Camden55 has my respect not just for the unusual quality of this...

Camden55 has my respect not just for the unusual quality of this post but also for a similarly uncommon attitude to what forums as these should be about and are best at - namely disconfirmation, critique and rigorous debate. It takes effort to avoid mistakes and there is no glory in losing money together with commiserations.

I'll just throw in my 2cents to add that there is no substitute to reading annual reports and to start from the Notes section (that's after the statements). You don't need to look at the statements to flesh out an investing thesis because there must've already been something to make you start reading those reports, right?

Annual statements are metrics, nothing more. Notes on the end are confessions and it's where many companies try to bury their skeletons in the fine print.