross profit as a share of revenue for the same fiscal period.
Operating margin: Operating income as a share of revenue for the same fiscal period.
Net margin: Net income as a share of revenue for the same fiscal period.
FCF margin: Free cash flow as a share of revenue for the same fiscal period.
Return on equity: Annual net income as a share of average stockholders’ equity. Thaler averages the balances at the beginning and end of the fiscal year.
Return on assets: Annual net income as a share of average total assets. Thaler averages the balances at the beginning and end of the fiscal year.
Current ratio: Current assets divided by current liabilities. A ratio of 2 means the company reports twice as much in current assets as current liabilities.
Cash ratio: Cash and equivalents divided by current liabilities.
Liabilities to equity: Total liabilities divided by stockholders’ equity. It includes all reported liabilities, including amounts other than borrowings.
Revenue growth: The percentage change in annual revenue from the prior fiscal year.
Net income growth: The percentage change in annual net income from the prior fiscal year.
Capex intensity: Capital expenditures as a share of revenue for the same fiscal period.
SBC intensity: Share-based compensation as a share of revenue for the same fiscal period.
Payout ratio: Dividends paid as a share of net income for the same fiscal year.
Capital returns to free cash flow: Dividends paid plus share repurchases, as a share of free cash flow for the same fiscal year.
Share count change: The percentage change in common shares outstanding from a year earlier.
Price to earnings: Market cap divided by net income. Also called P/E. The Screener carries it on the fiscal year and, as P/E trailing, on the twelve months to the latest quarter.
Price to sales: Market cap divided by annual revenue. Also called P/S.
Price to book: Market cap divided by stockholders’ equity. Also called P/B.
Free cash flow yield: Annual free cash flow as a share of market cap.
Dividend yield: Annual dividends paid as a share of market cap. Thaler uses reported payments for the fiscal year.