How to Evaluate a Stock or Fund Yourself, Step by Step

What you need

The snapshot template is optional here. This prompt works on a single holding and does not read it. Fill in these lines:

• Holding: [ticker or fund name]
• Current price and currency: [e.g. 96.00 CHF]
• Earnings per share, last 12 months: [amount, or "unknown"]
• Expected yearly earnings growth: [% and where you found it, or "unknown"]

Earnings per share, often shown as EPS, is the company's yearly profit divided by the number of its shares. Finance sites and annual reports list it. The growth figure is usually an average of analysts' estimates for the next few years. It is a forecast made by other people, so note where it came from; the prompt tells the model to treat it as a guess.

For an ETF or fund, put the fund's P/E in the earnings line if the provider's factsheet publishes one, and the model will explain what an average P/E across hundreds of companies means. If you only know the name and price, write "unknown" in the other two lines. The model then teaches the method and asks for numbers when it needs them.

Here is my financial snapshot. Use only these numbers.

Currency: [e.g. EUR]
Date: [today's date]
Age: [optional]

ASSETS
[name] — [category: cash / stocks / ETFs / crypto / property / metals / other] — [value]
[name] — [category] — [value]
...

LIABILITIES
[name] — [type: mortgage / car loan / credit card / student loan / other] — [outstanding balance] — [interest rate if known]
...

CONTEXT (optional but improves the answer)
Monthly income after tax: [amount]
Monthly spending: [amount]
Amount I add to savings or investments each month: [amount]
Value of the same assets 12 months ago: [amount]

The prompt

Copy this exact text and paste it into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini directly beneath your snapshot block.

You are a patient tutor teaching a beginner to evaluate a stock or fund.

Holding: [ticker or fund name]
Current price and currency: [price]
Earnings per share, last 12 months: [amount, or "unknown"]
Expected yearly earnings growth: [% and source, or "unknown"]

1. Explain why doing your own analysis matters and what risks investing in a
   single holding carries.
2. Define the P/E ratio, PEG ratio, earnings yield and dividend yield in one
   or two sentences each, and say what each one cannot show.
3. Walk me through five steps using this holding: the business, its financial
   health, valuation with my figures, growth, and risks.
4. Show each valuation calculation with my numbers and explain what range is
   common for this kind of company or fund.
5. End with a checklist of questions I can use on the next holding, including
   questions about my own time horizon and how much loss I could bear.

If you cannot browse, say that you have no live prices. If a figure is missing,
ask me for it instead of estimating. Treat forecasts as other people's guesses.
No buy, sell or hold opinion and no other holdings to consider.

What good output looks like

The answer should begin with why checking a holding yourself matters and what can go wrong with a single company: it can shrink, cut its dividend or fail. Each measure is defined in plain words before it is used.

The valuation step shows the arithmetic with your figures. Say you entered an invented share at CHF 96.00 with earnings per share of CHF 4.00 and expected growth of 12% a year. The model should calculate a P/E of 96 ÷ 4 = 24, meaning you pay 24 francs for each franc of yearly profit, and an earnings yield of 4 ÷ 96 = 4.2%. Dividing the P/E by the growth rate gives a PEG of 24 ÷ 12 = 2.0. It should explain that a PEG near 1 is often read as a price in line with expected growth, and that the figure rests entirely on a forecast someone else made.

For a fund quoted in euros, a factsheet P/E of 18 is an average across its companies, and a good answer warns that it can hide a few very expensive ones.

After the five steps, the closing checklist should be reusable: what the business sells, whether profit turns into cash, what the price assumes, what could go wrong, how long you plan to hold, and how large a fall you could sit through.

What this can't tell you

This is a lesson in method. Five steps and four ratios leave out most of what professional analysts read: competitors, contracts, management and the notes to the accounts. Chat models without browsing do not know today's price or the latest earnings, so the ratios are as fresh as your figures, and growth forecasts often miss. P/E means little for a company with very low or negative earnings, and the model should say so if yours is one.

The model knows nothing about your income, other holdings or tax position, and it cannot tell you how gains or dividends are taxed in your country. Check each division yourself, since models drop decimals. The decision about whether the holding suits you stays yours.

Doing this without the retyping

Using the site, you look up a price, earnings per share and a growth estimate each time you want to practice. In Sumio, "Investment Analysis" is one of the 62 prompts in the AI assistant, a Premium feature, and it runs on a stock or fund you already track there, using the holding's details and price history from the app. Your records are stored on your device; running the analysis sends the figures it needs to an AI provider.