Week 4: Fundamental Analysis—Putting it All Together
A clear system to help you decide what's worth investing in: Designed for beginners.
Hey there,
Welcome to the final week of the 4-Week Wealth Builder Challenge: Fundamental Analysis Edition.
Over the past three weeks, you answered 3 questions every great investor asks:
These are filters that help you identify great stocks, instead of guessing and hoping everything works out.
Today, you’ll put all of them together, and by the end of this article, you’ll know exactly how to spot a great stock before you look at its stock chart.
Let’s practice with a company you already know and love: Google (Alphabet)!
1️⃣ Is the Business Worth Owning?
In Week 1, I asked you to answer three questions about a company you’re considering investing in:
What does this business sell?
Who do they sell it to?
Can they still sell it hand-over-fist 10 years from now?
In Google’s case, here’s how I would answer them:
What Google sells: Google sells attention (data).
Who they sell it to: They sell it to businesses and consumers:
Businesses: Google shows nearly 100 billion advertisements every day to users across Search, YouTube, Gmail, Drive, Maps, and Android. Businesses pay to reach those people.
Consumers: Consumers pay for premium data and services across YouTube Premium, YouTube Music Premium, Google One, and Google Workspace.
The 10-year test: It’s hard to imagine a future where Google is less relevant than it is today. Ten years from now, the digital ad business is expected to grow from $600 billion to $1.4 trillion.
These questions help you understand whether the business itself is strong or weak.
That’s the first filter.
2️⃣ Is the Company Financially Healthy?
At the beginning of your investing journey, don’t complicate the numbers. Focus on the direction of 3 simple ones:
Revenue (should be growing)
Profit (should be growing)
Debt (should be reasonable)
Here’s what that looks like for Google:
Revenue growth: Google’s revenue nearly doubled in 5 years.
Profit growth: Profit increased by almost 2.5x in the same period.
Debt management: While revenue and profit increased, debt remained stable and manageable between 2020 and 2024. Actually, it was only 15% of their total profit in 2024.
💡 Pro tip: At this stage, you don’t need the numbers to be “perfect.” Your job is to make sure they’re moving in the right direction. More detailed analysis comes later.
That’s the second filter.
3️⃣ Is This Business Protected from Competition?
What protects Google from being overthrown by competitors?
Several things:
Branding: Google is synonymous with online search. People don’t “search for something on the internet.” They Google it.
Data Advantage: Outside of social media, Google dominates almost every category of online information—Search, YouTube, Maps, Gmail, Android, and Chrome.
Size and Scale: The company has billions of users, which attracts billions of advertisers willing to pay top dollar for exposure. The system reinforces itself.
Switching Costs: Leaving Google means giving up reach, performance, and data. That’s something very few businesses are willing (or can afford) to do.
These are defenses that make it difficult for new companies to compete.
That’s the third filter.
Why This Changes The Way You Invest
Notice what you didn’t do:
Open a stock chart
Ask about its current price
Try to time an entry
Worry about valuations
Most people start with price and hope the business works out. You did the opposite. You made sure the business actually deserves your attention first.
That’s the difference between intentional investing and doing what everyone else does.
Let’s run the same analysis on a different company with very different numbers:
A Final Thought
Most people learn how to buy stocks. Very few learn how to choose them.
The fundamental analysis you learned over the last 4 weeks will help you choose better stocks for the rest of your life.
Until next week,
✍️ Isaiah from Earn Out Loud
P.S. If you want the exclusive content I send to PRO subscribers in 2026, join us by upgrading here: https://earnoutloud.substack.com/subscribe