Frequently asked questions

A daily-updated reference for market internals and related data — breadth and named signals, volatility and credit, short interest and squeeze detection, sector / global / crypto rotation, options flow and sentiment, historical signal base rates, systematic strategies, 13F fund portfolios, economic indicators, deep reference Manuals, a typed Concepts glossary, and data-driven research essays. Every tool leads with a dated, plain-English reading and documents its methodology.

Nothing, and no. Every tool, dataset, signal study, 13F portfolio and economic indicator is free to read, with no sign-up and no paywall — including the Unusual Volume, Unusual Options Activity and Momentum Scanner pages, which were briefly behind a subscription and are now open. There is no account system at all.

Market internals and signals are computed from our own database of approximately 5,500 stored symbols; approximately 4,750 eligible common stocks enter a typical daily breadth calculation, with broad-universe history from 2010 and SPY back to 1993. Around that core we compute directly from primary sources: SEC EDGAR (13F filings, share counts, platform revenue), FINRA (margin debt, short interest), the Federal Reserve's FRED/ALFRED service and the OECD, Cboe and OCC options data, Robert Shiller's CAPE dataset, the EIA, and Census/NAR/Zillow/Freddie Mac/Redfin for housing. Where a series is a proxy or an estimate, the page says so.

Every trading day. After the US market close, an automated pipeline fetches the day's data, verifies it is complete, and recomputes every tool. Economic, 13F, and options data refresh on their own natural cadence. Each reading is dated to the close it was computed from.

Every reading is stamped with the market session it was computed from. If a served reading ever falls more than one trading day behind, the page shows a staleness notice, so you always know exactly which close you are looking at.

No. Everything on the site is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not investment, financial, legal, or tax advice, and nothing on it is a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Always do your own research and consult a qualified financial professional.

They divide the work deliberately. Concepts define — what a term means, exactly, with the formula, a worked example, and failure modes. Manuals interpret — what a gauge has historically meant, with every famous episode computed from data rather than retold from memory. Tools measure — today's reading, recomputed after every close. One subject can live on all three layers; each page answers its own layer's question and hands off to the others.

The Market Monitor's Decision Desk organizes the site's lead read by holding period: Tape (today to five sessions), Swing (one week to three months), Cycle (three to twelve months), and Valuation (three to ten years). Each clock has a dated verdict, the historical base rates behind it, and the thresholds that would change the read. They answer different questions, so disagreement between them is information — they are never averaged into one number.

Yes, extensively and with review. The daily pipeline is heavily automated, including AI-assisted research and computation, and a person reviews every published reading, study, and essay. Every study is edge-tested against historical data before it ships, corrections are made on the page with the modified date bumped, and the full disclosure lives on our How We Use AI page.

Our Substack (thetradingtools.substack.com), where the strongest findings ship as dated, falsifiable letters — each one computed from the same datasets as the site, with charts frozen at publication and markers stating in advance what would change our mind. Subscribing is free; the site's research page explains what subscribers get.

Signals are historical base-rate studies. For each well-known technical trigger, we find every time it fired on SPY since 1993 and tabulate the forward returns across six horizons — average, median, hit rate, best, and worst — with the full sample shown. They describe historical odds, not predictions, and sample sizes are often small.

A systematic strategy applies the same predefined process to an eligible market universe after each close. It ranks candidates, constructs a model portfolio, and identifies changes for the next session without manually overriding individual names. It is a general research model and does not provide a personalized recommendation.

The published performance record is a hypothetical historical simulation. It does not represent a return earned by subscribers or a managed account. Signals use information available by each close and assume portfolio changes at the following market open. Holdout testing reduces one source of bias but cannot make a backtest equivalent to live trading.

Published strategy results use modeled execution costs at the displayed $100,000 account size where live fill history supports a calibrated estimate. The estimate responds to order size, liquidity, and volatility. Actual spreads, impact, partial fills, and prices can be materially different; dividends and taxes are excluded.

The systematic strategies are no longer published on this site. The systems review verified market data after the close and compute the next-session model portfolio privately. Historical records assume changes at the next market open.

A candidate must clear a fixed post-cost return and drawdown standard on both its complete history and a later holdout period. The publishing process refuses a strategy without a calibrated cost record or a passing result. Passing only satisfies the publication standard; it does not promise that the strategy will continue to qualify or make money.

The strategy itself is proprietary. We disclose the economic thesis, broad input categories, portfolio behavior, testing assumptions, execution timing, performance, and risks so the evidence can be evaluated. Exact weights, windows, cutoffs, filters, decision rules, and implementation code remain private so the model cannot be reconstructed from the public pages.

Because the inputs differ. The exact universe of stocks, how integer-priced or thinly traded symbols are handled, and the specific thresholds all change an indicator's history. We disclose where our implementation deviates from a classic specification and why, so you can see exactly what produced the numbers.

Yes. Tickers across the site — heatmap cells, options scans, fund holdings, and sector and macro tables — link to a candlestick and volume chart drawn from our own daily history.

You're welcome to quote and share our readings with attribution for personal, non-commercial use. Systematic republication or commercial redistribution requires prior written permission — email info@thetrading.tools.