Methodology
Ways to develop a market POV
Four approaches to deciding what to buy or sell.
Methodology
Four approaches to deciding what to buy or sell.
Methodology
Four approaches to deciding what to buy or sell, what each is good for, what each gets wrong, and where on this site you'll find the underlying data.
Why a POV first
Every trade starts with a point of view (POV): bullish, bearish, or neutral. Without one, position sizing, stops, and exits have nothing to anchor to.
The four methods below are different routes to a POV. They're not mutually exclusive; many traders blend two or three (fundamentals to pick a name, technicals to time entry, quants to size the position). Pick the one(s) that match your holding horizon and decision style.
FA
Reads a company as a business: revenue, profitability, balance sheet strength, management quality, industry position, and forward guidance.
What you actually do
Pull the latest quarterly + annual results, check growth rates and margins, compare against industry peers, and form a view on whether the current price reflects the underlying earnings power.
Example POV
“Q4 revenue +25%, EBITDA margin held, guidance reiterated. PE 32 vs industry median 28 (slight premium but justified by growth). Bullish view; buy.”
Verdict: buyWorks well for
Multi-quarter to multi-year holding horizons.
Watch out for
Numbers can be late (last filed quarter may be 2-3 months old) and a fundamentally sound business can stay flat for years if market sentiment is elsewhere.
TA
Reads the price chart and order-flow data: trends, support / resistance, moving averages, momentum oscillators, and candlestick patterns.
What you actually do
Identify the trend on multiple timeframes, mark levels where buyers and sellers have previously turned the price, confirm with an indicator (RSI / MACD / volume), and set entries and stops around those levels.
Example POV
“Stock at 50-day MA support, MACD positive crossover, bullish engulfing candle on daily, RSI 45 (not overbought). Short-term bullish; buy with stop below the swing low.”
Verdict: buyWorks well for
Intraday, swing, and position trading (days to months).
Watch out for
Indicators lag price, so signals often fire after the move has started. Patterns frequently fail in choppy markets; risk management matters more than the signal itself.
On this site
QA
Statistical and model-driven: ratios, distributions, mean-reversion, factor exposures, backtested rules. Treats the market as data to be measured.
What you actually do
Pick a measurable signal (PE z-score vs history, momentum percentile, sector relative strength), check it against a baseline, and act when the signal is at a statistical extreme.
Example POV
“Stock's trailing PE is at +3 standard deviations vs its 5-year mean (historically a 1% tail). Mean-reversion probability is high; sell or trim.”
Verdict: sellWorks well for
Systematic, rules-based investing across a basket of stocks.
Watch out for
Backtests look better than live results. Edges decay as more people trade them. Watch for survivorship bias and look-ahead leakage in any rule you build.
Outside
Acting on someone else's analysis: TV anchors, broker research, social media calls, newsletter recommendations, friends.
What you actually do
Read or watch the recommendation, apply it directly without independent verification.
Example POV
“Analyst on a business news channel said buy; therefore, buy.”
Verdict: holdWorks well for
Discovery (finding names you'd never have seen), but not as the final decision step.
Watch out for
You inherit the analyst's biases, holding period, position size, and exit plan (none of which match yours). SEBI requires research-analyst registration (INH...) for anyone making public recommendations; check the licence before trusting anyone.
Closing note
The POV that survives losses is the one you've built yourself. Outside views work as a starting point for discovery, but replacing your analysis with someone else's leaves you no way to update when the thesis breaks.
Anything on this site is data and structure. No buy / sell calls, no recommendations.