What can fundamental analysis include when evaluating a security?

Fundamental analysis encompasses a comprehensive approach to evaluating a security by analyzing both qualitative and quantitative factors. Qualitative factors might include management quality, company reputation, industry conditions, and economic environment, while quantitative factors typically involve financial data such as earnings, revenue, profits, and other measurable statistics derived from financial statements.

This dual approach allows analysts to gain a more complete understanding of a company's overall health and future prospects. By integrating both types of analyses, investors can make more informed decisions based on a combination of hard data and contextual insights regarding the company and industry it operates within.

In contrast, focusing solely on qualitative factors would limit the analysis to subjective assessments without quantifiable backing, which could risk overlooking important data. Similarly, relying exclusively on quantitative factors would ignore critical aspects such as market conditions and management effectiveness that could influence a company's performance. Technical price charts, on the other hand, pertain to technical analysis, which is fundamentally different from fundamental analysis as it focuses on price movements and trading volumes, rather than the intrinsic value of the security.