Glossary

58 terms · A to Z

Each word defined the way the product uses it.

58 terms · A to Z

58/58

8-K: An SEC filing a company makes when something material happens between regular reports: results, a deal, an executive change. More in SEC filings.
10-K: A US company's audited annual report to the SEC: the business, its risks and its full accounts. More in SEC filings.
10-Q: A US company's unaudited quarterly report to the SEC. More in SEC filings.
13F: A quarterly SEC filing listing an institutional manager's US-listed long positions at quarter end. Due within 45 days, so it is always at least six weeks old. More in What a 13F is, and its 45-day lag.
Add zone: The price at or below which our call says a stock is better bought. Shown as Add below on the stock report, on Pro and on the stocks a Free account follows. More in How calls and zones are produced.
Adjusted close: A daily closing price restated for splits and dividends, so that a series of them gives a total return. More in Where the data comes from and how fresh it is.
Agent: A standing job in stocksbrew: one rule on a schedule, an event or a price, checked at most once per market day, with every check written to a run log. It only tells you. It never trades. More in Agents and their triggers.
Analyst target: The price a brokerage analyst expects a stock to reach, usually within twelve months. We show the range and the average, as other people's opinions. More in How to read a stock report.
As-of time: The time a number is from. Every figure in the product has one nearby. It is the time of the data, not the time you loaded the page.
Backtest: Fixed rules applied to past prices to see what a portfolio would have done. Nobody held it. Always labelled with its period and caveats. More in What a backtest can and cannot tell you.
Basis point: One hundredth of a percent. Ten basis points is 0.10%. Trading costs in our backtests are set in basis points. More in Costs in a backtest.
Benchmark: What a result is compared with. Ours is usually SPY, the S&P 500 fund, bought on the first day and held with dividends reinvested.
Briefing: The daily read of what happened to your names, ordered by what needs you. More in How to read a briefing.
CAGR: Compound annual growth rate: the steady yearly return that turns a starting value into an ending value over a period. More in CAGR calculator.
Call: Our rule-based read on a stock: add, hold, trim, watch or avoid, with a confidence and price zones. More in How calls and zones are produced.
Cluster buy: Three or more different insiders making open-market purchases of the same stock within 30 days. More in Form 4 insiders and cluster buys.
Consensus estimate: The average of analysts' forecasts for a company's revenue or earnings in an upcoming report.
Covered weight: The share of a disclosed portfolio that we could price. Positions without a price series are dropped and the rest scaled up, and this figure says how much was kept. More in How filing-date performance is measured.
CUSIP: A nine-character identifier for a US security. 13F filings list positions by CUSIP, which we map to tickers. More in What a 13F is, and its 45-day lag.
Drawdown: The fall from the highest value reached so far. Max drawdown is the largest such fall over a record. More in Drawdown recovery calculator.
EDGAR: The SEC's public database of company and fund filings. The primary source for filings, 13Fs and Form 4s.
EPS: Earnings per share: a company's profit divided by its share count.
ETF: Exchange-traded fund: a fund that trades like a stock and usually tracks an index or a sector.
Filing date: The day a filing became public. Follow records and Congress signals are measured from this date, never from the trade date. More in How filing-date performance is measured.
Form 4: The SEC form an officer, director or 10% owner files within two business days of trading their own company's stock. More in Form 4 insiders and cluster buys.
Forward P/E: Price divided by the earnings analysts expect over the next twelve months, instead of the last twelve.
Free cash flow: Cash from operations minus capital spending: the cash a business produces after keeping itself running.
Free cash flow yield: Free cash flow divided by market value. A way to compare how much cash a company produces for its price.
Guidance: A company's own forecast for coming quarters, usually given with its earnings report.
Hit rate: In a backtest, the number of calendar years the strategy beat its comparison. More in How each number is computed.
Holding: A stock you own and have entered with a size. Distinct from a watched name. More in Adding holdings.
Implied volatility: The size of future price moves that option prices are pricing in. High implied volatility usually means an event is expected.
Live record: A strategy's results from the day it was published, valued from baskets frozen at the time. It cannot be revised afterwards. More in What a backtest can and cannot tell you.
Lookahead: A backtest error where a decision uses information from after the decision was made. More in Lookahead, and how trades are timed.
Market cap: Share price times shares outstanding: what the market values the whole company at.
Momentum: A stock's return over a past window, used as a ranking signal. Often measured over 12 months, skipping the latest month. More in How a strategy picks its stocks.
Moving average: The average closing price over the last N sessions. Price above a long moving average is the usual definition of an uptrend.
Operating margin: Operating profit as a percent of revenue: what is left after the costs of running the business, before interest and tax.
P/E ratio: Share price divided by earnings per share over the last twelve months. What you pay for a dollar of profit.
Practice account: A paper account with $100,000 of pretend money, filled at the latest daily close. More in The practice account.
PTR: Periodic transaction report: the form a member of Congress files to disclose a trade, due within 45 days of it. More in Congress disclosures and the STOCK Act windows.
Put/call ratio: The volume of put options traded divided by the volume of calls. A rough gauge of whether options traders are buying protection.
Rebalance: Resetting a portfolio to its rules or its target weights on a schedule. More in How a strategy picks its stocks.
Return on capital: Operating profit after tax divided by the capital invested in the business. A measure of how well a company turns money into profit.
RSI: Relative strength index: a 0 to 100 gauge of recent gains against recent losses, usually over 14 days. Readings above 70 or below 30 are treated as extremes.
Run log: The record of every check an agent made, including the days it found nothing. More in The run log.
Sharpe ratio: Return per unit of volatility. Ours uses daily returns scaled to a year and a 0% risk-free rate. More in How each number is computed.
STOCK Act: The 2012 US law requiring members of Congress to publicly report their securities trades. More in Congress disclosures and the STOCK Act windows.
Survivorship bias: The flattering effect of testing only on companies that still exist, with the failures missing. More in Survivorship bias.
Ticker: The short symbol a security trades under, such as AAPL.
Total return: Return including dividends, not only the change in price.
Trim zone: The price above which our call suggests a position is better reduced than added to. Shown as Trim above. More in How calls and zones are produced.
Turnover: How much of a portfolio is replaced at a rebalance or over a year. Higher turnover means higher costs. More in Costs in a backtest.
Unusual mover: A stock whose day change is large against its own recent behaviour and the market. More in Signals.
VIX: The Cboe index of implied volatility on the S&P 500 over the next 30 days. Often called the fear gauge.
Volatility: How much returns vary. Ours is the standard deviation of daily returns scaled to a year. More in How each number is computed.
Watching: A stock you follow without owning. It appears in your briefing and is left out of analytics. More in Adding holdings.
Yield curve: Treasury yields plotted from short maturities to long ones. When short yields are above long ones the curve is called inverted. More in Markets beyond stocks.