What this is, and what it is not

The Tape is a screening and market-analytics tool. It shows you where prices have been and flags shapes in them. It does not tell you what to buy, what to sell, or when.

We are not a registered investment adviser, a broker-dealer, or a financial planner, and nothing here is personalised advice. Nothing on this site takes account of your circumstances, your goals, your tax position, or how much you can afford to lose — because it knows none of those things.

There is no order-placing code in this project and there never will be.

The screens find structures — a base, a pivot, a stretch of tightening range. A stock appearing on a screen means it currently matches a shape. It does not mean the shape will resolve upward, or at all.

This is not hedging for the sake of it. An out-of-sample study on a US universe found that the structural components of these patterns carried no measurable edge on their own. The one component with statistical support was relative strength. That result is why relative strength is the primary ranking everywhere on this site and why base detection is presented as a timing and presentation layer rather than as a reason to expect a return.

Backtest results describe what a set of rules would have done on past data. They are simulations. No money was placed, no order was filled, and nothing about them carries forward.

Two limitations are large enough that we badge the numbers provisional wherever they appear rather than footnote them:

• Survivorship bias. Our data source’s free tier carries no delisted companies. Every backtest here only ever saw names that survived to today, and the companies that failed — the ones a real strategy would have been holding — are simply absent. Every return figure is flattered by this, and we cannot tell you by how much.
• Approximate earnings dates. Historical earnings dates are projected backwards on a quarterly cadence from the next known date, so any rule that avoids earnings is avoiding an estimate of them.

Costs are modelled as a flat round-trip figure. Slippage, partial fills, borrow costs, taxes and the difference between a closing price and the price you would actually have got are not modelled at all.

Prices come from a market-data provider and are end-of-day, not live. Nothing on this site is a real-time quote. Company details come from SEC filings. Earnings dates and options data come from a public, unofficial source and are best-effort — when they are unavailable the site shows less rather than guessing.

The data on this build is real market data, refreshed after each close. Data can be wrong, late, or missing. We do not warrant that any figure here is accurate or complete, and you should verify anything that matters against your broker or the primary source.

You can use almost all of this site without an account. An account exists so that a watchlist and your saved screens follow you between devices.

If you make one, it holds your email address, your watchlist and your saved screens. Sign-in is a one-time emailed code, so there is no password for us to store or lose. We do not sell anything to anyone, and there is no advertising on this site.

This site is provided as it is, without warranty of any kind. It may be wrong, it may be down, and it may change without notice. To the fullest extent the law allows, we are not liable for any loss arising from your use of it or from anything you decide after reading it.

Trading and investing carry risk, including the risk of losing more than you put in. Past performance does not indicate future results. If you need advice, get it from someone licensed to give it to you.