What is Footnote Brief?
Footnote Brief is a twice-weekly newsletter about what public companies’ financial filings actually say.
Most business coverage works downstream of press releases. A company puts out a quarterly earnings statement. Reuters and Bloomberg paraphrase the headline numbers. Twitter financial influencers turn those headlines into takes. By the time the story reaches you, it’s been through six layers of summary — and the most interesting parts of the filing, the parts buried on page 34 where the real numbers live, never made it.
Footnote Brief reads the filings instead. The 10-Ks. The 10-Qs. The proxy statements. The footnotes that companies hope nobody reads.
Every Tuesday, we publish a full breakdown of one public company — what the numbers say, what the narrative misses, and what it predicts. Every Friday, a shorter, sharper take on whatever’s in that week’s news or one specific filing worth reading.
What you’ll find here
Company breakdowns. Deep dives on individual public companies — what their filings actually say, with the numbers and detail mainstream coverage doesn’t carry. Most issues pair with the corresponding Footnote video on YouTube, going deeper than a 10-minute video can.
The bigger picture. Recurring pieces on the financial systems and global money flows that most business coverage doesn’t touch.
Frameworks. Explainers on how specific business models actually work.
Contrarian analysis. When the consensus on a story is wrong, we say so — and we show our work.
What you won’t find
- Stock tips or trade recommendations
- Macro and markets commentary
- Personal finance advice
- AI-generated summaries of news you’ve already read elsewhere
- Anything we can’t back up with a source
Who’s behind this
Footnote Brief is written by Hamza Benarba, also the creator Footnote on YouTube — a channel covering corporate finance, emerging markets, and the stories hiding in plain sight in public company data.
The newsletter started because video can only carry so much detail. The most interesting analysis often lives in a balance sheet line, a footnote, or a year-over-year comparison that doesn’t fit cleanly into a 10-minute video. Footnote Brief is where that analysis goes.
Disclaimers
Footnote Brief is editorial analysis, not investment advice. Nothing on this site or in the newsletter constitutes a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security. See our full disclaimer for details.
Contact
For business inquiries, sponsorships, or feedback: hello@footnotebrief.com