Theme leader
The stock a theme is traded through: when the theme moves, it moves.
The purest way to own a story the market is following. The research tracks the theme as closely as the company, because a leader rarely outruns a theme that is fading.
Glossary · 39 defined terms
Every term, defined once.
Archetypes, market regimes, conviction levels. Each definition is referenced by the dossiers and the daily journal. Citable, dated, stable.
Archetypes
Visual taxonomy →Picks and shovels
Sells what a theme consumes, and earns from the build-out rather than the outcome.
Suppliers of the chips, equipment, materials or services a boom needs. The research follows orders, backlog and the spending plans of the customers doing the building.
Second-order beneficiary
Not an AI company, but a supplier of what AI demand uses downstream: power, cooling, the grid.
Businesses that gain when data-centre build-outs pull demand through to them. The research follows the contracts, capacity and pricing that connect them to that spending.
Business pivot
An established company re-aimed at a new source of demand. The case is the turn, not the incumbency.
The research checks whether the new business is growing fast enough to change how the whole company is valued, and what the old business still contributes.
Event-driven
A dated event decides it: a trial readout, a deal closing, a contract, a ruling.
The outcome of one event matters more than the path to it. The research follows the milestones and the terms, and names the date that settles the case.
Crowd-driven
Moved more by trading flows, short interest and float than by the business.
These stocks can move far in either direction on positioning alone. The research says so plainly, and the kill line is usually tight.
Distinct case
Fits none of the other six cleanly, so it is read on its own terms.
Rather than force a stock into the nearest profile, the research keeps it separate and states the specific evidence that will decide it.
Regime classifier
Visual taxonomy →Risk-on
The S&P 500 is above its trend, most stocks are in uptrends and volatility is contained.
The daily read when the S&P 500 closes more than 0.5% above its 200-day exponential average, more than 60% of the 1,000 most liquid US stocks close above their own 50-day average (or 55% to 60% with the index at least 5% above its average), and the VIX is below 28. Published as context on every journal entry and dossier. No rule acts on it; Claude sees the same three inputs when it decides the portfolio.
Neutral
The three inputs disagree: no clear call either way.
The read whenever neither risk-on nor risk-off applies, for example the index above its trend while fewer than 55% of stocks are in uptrends. Published as context. No rule acts on it; Claude sees the same three inputs when it decides the portfolio.
Risk-off
The index has broken below its trend, most stocks are falling, or volatility is high.
The daily read when the S&P 500 closes more than 2% below its 200-day exponential average, fewer than 40% of the 1,000 most liquid US stocks close above their 50-day average, or the VIX is above 28. Published as context. No rule acts on it; Claude sees the same three inputs when it decides the portfolio.
Risk-off, sustained
The S&P 500 has closed below its 200-day average for ten sessions or more.
A risk-off read that has lasted: the index below its 200-day exponential average for at least ten consecutive sessions. Published as context.
Conviction levels
Supreme
The strongest conviction: the thesis, the balance sheet and the setup all line up.
Reserved for the rare case where the argument, the company's finances and the price action all point the same way. A supreme call opens a pick on the scoreboard.
High
A strong, well-sourced call with a near-term way to check it.
The bull case is sourced and the kill line is concrete and testable soon. A high call opens a pick on the scoreboard.
Medium
The case holds, but at least one part of it is contested.
The thesis stands and the model backs it, with a known open question. Medium is the lowest conviction that opens a pick on the scoreboard.
Low
Worth watching, not yet a call: the case is incomplete.
Often paired with a condition the model is waiting for, such as a confirming earnings report. Low-conviction dossiers are research coverage and do not open picks.
Research and market terms
Thesis
The call and the reason for it, in a paragraph, at the top of every dossier.
What the model expects and why, anchored in the sourced bull case. It is updated whenever the dossier is re-read, and the update date is shown on the page. When a pick opens, the thesis text at that moment is frozen on the scoreboard.
Kill line
The price, set in advance, that would prove a thesis wrong.
Usually a daily or weekly close below a specific price, sometimes paired with a business event such as a guidance cut. It is published before the market decides, and when a pick opens the kill line is frozen: if a close breaks it, the pick closes and is graded.
Catalyst calendar
Dated events the dossier expects to move the name.
Earnings dates, regulatory deadlines, sector catalysts, FOMC, CPI. Each entry is dated and references its source. The next-30-days slice is shown on the dossier page.
Theme cluster
A group of correlated names that move together on shared catalysts.
Themes are treated as primary, not afterthoughts. A name's basket co-movement is read alongside its standalone setup; Examples: Quantum computing, AI datacenter infrastructure, Squeeze & momentum setups.
Higher-low
A price low that holds above the previous low — a sign a recovering trend is holding.
Dossiers use it to describe a trend that is rebuilding; a close that breaks the sequence of higher lows is often the kill line.
Setup
The price-structure read: moving averages, RSI, levels, basing pattern, volume.
Moving averages, RSI, basing pattern, volume profile, levels. The dossier's 'Setup & Price Structure' section captures it in plain English.
Pick
A medium-or-higher conviction call, opened at the close and graded against the S&P 500.
A pick opens at the closing price on the day a dossier first states its thesis at medium conviction or higher, as long as that price is still above the thesis's own kill line. It closes when it breaks its kill line, when conviction is cut below medium, or after 63 trading days, and it counts as a win only if it beat the S&P 500 over the same days. Every pick stays on the scoreboard.
Benchmark
The S&P 500 (SPY), the yardstick every pick and the portfolio are measured against.
A pick only counts as a win if it beat the S&P 500 over exactly the same days. Returns on both sides include dividends and are adjusted for splits.
Versus the S&P 500
A pick's return minus the S&P 500's over the same days, in percentage points.
If a pick rose 8% while the S&P 500 rose 3% over the same window, it is 5 points ahead. This is the number the scoreboard grades.
Universe
The liquid US stocks the daily scan ranks by trend.
Every US stock with enough trading volume to be ranked. The scan narrows it to the strongest trends and themes; the stocks we cover in depth each get a dossier.
Market regime
The daily read of the market backdrop, set by fixed rules.
One of Risk-on, Choppy, Risk-off and a few stagflation variants, judged from the S&P 500's trend, market breadth and volatility and recorded on every journal entry. It informs how setups are read and is one of the market facts Claude weighs when it decides the portfolio; no rule sizes positions on it.
Open methodology
The reasoning, the portfolio and the record are all public.
Dossiers, regime calls, the portfolio and the scoreboard are all published, dated and sourced, along with the rules that produce them.
Portfolio
The public model portfolio: what we hold, since when, and how each position has done.
It is run at real market prices, from 5 October 2026. Claude decides what it holds every trading day, reviewing the proposals of two fixed, published rules with the research, and code places the orders under fixed limits. We publish each holding's entry date and percentage return, closed trades and the portfolio against the S&P 500 — never share counts or dollar amounts.
Scoreboard
Every pick since 1 October 2026, graded against the S&P 500.
The public record of every pick: when it opened, its kill line, how it has done against the S&P 500 and, once closed, whether it beat the market. The rule was fixed before any pick had an outcome, and every pick stays on the board.
Falsifiability
A claim only means something if some outcome could prove it wrong — the idea behind every kill line.
A call that no outcome could refute tells you nothing. That is why every dossier publishes the price that would prove it wrong, before the market decides.
Survivorship bias
Judging a record by its winners after the losers have quietly disappeared.
When losing calls are dropped and only winners are shown, any record looks skilled. The scoreboard is built against it: the grading rule was fixed in advance, every pick that opens is graded, and every graded pick stays listed.
Accelerating
Theme state: money and attention are arriving — more stocks joining in, fresh news flow.
The earliest of the four states a theme can be in. It has to be dated rather than asserted: a named catalyst, new coverage that did not exist a fortnight ago, a new kind of buyer. If attention thins while prices hold, the read moves to maturing.
Maturing
Theme state: well known and still working, but the flow behind it has slowed and the news repeats rather than expands.
The story is understood, the names still get a bid, and the headlines have stopped being new — target revisions on maintained ratings rather than fresh initiations. What separates it from saturated is that participation is still there: a maturing theme is being held, a saturated one is being distributed. It is the most common state across our coverage, as you would expect when most themes we track have already been discovered.
Saturated
Theme state: the story has gone mainstream and the supply of new buyers has thinned.
Late-cycle attention: mainstream coverage, analyst targets at or below the price, good results that no longer move the stock. The story can still be true and the business can still be growing — saturation is about who is left to buy, not about the fundamentals. If the price trend breaks, the next state is dead.
Dead
Theme state: the story failed or its price trend broke.
The final state. It describes the theme and its price trend, not the companies: a theme can be dead while the businesses behind it keep growing. What ends a theme is a catalyst that fired and produced nothing, or a price level, published in advance, that was lost.
In the portfolio
We hold this stock in the public portfolio right now.
The portfolio page shows when we bought it and how it has done since. The dossier gives the reasoning and the kill line.
Watching
On our radar but not in the portfolio.
A stock in an active theme, in our core coverage of the largest US companies, or carrying a standing call. A medium-or-higher call on it opens a pick on the scoreboard, and every open pick is re-read every trading day.
Recently sold
The portfolio sold this stock recently; we keep reading it.
The closed trade and its result are on the portfolio page, and the research continues so you can see what happened next.
Covered
In our research coverage, refreshed on a rolling cycle.
Includes the largest and most-searched US companies, which we always cover, and stocks in the themes we track. Each dossier shows when it was last updated.
Common questions
What does "Kill line" mean in the FrontierPicks research?
The price, set in advance, that would prove a thesis wrong. Usually a daily or weekly close below a specific price, sometimes paired with a business event such as a guidance cut. It is published before the market decides, and when a pick opens the kill line is frozen: if a close breaks it, the pick closes and is graded.
What does "Thesis" mean in the FrontierPicks research?
The call and the reason for it, in a paragraph, at the top of every dossier. What the model expects and why, anchored in the sourced bull case. It is updated whenever the dossier is re-read, and the update date is shown on the page. When a pick opens, the thesis text at that moment is frozen on the scoreboard.
What does "Supreme" mean in the FrontierPicks research?
The strongest conviction: the thesis, the balance sheet and the setup all line up. Reserved for the rare case where the argument, the company's finances and the price action all point the same way. A supreme call opens a pick on the scoreboard.