/credit-check

description: Balance-sheet solvency and refinancing risk — debt maturity wall, interest coverage trend, leverage vs. covenants, liquidity runway, ratings and spreads, the cost of refinancing at today's rates, and an equity-holder verdict, scored as a Credit Health Score 0–10

Credit Check — Can the Equity Survive the Debt?

⚠️ Data Verification — Do This Before Any Analysis

Before running any analysis, always retrieve the latest market data for the ticker:

1. **Fetch current price** — use web search or ask the user for the live price, 52-week range, and market cap. Never assume a price from training data. 2. **Pull the debt disclosures from the filings, not a data feed** — aggregator "total debt" figures routinely omit leases, mix in or leave out current maturities, and lag refinancings. Retrieve:

• **10-K / latest 10-Q debt footnote** — every instrument: principal, coupon (fixed or floating and its reference rate), maturity, security/seniority, and the **scheduled maturities table** (next five years and thereafter).
• **MD&A "Liquidity and Capital Resources"** — cash, undrawn revolver capacity and its expiry, commercial paper, planned refinancing, management's stated liquidity needs; and the **contractual obligations** discussion.
• **Credit agreement / indenture** (8-K Item 1.01 exhibits, 10-K Exhibit 10.x / 4.x) — financial covenants (maximum leverage, minimum coverage, springing tests) and their definitions of EBITDA; the 10-Q covenant-compliance statement.
• **Lease note** (ASC 842 operating and finance lease liabilities), **pension and OPEB note** (funded status), **commitments and contingencies** (guarantees, purchase obligations), and any **supplier-finance / receivables-factoring** disclosure.
• **Convertible notes and preferred stock** terms (conversion price, capped calls, put dates).
• **Credit ratings and outlooks** (S&P, Moody's, Fitch press releases or the company's IR page) and, if available, bond prices / yields (FINRA TRACE) or CDS spreads; benchmark yields by rating from FRED (ICE BofA indices, e.g. `BAMLC0A4CBBB` OAS and `BAMLC0A4CBBBEY` effective yield for BBB; `BAMLH0A1HYBB`, `BAMLH0A2HYB`, `BAMLH0A3HYC` for BB / B / CCC & lower).

Any 8-K after the latest 10-Q (new notes, tender offers, revolver amendments) supersedes the footnote — check for them. 3. **State your data source** — fill in the `Data & Sources` header (next section) so the origin, as-of date, retrieval path, and confidence of every figure are explicit at the top of the output. 4. **Flag stale data explicitly** — if live data is unavailable, display this warning before proceeding:

> ⚠️ **Live data unavailable.** The following analysis uses training-data estimates which may be significantly out of date. Verify all prices and metrics before making any decisions.

Never silently substitute training-data estimates for current prices. When in doubt, ask the user to paste the latest quote.

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📋 Data & Sources Header — Open Every Output With It

The first thing in the output is this provenance block, filled in — never left as placeholders. It is the standard documented on the [Data & Accuracy](https://yennanliu.github.io/InvestSkill/data-and-accuracy.html) page and the first thing `result-validator` looks for:

Data & Sources
  As of:      <date the figures represent, e.g. 2026-06-30>
  Source:     <primary docs — SEC EDGAR 10-K/10-Q, company IR, FRED, exchange data …>
  Retrieval:  <pasted by user | web/tool retrieval | model memory>
  Confidence: <HIGH | MEDIUM | LOW>

• `Retrieval: model memory` must be paired with `Confidence: LOW` — memory is a placeholder until confirmed against a primary source.
• Mixed sources: list each with its own as-of date rather than blending them.
• Sources disagree on the same figure (a closing price, a deal term): prefer the primary source (SEC filing, company release, exchange data) over an aggregator, then the most recent dated one. Show both values with their sources and dates, say which you used and why, and never average them.
• Data the user pasted is reported as `pasted by user`; do not upgrade its confidence beyond what the user's own source supports.

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🌐 Output Language — `--lang zh-TW`

English is the default. With `--lang zh-TW` — or when the user writes in Traditional Chinese and asks for a Chinese answer — write the whole analysis in Traditional Chinese (繁體中文, Taiwan usage), keeping it machine-checkable:

• **Translate** every heading, narrative paragraph, table header and bullet. Give each metric's English name in brackets the first time it appears — 自由現金流（Free Cash Flow, FCF） — so the reader can match it to the glossary and to English analyses.
• **Keep in English** tickers, figures and units, SEC form and item names (10-K Item 7, Form 4), the four `Data & Sources` field labels (`As of`, `Source`, `Retrieval`, `Confidence` — the Retrieval value may be written in Chinese, e.g. 使用者提供), and the Investment Signal box and JSON footer exactly as specified — field names and the BULLISH / NEUTRAL / BEARISH, HIGH / MEDIUM / LOW, BUY / HOLD / SELL, STRONG / MODERATE / WEAK values. Tools parse them.
• Title the invalidation section **論點失效條件（Thesis Invalidation）**, and close with the disclaimer in Chinese: **免責聲明：** 僅供教育用途，非投資建議。
• Use Taiwan financial terms: 殖利率、本益比、營業利益率、自由現金流、聯準會、選擇權、買權／賣權、除息日、預扣稅.

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Overview

Equity sits last in the capital structure. Lenders get paid first, set covenants, and — when a company cannot refinance — take the business. Most equity frameworks in this catalog treat debt as a line in the balance-sheet section or a number in the WACC; none asks the creditor's question from the shareholder's seat: **when does the debt come due, what will it cost to roll at today's rates, can the company pay it without diluting or wiping out the equity, and what does the credit market already think?**

**This skill reads the balance sheet the way a credit analyst does, then translates it back to th