About the founder
Yuriy Matso.
Founder and head of research, The Trading Tools · author of the Research Letter
The Trading Tools is a market-research site founded and maintained by Yuriy Matso. It publishes free market internals, base-rate studies, 13F portfolios and economic indicators, recomputed every trading day from a database of about 5,500 US-listed symbols and from official sources, each with a dated plain-English reading and its method on the page. Yuriy designs the measures, writes the research and reviews what is published.
Background
Yuriy holds two master’s degrees: International Economics from the Lviv Academy of Commerce, and International Affairs from the University of California, San Diego. He began as a business advisor at KPMG, then moved into private equity with PPF Group. From there he moved into technology and spent years managing software development teams that built apps and digital products. That second career is why the site runs as a product: one data pipeline, tested code, and a page for every question rather than a stream of posts.
Markets have run alongside both careers. He made his first trading profits with put options in 2008 and has traded ever since. Over time that turned into systematic work: algorithmic trading systems for equity-index futures, and the equity portfolio strategies featured on System Trader. The breadth engines, intraday gauges and price database on this site grew out of the instruments that work needed.
- Education
- Master's in International Economics, Lviv Academy of Commerce. Master's in International Affairs, University of California, San Diego.
- Advisory
- Business Advisor at KPMG.
- Private equity
- Investment work with PPF Group.
- Technology
- Managed software development teams building apps and digital products.
- Markets
- Trading since 2008. Developer of algorithmic futures systems and the equity portfolio strategies featured on System Trader.
- Today
- Founder and head of research at The Trading Tools.
How the research is done
The stance across the site is measured, not opined. The pages say what the market is doing and what followed similar conditions, with the sample size attached, and hand the judgment back to the reader. Four rules do most of the work:
- Computed, never typed. Every number in a reading, caption or letter is calculated from the data at publication. A hand-typed figure is how a page ends up contradicting itself.
- Tested against the baseline. A "what happened next" study is compared with every day in the same window before the page exists, and the page leads with the result even when it is a null or cuts against the story.
- Dated to the session. Each reading names the close it was computed from, and economic data enter on their publication day, when the market first learned them.
- Wary of survivorship. A history built from today's index members flatters the past. Such series are labelled as exhibits and never used for a forward study.
The full policy is in the editorial standards, the calculations in the methodology, and the role of AI in how we use AI. Corrections and method changes are logged on Product & Research Updates.
Where to find the work
- Research archive: every Insight, the dated research essays.
- Market Questions: dated answers built from several tools at once.
- The Research Letter, published on Substack.
- Data catalog: the datasets behind the pages and their sources.
Research and education, not financial advice. Nothing on this site is a recommendation to buy or sell a security.