How a note is made.
A research note is a claim about a business. The honest ones ship with the evidence attached and with the conditions under which the claim would be withdrawn. This page describes the mechanics: the six phases a note moves through, and the things the practice declines to do. The coverage focus, US-listed mid, small, and micro caps, is described on the about page.
Notes are built in six phases. Each phase writes to a single, continuous source ledger; the ledger travels with the note from diligence through publication and into the public changelog. The reader sees the same ledger we do. A figure they cannot trace is a figure we should not have published.
What follows is the operating description. Every note conforms to it, or it carries an exception clause on its first page explaining why not.
Intake
Names are selected against a written coverage mandate. The mandate is public on the company page of record and states the reason the name is under coverage, the horizon over which we intend to follow it, and the analyst of record. Before diligence opens, an independence-and-conflicts check is completed and filed.
- Written coverage mandate, public
- Independence & conflicts check, dated, filed with the editor
- Analyst of record assigned; back-up analyst named
Diligence
Sources are strictly the company's own primary disclosures filed with the SEC. Every piece of evidence is logged to a running source ledger with the EDGAR accession number, the filing date, and the page or section reference. Evidence never enters the note except through the ledger. The reader sees the same ledger we do.
- 10-K (annual report), 10-Q (quarterly report), 8-K (current report) and their exhibits
- DEF 14A (proxy statement)
- S-1, S-3, S-4 (registration statements) and 424 (prospectus)
- Schedule 13D / 13G (beneficial ownership), Form 4 (insider transactions)
- Press releases and investor presentations only when filed as 8-K exhibits
- No paid databases, no expert networks, no off-record briefings, no leaked decks
Modelling
Every model carries a base case, an explicit bear case and an explicit bull case, with probability weights and the specific assumptions behind each. Sensitivities are published. No hidden weights. No black-box multiples. The model file is named and versioned in the source ledger.
- Base / bear / bull with editorial probability weights
- Sensitivity tables on the three levers that dominate the arithmetic
- Model file indexed in the ledger (e.g., SHW_FY26E_v4.2.xlsx)
Review
Editorial review, peer review, and a named red-team reviewer. The red-team reviewer is assigned at intake and is required to write a signed challenge before the note leaves the desk. If the red-team challenge produces material revision, the revision is logged as a pre-publication changelog entry.
- Editorial review (tone, clarity, internal consistency)
- Peer review (a second analyst familiar with the sector)
- Red-team challenge (a named dissenter, signed)
Publish
A web note paired with a PDF of record. Both are timestamped and versioned. Both are signed by analyst and reviewer. The first page of every note states the analyst of record, the reviewer, the red-team reviewer, the page count, and the number of sources in the ledger.
- Web note + PDF of record
- Version number on the first page
- Analyst, reviewer, red-team reviewer named on every note
Maintain
Quarterly refresh within 10 business days of each quarter-end earnings release. Material-event updates as they arise. A dated public changelog on every company page. When we are wrong, the changelog says so; when we revise an assumption, the changelog says which one.
- Quarterly maintenance update (within 10 business days of Q-end)
- Material-event updates as required
- Public changelog, per company, dated, signed, preserved
Every note lists the conditions under which the thesis breaks.
A rating compresses an argument into a letter. A falsification clause forces the argument to name the evidence that would break it. The reader is owed that. Where the market's belief disagrees with ours, we describe the asymmetry without advising the trade, because that decision belongs to the reader, with their horizon, their mandate and their risk.
The section titled what would change our view appears on every note and is always free to read. It is the neutrality contract made visible: four to six plain-English conditions, quantified where possible, which if materially observed trigger a re-write and a public changelog entry, not a rating action, because there is no rating.
What we do not publish
The contract is not only about what is in the note. It is also about what is deliberately absent.
Tools
Instruments the desk uses while writing notes. Each one has a public methodology and is built on the same source filings the prose draws from.
Management tone, plotted against revenue and net‑profit growth.
Loughran-McDonald sentiment scoring of every 10-K's MD&A across the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100, plotted on a dual-axis chart against compounded revenue and net-profit growth so the tone can be read against the numbers, not on top of them. 515 tickers covered.
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