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CFO Body Language: Reading Earnings Calls Using Human Lie Detection Techniques

Every quarter, the same ritual unfolds. A conference line opens. The legal disclaimer drones on. An executive clears their throat like it’s part of the script. And then the CFO speaks. Not to you , exactly — but to analysts, institutions, algorithms, and anyone else pretending this call isn’t already priced in. The words are careful. The tone is measured. The numbers are precise. And yet. If you’ve listened to enough earnings calls, you know the truth hiding in plain sight: The most important information is rarely in the numbers. It’s in the pauses. The speed. The breathing. The deflections. The sudden overconfidence where calm used to live. Because CFOs may manage numbers for a living — but they still have human bodies. And bodies leak information. Why Earnings Calls Are Perfect for Behavioral Analysis Earnings calls are a behavioral goldmine for one reason: They combine high stakes with strict communication constraints . CFOs are: Under legal pressure Under ...
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Upcoming High-Dividend Stocks: Where Income Investors Should Be Looking Next

Dividend investing used to be boring in the best possible way. You bought a company that made money, paid shareholders regularly, and didn’t do anything flashy enough to end up on the evening news. Then markets changed, interest rates whiplashed, growth stocks sucked all the oxygen out of the room, and suddenly dividends were declared “dead” about fifteen times a year. Yet here we are again. Inflation cooled, rate expectations shifted, volatility returned, and investors rediscovered an old truth: cash flow still matters. Especially when markets feel allergic to certainty. The next wave of high-dividend opportunities isn’t about chasing the highest yield you can find on a screen. It’s about understanding why certain companies can pay big dividends now—and whether they’ll still be paying them a few years from now. This post walks through the landscape shaping upcoming high-dividend stocks, the sectors to watch, the warning signs to respect, and the names that income investors are qu...

The Midwest Momentum Strategy: Why Stocks Go Up Every Time Ohio Feels Slightly Optimistic

Wall Street likes to pretend markets move because of spreadsheets, bond yields, and mysterious forces with Greek letters. But anyone who’s lived long enough—and paid attention long enough—knows this explanation is incomplete. Markets don’t just move on data. They move on vibes . And nowhere on Earth do vibes matter more than the American Midwest—specifically Ohio, the emotional weather vane of the U.S. economy. Welcome to the Midwest Momentum Strategy, an unofficial, unbacktested, emotionally accurate framework that explains why stocks tend to rally every time Ohio collectively shrugs and says, “Eh… things might be okay.” This is not a joke strategy. It’s a cultural signal disguised as one. Ohio Is Not a State. It’s a Sentiment Index. Ohio doesn’t lead trends. Ohio confirms them. By the time optimism reaches Ohio, it has already survived: Coastal overthinking Twitter panic Cable-news hysteria Think-tank pessimism Ohio doesn’t speculate. Ohio waits. When opti...

Kroger, Costco, and Cash Flow Karma: Supermarket Stocks as a Path to Enlightenment

Here’s a strange truth hiding in plain sight: some of the most spiritually revealing places in modern America are not monasteries, mountaintops, or meditation retreats. They are supermarkets. Fluorescent-lit, air-conditioned temples of impulse control. Aisles of abundance. Pallets of processed temptation. Endcaps whispering sweet nothings about “limited time only.” And yet, for the patient observer—and the disciplined investor—these places quietly teach lessons about human behavior, time preference, resilience, and something that looks suspiciously like enlightenment. Welcome to the world of Kroger, Costco, and cash-flow karma. This is not a story about flashy growth stocks or meme-driven speculation. This is about grocery chains—companies that sell milk, eggs, rotisserie chickens, bulk toilet paper, and just enough emotional reassurance to keep civilization moving forward one shopping trip at a time. And yes, this is about supermarket stocks as a path to something deeper than retu...

The EBITDA Whisperer: Listening to Companies That Try Really Hard Not to Tell You the Truth

Every company has a story it tells the market. Some are straightforward: We sell things. People buy them. After paying our bills, we make money. Others are more… interpretive. Those companies don’t talk about profits. They talk about adjusted profits. They don’t mention costs; they “reframe” them. They don’t lose money; they “invest aggressively in future growth.” And when things go truly sideways, they bring out the most soothing metric of all: EBITDA. Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization. Also known as: earnings before all the parts that make earnings inconvenient. If you’ve spent any time reading earnings releases, listening to conference calls, or scrolling through investor decks, you’ve met EBITDA’s softer-spoken cousin: Adjusted EBITDA , often whispered gently into the ears of analysts who are encouraged not to ask too many follow-up questions. This is a story about listening carefully. Because companies rarely lie outright. They simply speak i...