Stock research scores, explained without the hype

A stock score is a bit like a restaurant rating. Useful, quick, and dangerous if you treat it as the meal itself. Plenty of sites will hand you a number with a confident colour next to it. Fewer will tell you what the number is actually measuring. Here's our attempt.

What a research score is (and isn't)

A research score is a summary of a set of rules applied to a company's numbers. That's it. It is not a forecast, a price target or a nudge to do anything. At Llsted, our house score is called S.I.F.T. – Safety, Income, Fundamentals, Time – and it is research, not advice. The rules are published, so you can see exactly how we got there and disagree with us properly.

If a score can't explain itself, be suspicious of it. If it promises returns, be more suspicious still.

Quality and timing are different questions

This is the bit most scores blur. "Is this a good business?" and "Is now a sensible moment to look at it?" are two separate questions. A wonderful company can be priced for perfection. A dull one can be quietly cheap.

Llsted keeps them apart. The quality side looks at the business. The price/timing gate is a separate label on the company page, where a price feed is available: "Below", "Near" or "Above our value estimate". It moves with the price and is not part of the score, the colour or the band, which describe the business only. A company can look strong on one and not the other, and we show that plainly rather than mashing it into one flattering number.

Where the numbers come from

Financial figures come from each company's official filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Share prices come from a market-data provider and are shown with their date. The result lands in a band: Strong (80+), Adequate (60–79) or Caution (below 60). A band describes the score, not an action.

A blank is a blank

When a figure isn't available from the data provider, Llsted shows "Not available". It is never filled in to make the page look finished, and a company with no usable figures shows no score. We'd rather show you a gap than a guess.

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How to actually use a score

A score is a starting point for reading, not the end of it. A sensible routine looks like this:

1. Read the score, then read the method. If you can't say why a company scored the way it did, you don't know enough yet.
2. Check quality and timing separately. A pass on one and a fail on the other is information, not a contradiction.
3. Ask what would break it. Write down the one thing that would undermine the case before you read anything flattering.
4. Write your thesis down. Your dated journal is where the score stops being ours and the decision becomes yours.

What the letters stand for

Safety is a margin of safety before any chase of upside. Income is the stability of what the business pays you to wait. Fundamentals means tested figures, not a story about next quarter. Time is time in the market: the thesis has to survive it. The full method is published at llsted.com/method.

FAQ

Is a S.I.F.T. score a buy or sell signal? No. S.I.F.T. is research, not advice. It summarises published rules applied to a company's numbers. What you do with it is your call.

Why separate quality from timing? Because a good business and a good moment are different things. Keeping the price/timing gate separate stops one from hiding the other.

What if a figure is missing? It is shown as "Not available". Blanks are never filled in, and a company with no usable figures shows no score.

Start your free 30-day trial

Read the scores, ask what would break the story, and write your own thesis down before the market writes it for you. Start your free 30-day Llsted trial: $0 for 30 days, and the price is shown again before any paid seat starts. Paid seats open soon. No card is taken today.

Not investment advice. Llsted provides research and a journal; decisions are yours.