Methodology

From public data to a defensible decision

No black boxes. Here is exactly how a ticker becomes a verdict.

The NorthStar engine

The 7-Stage Intelligence Pipeline

A systematic research process in the Sterling tradition. Every ticker travels the same seven stages — each one refining signal strength, so what surfaces at the end has earned your attention.

Screen

The S&P universe is filtered by market cap, volume, sector, risk tier and star rating — narrowing thousands of data points to a working shortlist in under a second.

Score

The six NorthStar factors — Momentum, Value, Quality, Sentiment, Macro-Alignment and Smart-Money — fuse under our proprietary regime-aware weighting into a single 0–100 composite and a 1–5★ rating.

Analyze

Fundamentals, price action and news are decomposed so every sub-score shows its inputs. You always see which factor carries the score and which drags it — never a black box.

Stage 4 · AI

Thesis

The AI Coach reads the full scored context — factors, macro regime, smart-money and your risk profile — and drafts a plain-English investment thesis explaining why. What reaches Stage 4 is worth your attention. A research explainer, never a broker.

Alert

Rating-change, price and smart-money-convergence triggers watch your shortlist for you — delivered by email the moment the picture shifts.

Track

Every name you follow is re-scored daily. Score deltas, verdict flips, regime shifts and convergence flags surface automatically on your watchlist.

Review

Portfolio-level review closes the loop: position scores, concentration warnings and regime-aware guidance across everything you hold — so the whole book is seen, not just single tickers.

Only Stages 1–7 that we ship. The pipeline maps exactly to what is live today — scoring, analysis and AI thesis — plus alert, track and review. It never executes trades or touches your brokerage account.

Under the hood: how a ticker becomes a verdict

Ingest the public-data goldmine

Every day CloviTrade mines public government and regulatory data others overlook — official corporate filings (fundamentals, institutional holdings, insider transactions), 38 macroeconomic series, congressional-trade disclosures, market prices and news headlines. These sources are free and legally redistributable — which is why our cost floor, and your price, stays low.

Compute the six factors

For each of the 503 S&P stocks we compute decomposed sub-scores — momentum, value, quality, sentiment, macro-alignment and smart-money — using open, auditable analytics libraries under our own proprietary weighting formula. Every sub-score shows its inputs.

Blend into the NorthStar score

The factors blend into a 1–5★ NorthStar composite with a verdict (strong / neutral / weak). Because the decomposition is visible, you can always see which factor carries the score and which drags it.

Frame it in the macro regime

The same daily run classifies the macro regime — rates, inflation, credit conditions, risk appetite — and computes the fear-greed index. Scores are presented inside that frame: a 4★ cyclical in a risk-off regime reads differently than in a risk-on one.

Overlay smart money and news

Institutional holdings changes, insider transactions and congressional trades are matched per ticker; convergence of all three is flagged. News sentiment feeds the sentiment factor and your alerts.

Coach the decision in plain English

The AI Coach reads the full scored context — factors, regime, smart money, your risk profile — and answers why in plain English. It is a research explainer, not a broker: CloviTrade never executes trades or touches your brokerage account.

What about bots? Strategy bots (paper trading first, stocks then stock options) are on the roadmap as an add-on pillar — driven by this same scoring engine, so research and automation share one brain. Bots roadmap →

The pipeline at a glance

Reading the NorthStar rating

The 0–100 composite maps to a 1–5★ rating and a plain verdict. Same scale for every stock, every day.

★★★★★

Strong Buy

Composite ≥ 85 — conviction across the factor stack.

★★★★☆

Buy

70–84 — favourable, with one or two factors lagging.

★★★☆☆

Watch Closely

50–69 — mixed signal; wait for confirmation.

★★☆☆☆

Reduce

35–49 — deteriorating; trim on strength.

★☆☆☆☆

Sell

Below 35 — the factor stack is against it.

Each rating is also framed by a five-tier risk pyramid (Low → High) and the current macro regime — a 4★ name in a risk-off regime reads differently than in a risk-on one. Ratings are research signals, not instructions to trade.

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