The Microcap Minute Classroom. Module 10, chapter 6: Your one-page investing process: write yours by the end of this chapter <div class="learn" markdown="1"> **What you will learn** - How the five previous chapters fit together as one working system - The five boxes every one-page process needs - The correct order of sources: filings first, opinions last - Why "boring and written" beats "clever and in your head" </div> Think of the night before a big exam. Sensible students write a small plan: what to carry, when to leave home, which section to attempt first. Nobody writes that plan inside the exam hall, because by then the brain is busy and nervous. Investing needs the same thing: a plan made in calm, obeyed under pressure. In this chapter you will write yours, and it must fit on one side of one page. ## The five boxes Take everything from this module and lay it out in five boxes. **Box 1: My survival rules.** From chapter 1: the promise that I only invest money I can afford to lose. From chapter 2: the most I will ever put in one company, written as a percentage. Mine, for example, might say 5%. Yours is your choice, but write a number. **Box 2: My sources, in order.** Filings first: the company's own reports on EDGAR, free and straight from the source. Then data pages, to see the numbers gathered neatly. Opinions, videos and hot tips come last, if at all. The order is the whole point. **Box 3: My checklist.** The six questions from chapter 4, rewritten in your own words, with one rule stapled to them: a failed answer means no, however much I want a yes. **Box 4: My pre-mortem.** Before any purchase, I write the one-year failure story and check for early signs of it today. **Box 5: My bias watch.** From chapter 5: which of the four biases catches me most often, and what I will do when I feel it. A classic rule: when I feel the urgent itch to act, I wait 48 hours first. ## Watching the page work Let us run the page against Apple, just to see the machinery move. Where does the process start? Not with a tip and not with a video. It starts with Apple's own filings. Notice that every report Apple has filed sits here, newest first: the 10-K yearly reports, the quarterly ones, the sudden news filings. This page is your real starting line. Notice how filings get collected into readable reports here: this is step two, the numbers gathered neatly, never step one. Only after those two steps does your page even permit you to look at opinions. Notice how different that feels from how most people actually invest. ## The honest part A process does not promise profits. Anyone who sells you a system that promises profits is selling you a story. What a process promises is fewer silly mistakes, and in investing, avoiding silly mistakes is most of the game. Your page will feel boring. Boring is the point. Excitement is expensive. Keep the page to one side of one sheet. Revisit it every few months and improve it when you learn something. Version 1 written honestly beats version 10 that lives only in your head. <div class="try" markdown="1"> **Try it yourself** This chapter's exercise is the chapter itself. Take one blank sheet of paper and a pen. Draw the five boxes. Fill each one in your own words: your percentage, your source order, your six questions, your pre-mortem habit, your bias rule. Sign it, date it, and photograph it. That page is your investing process, version 1. You now own something most adult investors have never bothered to write. </div> <div class="takeaways" markdown="1"> **Key takeaways** - One page, five boxes: survival rules, sources in order, checklist, pre-mortem, bias watch. - Filings first, data second, opinions last. The order is the whole point. - Write the page before money is involved; revise it every few months. - A process promises fewer mistakes, not profits. Boring is the point. - If it does not fit on one page, shorten it until it does. </div> **Read one real thing:** [Apple's company page on EDGAR](https://www.sec.gov/edgar/browse/?CIK=320193&owner=exclude). Notice that every 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K Apple has ever filed is one click away, free, forever. That is where your process starts, every single time.. I am Ritu, a synthetic voice, and the words I am reading are Ayush Agrawal's.

# Your one-page investing process: write yours by the end of this chapter <div class="learn" markdown="1"> **What you will learn** - How the five previous chapters fit together as one working system - The five boxes every one-page process needs - The correct order of sources: filings first, opinions last - Why "boring and written" beats "clever and in your head" </div> Think of the night before a big exam. Sensible students write a small plan: what to carry, when to leave home, which section to attempt first. Nobody writes that plan inside the exam hall, because by then the brain is busy and nervous. Investing needs the same thing: a plan made in calm, obeyed under pressure. In this chapter you will write yours, and it must fit on one side of one page. ## The five boxes Take everything from this module and lay it out in five boxes. **Box 1: My survival rules.** From chapter 1: the promise that I only invest money I can afford to lose. From chapter 2: the most I will ever put in one company, written as a percentage. Mine, for example, might say 5%. Yours is your choice, but write a number. **Box 2: My sources, in order.** Filings first: the company's own reports on EDGAR, free and straight from the source. Then data pages, to see the numbers gathered neatly. Opinions, videos and hot tips come last, if at all. The order is the whole point. **Box 3: My checklist.** The six questions from chapter 4, rewritten in your own words, with one rule stapled to them: a failed answer means no, however much I want a yes. **Box 4: My pre-mortem.** Before any purchase, I write the one-year failure story and check for early signs of it today. **Box 5: My bias watch.** From chapter 5: which of the four biases catches me most often, and what I will do when I feel it. A classic rule: when I feel the urgent itch to act, I wait 48 hours first. ## Watching the page work Let us run the page against Apple, just to see the machinery move. Where does the process start? Not with a tip and not with a video. It starts with Apple's own filings. Notice that every report Apple has filed sits here, newest first: the 10-K yearly reports, the quarterly ones, the sudden news filings. This page is your real starting line. Notice how filings get collected into readable reports here: this is step two, the numbers gathered neatly, never step one. Only after those two steps does your page even permit you to look at opinions. Notice how different that feels from how most people actually invest. ## The honest part A process does not promise profits. Anyone who sells you a system that promises profits is selling you a story. What a process promises is fewer silly mistakes, and in investing, avoiding silly mistakes is most of the game. Your page will feel boring. Boring is the point. Excitement is expensive. Keep the page to one side of one sheet. Revisit it every few months and improve it when you learn something. Version 1 written honestly beats version 10 that lives only in your head. <div class="try" markdown="1"> **Try it yourself** This chapter's exercise is the chapter itself. Take one blank sheet of paper and a pen. Draw the five boxes. Fill each one in your own words: your percentage, your source order, your six questions, your pre-mortem habit, your bias rule. Sign it, date it, and photograph it. That page is your investing process, version 1. You now own something most adult investors have never bothered to write. </div> <div class="takeaways" markdown="1"> **Key takeaways** - One page, five boxes: survival rules, sources in order, checklist, pre-mortem, bias watch. - Filings first, data second, opinions last. The order is the whole point. - Write the page before money is involved; revise it every few months. - A process promises fewer mistakes, not profits. Boring is the point. - If it does not fit on one page, shorten it until it does. </div> **Read one real thing:** [Apple's company page on EDGAR](https://www.sec.gov/edgar/browse/?CIK=320193&owner=exclude). Notice that every 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K Apple has ever filed is one click away, free, forever. That is where your process starts, every single time.

That was chapter 6 of module 10. The text, the pictures and the exercise are on the lesson page. Thank you for listening.