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Value investing has a reading problem.
The books are good — Buffett, Munger, Graham. But reading about a framework and applying it to an actual stock are two different things. The gap between “I understand the principles” and “I know what to do with this company” is where most individual investors get lost.
These eight free tools were built to close that gap. They turn value-investing frameworks into checklists, calculators, and honest questions — things you can use on a specific stock in front of you, not just think about in the abstract.
All are free, no sign-up, no account. Built by a Chinese IT worker who has been studying value investing for about 10 months, primarily using AI as a thinking partner.
1. Value Investing Calculator — Score Any Stock Against Buffett’s Principles
Input the key financial metrics for any company. The calculator scores it against the core Warren Buffett criteria: financial health, moat strength, management quality, and valuation. You get a clear verdict with the reasoning.
The most useful part isn’t the score — it’s the criteria themselves. Going through each one forces you to actually look up numbers you might have been skipping.
2. A-Share Value Investing Toolbox — Built for Chinese Stocks
Most value investing tools are designed for US stocks — P/E, P/B, ROE in USD. The A-share market has different benchmarks, different disclosure standards, and different risk factors (state ownership, policy sensitivity, VIE structures).
This toolbox applies value-investing criteria specifically to Chinese A-shares: what counts as a good ROE in the Chinese market, what management red flags look like in Chinese company disclosures, and how to think about moat in sectors with heavy state involvement.
3. Investment Punch Card — Track Your Lifetime Bets
Warren Buffett’s thought experiment: if you only got 20 investment decisions in your entire lifetime, how would you evaluate each one before committing? The constraint forces quality over quantity.
This tool makes the thought experiment operational. You record each investment decision — the thesis, the key risks, the price paid — as a punch on your card. You can’t add a new punch without committing to why this one deserves to be there. Looking back at your card over time is more instructive than any diary.
4. 10x Stock Screen — Does This Company Have the Profile?
Twelve criteria for the profile of a stock that could increase 10x over a decade: scalability of the business model, pricing power, growth runway, balance sheet discipline, and others. Most stocks fail on 3-4 criteria immediately. The ones that pass most of the screen are worth looking at more carefully.
The screen doesn’t identify 10x stocks — nothing can do that reliably. It filters out the ones that obviously can’t be, which is most of them.
5. Are You in Love With Your Stock?
Eight questions about one holding. The questions are designed to distinguish conviction from attachment — two states that feel identical from the inside but lead to completely different decisions.
“I’ve held this for three years and I understand it deeply” is conviction. “I’ve held this for three years and I’m not willing to sell below my entry price” is attachment. Most holders of a loss-making position are in the second state while believing they’re in the first.
Two minutes. No data saved.
6. Should I Sell This Stock?
The sell decision is harder than the buy decision for most investors — there’s no obvious trigger, and cognitive biases run in both directions (anchoring to your buy price, refusing to take a loss, refusing to take a gain). Six questions that separate the investment case from the ego case.
If the investment thesis has changed, sell. If your reason for holding is “I’ll sell when it gets back to my entry price,” that’s not an investment thesis — that’s hope.
7. The Supermarket Test — Grassroots Research Checklist
Financial reports tell you what a company did last quarter. The shelf tells you what it’s doing this month. Peter Lynch made this point about consumer stocks: the best research happens in stores, not on spreadsheets.
Ten checkpoints for consumer stock research you can do in person: shelf placement, price positioning, stock rotation, promotion activity, staff behavior, competitive environment. Takes 20 minutes. Often reveals things that don’t show up in the annual report for another two quarters.
8. Buffett-Style Value Screen — The Essential One-Pager
A stripped-down version of the Value Investing Calculator for when you want a fast pass/fail on a company before deciding whether to look deeper. The most important Buffett criteria only — no noise, no padding.
Useful as a first filter before committing time to a full analysis.
How to Use These Together
A practical workflow for evaluating a new stock idea:
- Buffett-Style Screen — 5-minute pass/fail. If it fails obviously, stop here.
- 10x Screen — Does this company have the structural profile for long-term compounding?
- Supermarket Test — If it’s a consumer company, go look at it in person before going further.
- Value Investing Calculator — Full scoring across all criteria.
- A-Share Toolbox — If it’s a Chinese stock, apply the China-specific filters.
- Investment Punch Card — If you’re considering buying: does this deserve a punch?
Then, ongoing:
- Investor Bias Check — Run quarterly on any position you’ve held more than a year.
- Should I Sell — Run whenever you’re tempted to hold a deteriorating position “a bit longer.”
These aren’t substitutes for reading financial reports, understanding the business, or thinking carefully about valuation. They’re prompts — structured ways to make sure you’re asking the right questions before you decide.
All eight investing tools (free, no sign-up):
• Value Investing Calculator
• A-Share Value Investing Toolbox
• Investment Punch Card
• 10x Stock Screen
• Are You in Love With Your Stock?
• Should I Sell This Stock?
• The Supermarket Test
• Buffett-Style Value Screen
• All 47 free tools →
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