Methodology, sources and disclosures
How every score is computed, where each number comes from, when it updates and what it cannot tell you.
How the Smart Score works
Five components, three weighting profiles, one score from 1 to 10 against peers.
The Smart Score (1–10) describes how this instrument compares with its peers on published, rules-based measures of value, quality, trend, stability and dividend safety. It is not a forecast and not personal advice.
Value
How cheap the company is versus peers: earnings, cash flow, book value and sales relative to its price.
Measures: EBIT/EV, free cash flow/EV, earnings yield, book/price, sales/EV, shareholder yield (own variants for banks, REITs and utilities).
Quality
Profitability, balance-sheet safety, growth and capital discipline versus peers.
Measures: gross profit/assets, ROIC, cash flow/assets, margins, ROE; debt, interest cover, Altman Z''; growth; share issuance, accruals, Piotroski F-score.
Trend
Price trend over the last 12 and 6 months (excluding the last month) and distance from the 52-week high.
Measures: 12-1 and 6-1 month total return, risk-adjusted 12-1 return, price versus the 52-week high.
Stability
Lower price swings, lower market sensitivity (beta) and shallower drawdowns score higher.
Measures: 1-year volatility, beta to the regional index, 3-year maximum drawdown.
Dividend safety
0–100 points: payout versus earnings and cash flow, debt, cut history, growth streak and how stretched the yield looks.
Measures: payout on normalised earnings and on free cash flow, debt, cut history, growth streak, yield versus its own history and peers.
Weights by profile
| Profile | Value | Quality | Trend | Stability | Dividend safety |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Growth | 30% | 35% | 25% | 10% | — |
| Balanced | 25% | 30% | 20% | 15% | 10% |
| Income | 20% | 25% | 10% | 15% | 30% |
Step by step
- Peers: an equity is compared within its GICS sector and region if that group has at least 20 rankable members, otherwise within its region, then globally. Russian companies are always compared only with Russian companies; BDCs, closed-end funds, ETFs and crypto each form their own groups.
- Percentiles: each measure is ranked inside the peer group (ties averaged; 'lower is better' measures inverted). A component needs at least 60 % of its measures; missing measures fall back to published substitutes, and the page names the one used.
- Scale: the combined percentile within the group becomes a score from 1 to 10 (10 = top tenth).
- Red flags: a hard flag caps the score at 3; each soft flag takes one point off (at most three); information flags do not change it.
- Confidence: the share of inputs that were available. Below 70 % the instrument gets a 'low confidence' note and is left out of curated lists.
- Non-payers: the Balanced profile spreads the dividend weight over the other components; the Income profile is not computed.
- Funds: closed-end funds and BDCs are judged on net asset value preservation, income coverage and the share of return of capital; ETFs on costs and structure (UCITS, key information document).
- Method
- v1
- Rules version
- methods-v1.0-2026-10-14+b4.2
- Last scoring run
- 15 Οκτ 2026, 06:20 UTC
Red flags
Warnings computed by fixed rules from filings and prices. They describe a risk; they do not predict it.
Hard flags
Cap the Smart Score at 3 and keep the instrument out of the curated screener presets.
- Serious warning:Accounting red flag Beneish M-score above −1.78 together with very high accruals: earnings may be overstated.
- Serious warning:Financial distress Altman Z in the distress zone and negative free cash flow.
- Serious warning:Yield trap Yield at least twice the peer median while the payout is not covered or debt is high.
- Serious warning:Heavy dilution Share count growing more than 10 % a year over three years.
Only a soft flag for REITs (they grow with new shares by design), for BDCs whose net asset value per share did not fall, after a share-for-share deal that kept equity per share with positive free cash flow, and for companies listed within the 3 years. - Serious warning:NAV erosion Net asset value per share falling while distributions exceed net investment income.
- Serious warning:Structural NAV erosion Option-income or similar structure: payouts are largely return of capital and the fund lags its underlying.
- Serious warning:Hype without news Small company, price more than doubled in a month, extreme social attention and no material filing.
Soft flags
Take one point off the score each, at most three.
- Caution:Dividend cut risk Dividend Safety below 40 points.
- Caution:Possible value trap Looks cheap, but business fundamentals are weak (Piotroski F-score 3 or lower).
- Caution:Dilution Share count growing 3–10 % a year over three years.
- Caution:High leverage Net debt above 4× EBITDA or interest cover below 2×.
- Caution:Cash burn Negative free cash flow in at least two of the last three years.
- Caution:Earnings quality Accruals or the Beneish M-score are in the watch zone.
- Caution:Dividend outgrows earnings Dividends grew 5+ points a year faster than earnings over five years and the payout is above 75 %.
- Caution:Reverse split At least one reverse split in the last three years.
Becomes a serious (hard) warning when the flag “NAV erosion” is also present. - Caution:Premium to NAV Trades more than 10 % above its net asset value, unusually high for this fund.
- Caution:Restricted market Capital controls or sanctions affect this market.
- Caution:Low liquidity Median daily trading below €100,000: wider spreads and harder exits.
- Caution:Payout above earnings Dividends exceed earnings or free cash flow.
- Caution:Negative equity Book equity is below zero.
Only an information note (no score change) when free cash flow is positive and debt is covered (net debt / EBITDA ≤ 4 and interest cover ≥ 3). - Caution:Russia: sanctions context Russian issuer or venue: EU/US sanctions, custody and dividend-transfer restrictions apply; check what your broker allows.
Information
Shown for context; they do not change the score.
- Sources disagree Dividend or fundamental sources disagree beyond tolerance.
- Thin data Less than 70 % of the score inputs are available.
- Negative equity Book equity is below zero.
Only an information note (no score change) when free cash flow is positive and debt is covered (net debt / EBITDA ≤ 4 and interest cover ≥ 3). - Unverified dividend A high yield reported by a single source only, not yet cross-checked.
- State dividend policy State-controlled issuer: the dividend follows budget rules, not only the business.
- Trend weight halved The regional market is in a panic state, so the trend factor counts half.
- Below $1 Price below one US dollar: not ranked against peers.
- Short history Less than one year of prices: not ranked yet.
Dividends and Dividend Safety
Every payment is cross-checked between independent sources before we call it verified.
Verification status
- VERIFIEDAt least two independent source families agree on the amount and the dates.
- SINGLEOnly one source family reports the payment.
- CONFLICTSources disagree: we show the median, and after 30 days Dividend Safety is capped at 59.
- ANNOUNCEDDeclared by the issuer but not yet paid.
Dividend safety
0–100 points: payout versus earnings and cash flow, debt, cut history, growth streak and how stretched the yield looks.
- Very safe
- 80–100
- Safe
- 60–79
- Borderline
- 40–59
- Unsafe
- 20–39
- Very unsafe
- 0–19
Bands of the 0–100 Dividend Safety points. A suspended or newly cut dividend scores 0; signs of distress cap it at 39.
Data sources and licences
Where each number comes from and on what terms we use it.
| Source | What we use | Licence or attribution |
|---|---|---|
| SEC EDGAR | Company filings: financial statements, declared dividends, 8-K events | Public data of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission |
| FRED® | US inflation, jobs, growth, policy rates and yields; Brent oil | Public-domain series, cited as 'Source: [agency] via FRED®' |
| ECB Data Portal · Eurostat | Euro-area rates, yields, inflation, unemployment and GDP; euro reference exchange rates | Reproduced with attribution: 'Source: ECB statistics' or 'Eurostat, via the ECB Data Portal' |
| Bank of Russia | Key rate, inflation, rouble exchange rates | Reproduced with attribution: 'Source: Bank of Russia (cbr.ru)' |
| CoinGecko | Crypto prices, changes and market capitalisation | Credited 'Powered by CoinGecko' |
| TradingView | Live index levels and interactive charts (embedded widgets) | Licensed by TradingView; attribution kept on every widget |
| Wikimedia | Page views behind the attention level | Wikimedia pageviews, CC0 |
| The GDELT Project | Index of media headlines | Credited 'News index: The GDELT Project' |
| Exchange and broker market data | Daily prices used to compute returns, volatility, trend and valuation ratios | Internal computation only: public pages show derived values (changes, ratios, scores), never raw prices or index levels |
Where sources disagree we say so (dividend status, data-conflict flag) instead of silently picking a number.
Update schedule
Jobs run every day on our servers; times in UTC.
| Data | When | Last successful run |
|---|---|---|
| Prices, indices, currencies, crypto | 05:10 · 14:40 · 21:30 UTC | 2026-10-15 05:54 UTC |
| Company fundamentals | 05:30 UTC | — |
| Dividends and the dividend calendar | 05:50 UTC | 2026-10-15 06:07 UTC |
| Macro data and the central-bank calendar | 06:00 UTC | 2026-10-15 06:00 UTC |
| Smart Scores, red flags and publication | 06:20 · 21:50 UTC | 2026-10-15 06:20 UTC |
| Filings and news | Every 2 hours | — |
| Daily market brief | 07:30 UTC | 2026-10-15 10:05 UTC |
Investment research disclosures
What the EU Market Abuse Regulation (MAR) requires us to tell you about the scores we publish.
What counts as a recommendation here
Smart Scores, red flags and Dividend Safety grades are opinions about instruments, so EU law treats them as investment recommendations. They are general research: the same for every reader, produced by fixed rules, not based on anyone's personal situation. They are not personal advice and not a call to buy, sell or hold.
Who produces them
The scores are computed automatically by the AI-Stock Invest rules engine; no analyst picks or adjusts individual instruments. Publisher: AI Stock Predictions (ai-stock-predictions.com). Questions and corrections: [email protected].
Meaning, horizon and validity
A score from 1 to 10 says where an instrument stands among its peers today (10 = top tenth on the combined measures). It has no price target and no time horizon, and it is valid until the next scoring run, when new data can change it. Each instrument page shows when its rating was completed and first published.
Scores are recomputed twice a day (about 06:20 and 21:50 UTC) under rules version methods-v1.0-2026-10-14+b4.2; any change of the method gets a new version.
12-month history
Every first rating and every change (a move of at least one point or a change of red flags) is logged with its date and time (UTC), the previous value, whether the operator held the instrument, and the price at that moment. Each instrument page lists the last 12 months at this address (the price column is shown to signed-in Pro and Elite subscribers only, because our price sources do not allow public display):
/el/invest/stock/{id}/{slug}#history
for example: ADI
Conflicts of interest
The operator and persons closely associated with the operator may hold positions in instruments we cover. The list below is rebuilt from the operator's current holdings at every scoring run, instrument pages carry a note while the operator holds the instrument, and each logged rating records whether the operator held it at that time.
Instruments we cover in which the operator holds, or recently held, a position
Orders that our autopilot proposes for the operator are blocked in an instrument for 48 hours after a rating on it is published, and never go against a rating change published in the last 7 days. This rule covers the autopilot only, not every account or trade of the operator.
Some pages of the site contain referral links to brokers; we may receive a commission if you open an account. Referral relationships never enter the scores.
We receive no payment from the issuers of the instruments we score.
Honest limits
What our data and methods cannot do.
- Price forecasts: in our own measurement, AI price forecasts were no better than a simple 'no change' guess (about 52 % right on the next day's direction). Plans that include them show them as an experimental extra, never as signals.
- Our own price history starts in 2023, too short to prove that any score beats the market. We rely on decades of published research and claim no track record of our own.
- Free data has gaps: no AFFO for REITs, no fund leverage details, no analyst estimate revisions, no look-through into fund holdings. A missing input lowers the score's confidence instead of being guessed.
- Scores describe the past and the present against peers. They change when the data changes and do not predict prices.
- Data can be late or wrong. Check the issuer's own documents before you decide.
- For Russian companies some fundamentals come from a broker feed we may use only internally: they shape the score but are not shown.
Your data
How the private tools treat your portfolio and broker connections.
- Broker connections accept read-only access; keys that allow trading or withdrawals are refused wherever the broker lets us check.
- Keys are encrypted with a key the web servers do not hold; only the separate sync service can open them.
- We never place, change or cancel orders in your account and never move money.
- You can disconnect a broker at any time, and its stored key is deleted.
- The AI-Stock Analyst is an automated system and says so; it answers from our data and does not give personal investment advice.
Contact: [email protected]
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