Methodology
Sources & Research Log
Where every number on this site actually comes from — aggregated across all 32 security pages, 28 earnings reports, and 15 watchlist deep dives, not asserted once and left unchecked.
The sourcing hierarchy
Not all sources on this site carry equal weight, and I try to be explicit about which tier a given number comes from:
- Portfolio truth — every dollar value, average cost, and return figure comes from Blossom, linked directly to my brokerage. Nothing here is typed in by hand.
- Live pricing — ticker-bar and chart prices come from Massive Market Data, refreshed by an automated daily pipeline.
- Primary filings — earnings figures are sourced first from SEC Form 8-K/6-K/10-Q filings and company investor-relations releases (intc.com, investor.atmeta.com, ir.crowdstrike.com, and similar, cited directly on each report).
- Secondary financial media — Yahoo Finance, CNBC, StockTitan, Motley Fool, and similar outlets are used to cross-check primary figures and fill in consensus-estimate context, never as the sole source for a hard number.
- Fundamentals aggregators — for Watchlist entries specifically (market cap, P/E, dividend yield), figures are drawn from public.com, fullratio.com, financecharts.com, gurufocus.com, and macrotrends.net and cross-referenced across at least two before publishing.
- Macro & rates data — 2Y/10Y Treasury constant-maturity yields come from Massive Market Data's Federal Reserve economic-data endpoint; the Fed Funds target range and the ICE BofA High-Yield Credit Spread (OAS) are sourced from public FOMC statements and FRED, cited on the homepage's Yield Curve & Credit monitor.
- Competitor comparisons — every "Compare vs. competitors" page cites the non-AEA company's own fundamentals (market cap, margins, growth rate) from public filings and financial-data aggregators, researched specifically for that comparison rather than pulled from the same feed used for AEA's own holdings.
Source frequency across the site
A count of how often each source type actually appears in citations across every position, earnings, and watchlist page — not a curated highlight reel.
| Source | Times cited | Used for |
|---|---|---|
| SEC Form 8-K / 6-K / 10-Q / S-1 | 14 | Primary earnings and filing data |
| Yahoo Finance | 10 | Cross-checking earnings figures, general market data |
| public.com | 10 | Watchlist fundamentals (market cap, P/E) |
| StockTitan | 6 | Earnings release aggregation |
| fullratio.com | 8 | Watchlist fundamentals cross-check |
| financecharts.com | 7 | Watchlist fundamentals cross-check |
| Investing.com | 5 | Earnings coverage, consensus estimates |
| macrotrends.net | 5 | Watchlist fundamentals cross-check |
| gurufocus.com | 5 | Watchlist fundamentals cross-check |
| CNBC | 4 | Earnings coverage |
| Tickeron | 4 | Earnings coverage |
| companiesmarketcap.com | 4 | Watchlist market-cap cross-check |
| Company investor-relations sites | 10+ | Direct earnings releases (ir.crowdstrike.com, investor.atmeta.com, etc.) |
Where to find full citations
Every individual claim is cited on the page it appears on, not just here in aggregate. For a specific number, check the "Source" or "Sources" line at the bottom of the relevant security page, earnings report, or watchlist entry.
What this page doesn't cover
Editorial content — the Letters, Opinion, and News sections — carries its own inline citations where a specific claim needs one, but isn't tallied here since that content is analysis and argument, not sourced financial data in the same sense as a position's fundamentals.