Write an Investment Memo on a Real Company
Maps to: Investment Banker · Equity Research, Management Consultant, Strategy, Founder, Venture Capital
You're going to pick a real public company, read its latest 10-K, and write a buy, hold, or sell memo with a bull case, a bear case, and a recommendation you can defend. The skill is the analytical judgment under finance: reading a company closely enough to form a view, then holding it up against the strongest argument that you're wrong. That underlies equity research, strategy, and finance broadly, and doing one tells you fast whether forming and defending a call is your kind of work.
The plan
0/4 doneYou're 20% in just for starting, the hardest part. Mark your first step done to keep the momentum.
Pick a real public company you use or have an opinion about, and download its latest 10-K from SEC EDGAR (free). Start with a company you care about, since you'll read 200 pages more carefully.
Objective: A chosen company + its latest 10-K downloaded.
- 1
Pick your angle: a company you use / one you're skeptical of / a recent IPO / a turnaround story.
- 2
Download the latest 10-K from SEC EDGAR.
Tool: SEC EDGAR
Your call
Choose the company and your starting hunch (buy / sell / unsure), yourself.
The company + your starting hunch.
What good looks like: You've picked a company you actually have a hunch about and downloaded its latest 10-K, so you'll read 200 pages with a real question in mind.
- Pick a company you have a hunch about. A starting view makes the analysis sharper.
- 1
The bar to look back against
A published 1,500 to 2,000 word memo with a defensible buy/hold/sell recommendation, where every AI claim was checked against the 10-K and your call survives the bear case. The call is the work: not 'I summarized a company,' but 'I made a call and can defend it against the strongest argument I'm wrong.'
Finish the final step, then submit what you built. Your progress is saved.
Tools you'll use
Step 1 · Pick a company + get the 10-K
Step 2 · AI summarizes the 10-K + you verify every claim
Step 3 · Pull historical financials + spot trends
Steps 4–6 · Write the memo: make the call + defend it against the bear case
How this shows up on a resume or college app
I wrote a buy/hold/sell memo on [company] after reading their 10-K, verifying every claim against the source and defending my call against the bear case. I learned that the gap between reading a 10-K and understanding it is wider than expected, and that AI doesn't close it for you.