Methodology — how Unfair Signals grades the market

No black box. Every name that reaches the cut runs the same gauntlet — the same rubric, the same signals, the same disclosure of misses.

The cadence

We scan the entire investable US equity universe — roughly 6,000 names — twice every trading day: a pre-open pass at 9:45 AM ET and a mid-afternoon pass at 3:30 PM ET. We are deliberately not a real-time firehose. The two windows are when filings, flow, and price have enough signal to be worth reading, and infrequent enough that you are not whipsawed by noise.

The four verdicts

Every name that surfaces gets exactly one verdict. No "maybe," no watchlist of 400.

Deep Dive — conviction-backed. Ender writes a full memo: bull case, bear case, and the dated catalyst that breaks the tie.
Watch — movement worth tracking. Context that often feeds the next Deep Dive, but not yet a call.
Falling Knife — a move where velocity itself is the warning. We flag it so you don't catch it.
Noise — movement without signal. Surfaced, then filtered out so it stops costing you attention.

The eight grade-cards

Behind each verdict sit eight graded dimensions. Each is scored on the same A–F scale, against the same definition, every time — so the score is auditable, not vibes.

Grade-card	What it measures
Moat	Durability of the competitive edge
Balance sheet	Leverage, liquidity, net cash vs. net debt
Execution	Track record of beats, raises, and guidance credibility
Valuation	Price paid relative to growth and quality
Insider	Form 4 buying — especially clustered, open-market purchases
Institutional	13F accumulation vs. distribution by credible holders
Short interest	Crowding, days-to-cover, and the direction of the trend
Catalyst	Whether there is a dated, live event that can re-rate the name

The smart-money signals

Fundamentals tell you what a business is worth. The signals tell you what informed money is doing about it before the headline. We cross-check four:

Insider buying — open-market purchases from Form 4 filings, weighted toward clusters and size relative to holdings.
13F accumulation — quarter-over-quarter position changes among funds with a real edge, not index huggers.
Options flow — unusual sweeps and blocks, read for direction and conviction, not just volume.
Short interest — level, trend, and days-to-cover, as both a risk flag and a squeeze setup.

Ender

Ender is the AI analyst that turns the grades and signals into a readable thesis. It reads the same primary sources a buy-side desk reads — filings, transcripts, flow — and writes the memo with a citation on every material claim. It is an analyst, not an oracle: it shows its work so you can disagree with it.

On the misses

We publish the calls that didn't work. The Field Notes include post-mortems, and the Receipts table shows losers next to winners with net alpha measured against SPY over the same dates. A methodology you can only see when it's winning isn't a methodology.

Conviction over coverage. We would rather hand you twelve names we can defend than four hundred we can't.