StockMarks™ Algorithm

Our research process is derived from a proprietary rating algorithm - StockMarks™ - which uses public data updated daily. StockMarks™ is the most comprehensive rating system, combining financial analysis with advanced space-time mathematics in a mix of fundamental and technical analysis. Rather than a simple buy/sell recommendation, StockMarks™ offers the ability to analyze companies from multiple angles, offering 9 different ratings. Combining the chosen ratings provides the ability to create advanced diversification strategies. Internal backtesting, adjusted for out-of-bound and survivorship bias, consistently places our accuracy above market consensus. What separates StockMarks™ from other rating systems is its clear objective of long-term returns. Most of the often-used and widely reported analyst figures are estimates for quarterly earnings and yearly price targets. But these figures are highly susceptible to short-term volatility and unpredictable market conditions. Therefore, we believe that more objective investments decisions can be made by looking at a company’s long-term outlook. Rather than a simple buy/sell recommendation, StockMarks™ offers the ability to analyze companies from multiple angles, offering 50 ratings and sub ratings that are aggregated to provide a broad picture of a company as an investment.

Our methodology does not allow analysts to introduce “subjective decisions” to our recommendations or re-weight the rating criteria; it cannot be overridden to accommodate embarrassing or client sensitive information. Indeed, rather than outsourced to foreign analyst writers (a growing industry trend), our reports are computer generated. We believe that this small loss in “literary attractiveness” is largely compensated by more consistent, easy to follow and cost efficient reports. StockMarks™'s methodology is regularly tested and validated for periods longer than six months: internal backtesting, adjusted for out-of-bound and survivorship bias, consistently places our accuracy above market consensus. Regular external testing of our U.S. stock recommendations is also carried out by the BNY ConvergEx’s Jaywalk Independent Research Provider Performance monitoring system and is available on the ConvergEx Group and Investars platforms. The spread of our recommendations is not constrained to give a small percentage of sell recommendations. Indeed, our negative ratings often make up a significant percentage of the total, and we do not follow a pre-defined statistical distribution. The strength of our analysis derives from our truly unbiased approach and superior analytic methodology.