Fundamental analysis

Fundamental analysis, in accounting and finance, is the analysis of a business's financial statements (usually to analyze the business's assets, liabilities, and earnings); health; and its competitors and markets. When applied to futures and forex, it focuses on the overall state of the economy, and considers factors including interest rates, production, earnings, employment, GDP, housing, manufacturing and management. When analyzing a stock, futures contract, or currency using fundamental analysis there are two basic approaches one can use: bottom up analysis and top down analysis. The terms are used to distinguish such analysis from other types of investment analysis, such as quantitative and technical.

Fundamental analysis is performed on historical and present data, but with the goal of making financial forecasts. There are several possible objectives:

When the objective of the analysis is to determine what stock to buy and at what price, there are two basic methodologies investors rely upon:

Investors can use one or both of these different but complementary methods for stock picking. For example, many fundamental investors use technicals for deciding entry and exit points. Similarly, many technical investors use fundamentals to limit their universe of possible stock to 'good' companies.

The choice of stock analysis is determined by the investor's belief in the different paradigms for "how the stock market works". See the discussions at efficient-market hypothesis, random walk hypothesis, capital asset pricing model, Fed model Theory of Equity Valuation, market-based valuation, and behavioral finance for explanations of these paradigms.

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