I'm creating this site to build fluency in reading bank financials, one institution at a time, in the spirit of the old Moody's Manuals.

Warren Buffett: "I would go through a 2,000-page Moody's Manual page by page at night, looking at companies and thinking about them. And it really, it paid off."

Turn every page, build the pattern recognition over the whole universe, and the individual names start to make sense.

I used to be a banker and a financial trainer. I am now an entrepreneur and a financial advisor. I'm interested in value investing and community banks seem like an interesting niche to improve my analytical skills.

Three threads run through this project. The first is business and finance: I am interested in understanding business models and community banks are an unusually clean place to practice: thousands of small, comparable businesses running the same simple machine with very different results.

The second is code. I have been a junk-yard coder for a long time. With no real training, I learnt to build things by picking up snippets and ideas from the internet. Now with AI, I feel empowered to take on more complex projects. I use Python to fetch FDIC call report data, derive the ratios, and generate the bank profiles. Building the tools is half the fun.

The third is teaching and learning. I don't fully understand a thing until I've had to explain it plainly and marked out the edges of what I actually know. The lessons in Reading the Numbers are written to that standard.

I'd like to hear from you. Tell me how I can improve this website. The best way to reach me is on LinkedIn or X.

— Amit Wilson