What’s the most important thing about a stock?

P/E? Revenue growth? Free cash flow?

(Hint: it’s all of them.)

Wait, don’t run away! We promise this won’t be boring. Today, we’re going to run through the 5 most important metrics to pay attention to for a stock. We’ll show you what good and bad looks like for each number… and we’re using a real example stock that’s got a super-high rating on AltIndex right now.

US stocks just wrapped their best month since 2020. The Dow rallied more than 790 points Thursday, the S&P 500 closed above 7,200 for the first time ever, and the Nasdaq hit fresh highs. Earnings season delivered. And then Apple dropped better-than-expected results after the bell, jumping 3% in after-hours trading on strong iPhone sales and China growth.

But here's the thing nobody's talking about: Apple is running out of Mac minis. AI developers have been snatching up the compact desktops to run agentic AI workloads, and Tim Cook says it could take months to catch up with demand. Memory and storage names are feeling the squeeze too, with Sandisk, Western Digital, and Seagate all signaling strong AI-driven demand.

More on that below.

This is not financial advice. Always do your own research. Past performance doesn’t guarantee future results.

Our example stock today is Zeta Growth, clocking in with a stellar 82/100 AI Score from our partners at AltIndex.

What it tells you: Whether the company is actually getting bigger.

Earnings can be manipulated through accounting. Revenue is harder to fake. If a company is growing revenue year over year, the business is expanding. If revenue is shrinking, no amount of cost-cutting fixes that forever.

What's good: Double-digit growth (10%+) is strong. 20%+ is excellent. 40%+ is the kind of number you see from companies in the middle of a secular growth cycle.

ZETA check: Zeta Global posted $1.305 billion in revenue for 2025, up 30% year over year. The company has now reported 18 straight "beat and raise" quarters, which means they've beaten their own guidance and raised it higher every single quarter for over four years.

What it tells you: How much actual cash the business generates after paying for everything it needs to keep running.

Revenue tells you how much money came in the door. But free cash flow tells you what's left after the company pays for operations and capital expenditures. It's the truest measure of financial health because it's the hardest to manipulate.

What's good: Positive and growing. A good way to evaluate it is through free cash flow yield (free cash flow divided by market cap). The market average for the S&P 500 is around 4-5%, so anything in that range is probably decent. Above that is attractive.

ZETA check: Zeta generated $165 million in free cash flow in 2025, up 78% year over year. Zeta’s free cash flow yield is 4.44%, within the average range for S&P 500 companies (Zeta isn’t in the index, this is just for comparison’s sake).

What it tells you: How much the company has borrowed compared to how much it actually owns.

A debt-to-equity ratio of 1.0 means equal parts debt and equity. Below 1.0 means the company owns more than it owes. Above 1.0 means it's borrowed more than what it owns, which gets risky when interest rates are elevated (like right now).

What's good: Below 1.0 is conservative and healthy. Between 1.0 and 2.0 is normal for most industries. Compare to industry peers, not to some universal benchmark. A utility at 1.5 is fine. A tech startup at 1.5 is concerning.

ZETA check: Zeta's debt-to-equity ratio is 0.24. That means for every dollar of equity, the company only owes 24 cents. They're sitting on more cash than total debt (roughly $320 million in cash against $197 million in long-term debt). For a high-growth tech company, that's a remarkably clean balance sheet. Compare that to where they were in 2021 at a D/E of 2.03. The trajectory tells a story of a company that's been actively de-risking while growing.

What it tells you: What the alternative data says about a stock, beyond what earnings reports and analyst ratings show.

AltIndex rates thousands of stocks on a scale of 1 to 100 by combining signals that move before the fundamentals show up in quarterly reports: insider buying patterns, hiring trends, web traffic, app download velocity, and social sentiment across Reddit, Twitter, and financial forums. When those signals converge, the score goes high.

What's good: Above 70 is strong. Above 80 is very strong.

Why we use it: We've tracked 134 picks in 2026, and the ones where AltIndex signal shaped the call hit the green 69.1% of the time versus 60.4% without it. Same writers, same market. The only variable was whether their data was in the mix.

ZETA check: Pull up Zeta Global on AltIndex and you can see the alternative data breakdown yourself: 82/100 AI Score, 241 active job postings, a sentiment score of 89, and rising Instagram followers (which tracks brand momentum). Zeta's peer group on AltIndex (Trade Desk, Semrush, Omnicom) only tends to score in the 50s. The alt data signals here are pointing in the right direction.

What it tells you: How much you're paying for every dollar the company earns.

A stock trading at a P/E of 15 means you're paying $15 for every $1 of annual earnings. The S&P 500's historical average is around 16 (the long-term mean). Anything below 15 is generally considered cheap. Anything above 30 is expensive (though that doesn't automatically mean it's a bad buy).

Why we put this one last: Because P/E is the number most people look at first, but it's the one that can be most misleading at times.

A high P/E doesn't mean a stock is overpriced. It means the market is pricing in future growth. And a negative P/E (meaning the company isn't profitable yet on a GAAP basis) doesn't mean the company is a bad investment. Some of the best investments of the last two decades were in companies that weren't profitable when you bought them. Amazon ran negative earnings for years while building the infrastructure that turned it into a trillion dollar company.

ZETA check: Zeta Global's trailing P/E is negative, because the company has been reporting GAAP net losses as it invests heavily in growth (stock-based compensation is the main driver). But here's the context that matters: Zeta just posted its first positive GAAP net income quarter in Q4 2025 ($6.5 million, 1.7% margin) and is guiding to positive GAAP net income for all of 2026. The forward P/E is around 19, which isn’t too expensive for a company growing revenue at 30%+ a year.

This is exactly why P/E can't be the only number you check. If you'd screened Zeta out because of a negative trailing P/E, you'd have missed a company with 30% revenue growth, 78% free cash flow growth, a balance sheet cleaner than most blue chips, and a forward valuation that's arguably cheap for what you're getting!

You don't need all five numbers to be perfect. No stock scores a 10 out of 10 on every metric.

Before you buy anything, take 2 minutes and check: Is revenue actually growing? Is the company generating real cash? Is the balance sheet clean? What does the alternative data say? And is the valuation reasonable for the growth rate?

If four or five of those are pointing in the right direction, you probably have a good pick. If two or three are red flags, you probably don't, no matter how exciting the story sounds.

In partnership with Miso Robotics

That’s what NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang just said about the AI boom, even calling it “the largest infrastructure buildout in human history.”

NVIDIA’s chips made this real-time revolution possible, but now it’s collaborating with Miso to unlock amazing new advances in robotics.

Already a first-mover in the $1T fast-food industry, Miso’s AI-powered Flippy Fry Station robots have worked 200K+ hours for leading brands like White Castle, just surpassing 5M+ baskets of fried food.

And this latest NVIDIA collaboration unlocks up to 35% faster performance for Miso’s robots, which can cook perfect fried foods 24/7. In an industry experiencing 144% labor turnover, where speed is key, those gains can be game-changing.

There are 100K+ US fast-food locations in desperate need, a $4B/year revenue opportunity for Miso. And you can invest alongside Ecolab and become a Miso shareholder today. Even better, you can unlock free additional bonus stock for a limited time. Become a Miso investor today.

Invest in Miso Today

^{This is a paid advertisement for Miso Robotics’ Regulation A offering. Please read the offering circular at invest.misorobotics.com.}

US stocks surged Thursday, capping off the best month for equities since 2020 as investors shook off geopolitical jitters and leaned into a strong earnings season.

Apple jumped roughly 3% in after-hours trading after delivering better-than-expected fiscal second-quarter results. The tech giant posted strong iPhone sales and growth in China, though CEO Tim Cook flagged supply constraints on Mac minis and Mac Studios. AI developers have been snatching up the compact desktops to run the agentic AI platform OpenClaw, and Cook said it could take several months to reach supply-demand balance.

President Trump lifted tariffs on Scotch whisky following King Charles III and Queen Camilla's four-day US visit. The president framed the decision as a gesture of gratitude to the British royals and a boost for cooperation between Scottish and Kentucky distillers. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the move was part of a broader economic agreement between the US and UK covering beef, pharmaceuticals, and ethanol. Scotch exports to the US were down 15% in 2025 due to the trade war.

AI storage demand is running hot. Sandisk joined Western Digital and Seagate in signaling strong demand for storage products tied to the AI buildout. The memory shortage is expected to drive PC shipments down 11.3% in 2026, according to IDC.

The answer: Google!

Your feedback matters to us! Let us know what you liked or didn’t like about today’s edition.

That’s all for today. Did we miss anything? Smash the reply button to let me know.

Cheers,
Brandon & Blake of Invested Inc