Blog Guide

Reading time: 5 – 8 minutes

This blog contains hundreds of articles related in some way to Capital Flow Analysis — macro-economic overviews of major segments of the US capital market, and collateral topics such as US politics, security analysis, information technology, and trends in bond and equity prices.

Excerpts, tags, and categories

There is more material on this blog and on closely associated sites than you or I could read in a dozen visits.

However,  by using article excerpts, tagging, categorization, and full text search, you can find what interests you in a minute or so.

Easy navigation points

All front and archive pages on this blog are organized in the same way:

Front page, showing excerpt and five navigation points

A typical front or archive page has five key navigation points:

1. Page-type identification: This shows whether you are on a front page, or on some other kind of page, such as a tag, category, or search page.
2. Page number navigation tabs: Up to three excerpts are published on each front page or tag, category, or search archive page. When the number of excerpts exceeds three, the extra excerpts are posted to subsequent pages, three at a time, and can be reached by clicking the page number tabs.
3. Full text search: A full text search of all articles is available through the search box in the upper right. On most pages, search results are returned as a Google search and cover both this site and the associated Center for Capital Flow Analysis site. On this page and the links pages, the results refer only to this site and are returned in the form of excerpts presented on multiple pages.
4. Special features and tutorials: The left column has links to special featured articles of general interest, tutorials, and essays on our associated sites, Center for Capital Flow Analysis and Capital Market Wiki.
5. Tag and category links: Each excerpt has, at the bottom,  links to tag and category archives relevant to topics mentioned in that article. These links bring up archive pages with excerpts of relevant articles.

Related posts

At the bottom of each article is a list of five related articles, based on context.

Each article also contains a dynamic table of content appearing in various places throughout the article.

Tags and categories

Articles are tagged and classified to help you find material on certain topics quickly.

Each tag and category is defined.  The definition appears at the top of the tag or category page.

1. Tags: There are many more tags than categories, because tags are assigned liberally to indicate any topic mentioned or associated with an article. For example, if Nancy Pelosi (the speaker of the House of Representatives in 2009-2010) is mentioned in an article, the tag “Nancy Pelosi” may be assigned to the article.  However, the article is not necessarily ‘about’ Nancy Pelosi — her name may merely have been mentioned.
2. Categories: In order to indicate the general content of an article (rather than a topic that may only be tangentially mentioned), categories are used. Consequently, there are far fewer categories than tags.

There are three ways to locate articles by tag or category:

1. By tag or category links at the bottom of each article or excerpt.
2. By the category drop-down list in the left sidebar of each page.
3. By the tag cloud in the left sidebar of each page.

The tag cloud presents links to tag archives for those tags that are most used.  The tag-links are in alphabetical order.  The tag-links that reference more articles are shown in larger type.

Filing order

Articles are filed in reverse chronological order — newest on top.

To trace a subject, articles are tagged by topic and are searchable by keywords.

Articles are organized and filed.

To save you time in following  a subject, each article has a 30 second summary.

These summaries are filed as follows:

• On the front and inner pages, in reverse chronological order — navigable by page number.
• By topic (tags and categories), located by tags and categories listed at the bottom of each article or excerpt, or by the tag cloud and category drop-down in the right sidebar.
• By a full text search from the search field in the top right of each page.

Articles take from 3 to 30 minutes to read, and  the individual-edited summaries are used to make the material accessible.

Older articles are often relevant

Articles usually describe the world as seen at a particular moment.  Sometimes views become dated.

However, some economic trends are long-standing, such as the stock buyback movement which started with SEC Rule 10b-18  in 1982 and continued into the 21st century.

The practices that led to the Crash of 2008, did not start in 2007 and can be traced back for generations.

Some topics are spread over many articles, such as the articles about Post Modern Security Analysis.

Find articles by date published

Using the article calendar

At the bottom of the right sidebar, there is a calendar with links to archive pages by date.

The calendar is useful if you are looking for an article first posted on a certain date, which are indicated by a gray background.

There usually are only one or two excerpts on the archive pages for a specific date.

Featured articles

On the bottom of the first page, you’ll find summaries of articles that are on topics of lasting interest, although buried deep within this blog.  These summaries are replaced regularly on a randomly rotating basis.