Stock metrics
Every metric the QScore consumes has a story. These posts go beyond the glossary definition into how each metric is actually computed, when it's most useful, and the common pitfalls when reading it.
- P/E ratio explained: how to read price-to-earnings (with real ticker examples)Every stock-screener tool ranks P/E. Most readers see the number without knowing exactly what's in the numerator and denominator — or why a low P/E isn't always cheap. Here's the plain-English breakdown.
- RSI explained: how to read the Relative Strength Index (and where it fails)RSI is the workhorse momentum oscillator — overbought above 70, oversold below 30. The reality is more nuanced: extreme readings can persist for weeks, and the indicator fails most spectacularly at regime turns.
- Beta explained: what it measures, how it's computed, and why it can misleadBeta has been finance education's go-to risk metric for sixty years. The textbook story is clean — and the empirical story is much messier. Here's what beta actually measures, where it works, and why high-beta stocks haven't paid off the way CAPM predicted.
- Sharpe ratio explained: the most-cited measure of risk-adjusted returnEvery quant strategy you'll ever read about reports its Sharpe ratio. The metric itself is decades old and well-defined; reading it well takes more nuance than 'higher is better.'