Glossary

The terms you'll see across CycleIQ, in plain words.

The reading

Phase: Where a company sits in its own business cycle, one of four: Recovery (below its own average, turning up), Expansion (above its own average, strengthening), Topping (above its own average, momentum fading) and Contraction (below its own average, weakening).
Reading: The phase CycleIQ places a company in this quarter, with the reasons behind it.
Its own average: The company's typical level over its own history. CycleIQ measures every company against itself, not against other companies or a price target.
Cycle signal: How far this company is running from its own average, its typical level over its own history, not a comparison with other companies, and not a price target. Zero is that average, which is not the same as zero growth or break-even: a business that has reliably grown 20% a year sits near zero, because that is ordinary for it. Above zero means it is running stronger than its own history, below zero weaker. Nine in ten companies sit between -1 and +1, so anything past 1.5 either way is genuinely unusual; only 3% of the companies we cover get there.
Signal change: How far the cycle signal moved since the previous quarter (on Monthly Update, since the last update). Positive means it improved.
Direction: Which way this company's cycle signal moved this quarter, and how strongly. A single quarter can move against the phase without changing it: a phase changes only once a move is confirmed, so a company can be in Recovery and still have weakened this quarter. The steps are Sharply Improving, Improving, Stable, Weakening and Sharply Weakening.

How solid it is

Evidence score: Strong, Moderate or Weak. How solid this quarter's reading is: whether the company's numbers agree with each other, how long the move has lasted, and how long the phase has held. In our tests, two quarters after a Strong reading, 3 in 4 companies were still heading the same way. After a Weak reading, about half were.
Signal maturity: How long this phase has already held, counting back from the latest quarter. Early is one quarter or less, Developing two to three, Established four or more. It says nothing about whether the phase is good news, only how settled the reading is. A phase that changed last quarter is the one most likely to be revised.
Price alignment: High, Medium or Low. How closely this company's stock has followed its business in the past: did the stock tend to rise when the business was improving, and fall when it was weakening? Companies in energy, utilities and transportation, drugs and biotech, and real estate, construction and hotels carry a caution (⚠), because their prices often follow commodity prices, trial results or other forces outside the business. Across all the companies we cover, as a group, stocks of businesses that improved sharply outperformed the S&P 500 in about 4 of every 5 quarters, and those that weakened sharply trailed it in 5 of every 6 quarters.
Industry caution ⚠: Energy, utilities and transportation companies, drug makers and biotech, and real estate, construction and hotel companies are covered, but their Price alignment carries a caution (⚠): their share prices often follow commodity prices, trial results or other forces outside the business.

The lists

Companies we cover: We cover operating companies that file 10-Q and 10-K reports with the SEC, with at least $50 million in revenue over the last twelve months, a quarter reported in the last six months, and at least two years of quarterly history. Banks, insurers, REITs, exchanges and commodity pools aren't included, since the standard business metrics don't fit them.
Leading signals: The clearest cases in each phase. Ranked by Price alignment (how closely the stock has followed the business), then Evidence score (how solid this quarter's reading is), then how strongly the company is moving.
Monthly update: A comparison of the latest filings with the previous month's: which companies changed phase, which moved most, and how each sector shifted.

Institutions

Institution: A firm managing $100 million or more in US-listed shares, which must report its holdings to the SEC each quarter on Form 13F.
Meaningful change: A change in a holding big enough to signal a decision, rather than routine trimming.
Cycle investor: An institution that buys or sells more than usual when companies are in a particular phase. Its lean in that phase is its phase pattern, measured against its own usual rate.
Index-like: A portfolio that follows the market's weights, so its moves are mostly rebalancing rather than decisions. Index-like portfolios get no phase pattern.

Filings and abbreviations

10-Q, 10-K: The quarterly and annual reports US companies file with the SEC. Every figure on a company page comes from them.
13F: The quarterly holdings report institutions file with the SEC. It shows long positions in US-listed shares only, up to 45 days after the quarter ends.
SEC ID: The SEC's permanent number for a filer (its CIK), for looking it up on EDGAR.
SIC code: The SEC's industry code for a company. Peers are drawn from the same SIC code.
YoY: Compared with the same quarter a year earlier.
QoQ: Compared with the previous quarter.
EPS: Earnings per share.
COGS: Cost of goods sold.
SG&A: Selling, general and administrative costs (overhead).
Last twelve months: The four most recent quarters added together. Used for revenue, so one strong or weak quarter doesn't swing a company's size.

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