Research from the Street

Ray Dalio's animated 31-minute explainer of how credit, productivity and the short- and long-term debt cycles drive the economy. It is the quickest way to absorb the framework behind Bridgewater's macro investing.

Oaktree co-chairman Howard Marks's client memos since 1990 on risk, cycles, credit and investor psychology. They are the plainest-spoken education in market judgment you can get for free.

Warren Buffett's annual letters to Berkshire shareholders from 1977 to 2024, free on Berkshire's own plain website. They are the best course on capital allocation, insurance float and owner-minded investing ever written.

Henry McVey's annual and mid-year outlooks are the best-known macro writing from a private equity firm: forecasts, asset allocation calls and specific private market themes, all argued at length with data.

Torsten Slok's daily one-chart note is the fastest way to see what a top Wall Street economist is watching: rates, AI capex, credit, housing, energy and private markets, each with a bottom line.

J.P. Morgan Asset Management's quarterly chartbook of about 70 slides on equities, the economy, rates, credit, global markets and alternatives. It is the fastest way to get the current market picture onto one desk.

The annual letter from the chairman and CEO of America's largest bank, covering the firm's results, risk management, regulation and the state of the economy. It is the closest thing banking has to the Berkshire letters.

Michael Cembalest's long-running research note for J.P. Morgan's wealth clients, covering markets, economics, energy, politics and technology with dense charts and dry wit. It is freely posted, and so widely read well beyond the private bank.

Michael Mauboussin and Dan Callahan's research papers on valuation, competitive strategy, capital allocation and decision-making. These are free, footnoted primers that many analysts treat as a corporate-finance curriculum.

The industry's standard annual scorecard for buyouts: deal value, exits, fundraising, distributions and returns, plus essays on where the industry is heading. If you read one PE report a year, read this one.

The IMF's chapter on private credit is the most rigorous neutral assessment of the asset class: how it works, who borrows and lends, and where the risks sit, from fragile borrowers to stale valuations.

The St. Louis Fed's free database of US and international economic and market time series, with charting, downloads, an Excel add-in and an API. The fastest way to pull rates, spreads, inflation, employment or credit data.

Free access to every public company filing in the US (10-Ks, 10-Qs, 8-Ks, proxies, 13Fs, S-1s), plus the SEC's plain-English guides to reading a 10-K and to financial statements. Primary sources come before anyone's summary of them.

Free industry-level data on costs of capital, margins, multiples, reinvestment and payouts, plus Damodaran's country risk premiums and monthly implied equity risk premium. The standard free source for discount-rate and comparables inputs.

Short-format video versions of Damodaran's NYU MBA classes in valuation and corporate finance, with slides and post-class tests. The best free valuation course available, and it starts from first principles.

The original free source for Fama-French factor returns and portfolios sorted on size, value, profitability, investment and momentum, for the US and international markets. Every factor study starts here.