Playbooks

The rest of this site explains what instruments are and why they work. These pages do something different: they walk through the documents and screens you actually face, line by line, in the order that works — what to read first, what to ignore, and what is missing on purpose. Education only, as everywhere here — see the disclaimer.

The badges say how much a page assumes: Easy everyday words, nothing to look up · Medium one idea you may need to look up first · Hard written for people who work in the market.

The library

• How to Read a Fund FactsheetEasytwo pages, forty numbers, six that decide the outcome. Identifiers, the cost floor, concentration, tracking difference, and why performance comes last.
• How to Read a Structured Product Term SheetHardthe one method that works on every structure: find the option you sold, price it independently, and read the scenario the brochure does not chart.
• How to Read an Option ChainMediumwhich of the columns carry information, how to spot a stale quote, what open interest really says, and how to read the skew straight off the screen.
• How to Read a Contract NoteEasythe slip that arrives after a trade, and the only document that says what you actually paid rather than what the screen said. Two dates, five cost lines, and the two lines that decide whether you own the thing or a claim on somebody who does.
• How to Read a Futures Contract SpecMediumone free page on an exchange website decides your exposure, when you can no longer change your mind, and whether a lorry arrives. Five fields, and where each has surprised somebody.
• How to Read a Corporate Action NoticeMediumthe one piece of post where doing nothing is itself a decision. Three kinds of event, four dates, and the default in the small print that applies if you do not reply.
• How to Read a Bond QuoteMediumclean versus dirty price, which of the four yields is shown, day-count conventions that silently change the answer, and comparing two bonds honestly.
• How to Read a Key Information DocumentEasythree regulated pages, one of which is a fact and two of which are models. What the 1–7 risk indicator does and does not measure.
• How to Read Financial StatementsMediumwhy to start with cash flow, what ties the three statements together, and the reconciliations that reveal the most.
• How to Think About an AllocationEasynot what to hold, but how to reason about a mix: what each sleeve is for, why risk shares differ from capital shares, and a five-sleeve calculator with the correlation input that decides everything.
• How to Size a PositionEasythe inversion that fixes most of it: start from the loss you can accept and derive the size, never the reverse.
• How to Read an Annual ReportMediumthree hundred pages of which twelve decide everything. Cash flow first, notes second, narrative last, and the four notes worth reading before anything else.
• How to Read a Credit RatingMediuman ordinal opinion about one narrow question. Issuer versus issue, what notching reveals, and what a rating deliberately excludes.
• How to Read a Central Bank StatementMediumthe decision is already priced. Read the diff, the vote split and what the press conference declined to repeat.
• How to Read a Broker StatementEasyfour sections, of which most people read one. Where withholding tax, FX conversion and cash interest actually appear.
• How to Run a Portfolio ReviewEasya structured pass in an order designed so the boring findings surface first, because that is where the money is.

The documents nobody chose to receive

Everything above is a document somebody went looking for. These arrive whether or not you asked, and they are contracts rather than descriptions — which is why the sentence that decides the outcome is rarely the one in bold.

• How to Read an Insurance Policy ScheduleEasythe insuring clause, the basis the sum insured is measured on, sub-limits, averaging, and the conditions that can undo a claim entirely.
• How to Read a Pension StatementEasywhich of the two machines you are in, what the projection assumed, where the charges are, and why a pot and the income it buys do not move together.
• How to Read a Mortgage OfferEasythe end date matters more than the rate. The reversion, every fee, the early repayment charge and the conditions that still have to be met.
• How to Read a Payment ConfirmationMediuma message was sent, which is not money arriving. Three dates, the reference that has to survive the chain, and why the amount received is smaller.
• How to Read a Bank’s Capital DisclosureHardfour ratios answering two different failures, and why the risk weights rather than the capital do most of the work.

What these have in common

• Read in the order that works, not the order printed. Every document on this list puts its marketing first and its most decisive number in the middle.
• One number usually dominates. The dividend treatment on a certificate, the maturity schedule on a balance sheet, the bid-ask on an illiquid option — find it and most of the analysis is done.
• What is absent is information. A factsheet that omits turnover, a term sheet that does not chart the flat market, a KID that cannot tell you what the alternative pays — the gaps are consistent and they are not accidents.
• Recompute rather than accept. Every playbook links to the calculator that settles its central question in under a minute.

Once the documents are readable, the comparisons put two products side by side, and the learning paths put everything in a teachable order.