{ "format": "relay-research-topics", "updated": "2026-09-17", "purpose": "Educational stock-trading research questions and paper experiments. No guaranteed returns, live quotes, stock recommendations, or trade execution.", "topics": [ { "id": "stock-selection", "category": "opportunities", "label": "Find opportunities", "question": "Which stocks could be undervalued?", "description": "Turn a promising company into a researchable thesis about price, business performance, and what the market may be missing.", "steps": [ "Compare revenue, cash flow, debt, and valuation with a stated peer group using dated filings.", "Write the upside case, the downside case, and the evidence that would invalidate the thesis.", "Separate facts from forecasts and build a watchlist with an explicit review date." ], "deliverable": "A sourced watchlist and competing valuation scenarios.", "prompt": "Could these stocks be undervalued? Build a research watchlist from dated company filings. Compare cash flow, debt, valuation and peers; separate facts from estimates. State upside and downside cases, what would invalidate each thesis, and the missing data. Use current prices only if a verified source is available and timestamp them. Produce research, not a trade instruction.", "sources": [ { "title": "SEC: How to read a 10-K", "url": "https://www.investor.gov/introduction-investing/getting-started/researching-investments/how-read-10-k" } ] }, { "id": "earnings-news", "category": "opportunities", "label": "Find opportunities", "question": "Is this earnings move an opportunity?", "description": "Investigate whether a price move reflects new business information, changing expectations, or a story that needs stronger evidence.", "steps": [ "Start with the company's dated release and filing; distinguish reported results from guidance.", "Compare the news with expectations known before the release, if reliable historical estimates are available.", "Test a specific explanation against alternatives and identify what remains unknown." ], "deliverable": "An event brief with timestamps, alternative explanations, and open questions.", "prompt": "Investigate this earnings or news-driven stock move. Cite the original dated release and filing. Separate results, guidance, prior expectations and speculation. Use only information available at the decision time; say when historical estimates or market data are missing. Compare at least two explanations and propose a paper test before drawing a trading conclusion.", "sources": [ { "title": "SEC: How to read an 8-K", "url": "https://www.investor.gov/introduction-investing/general-resources/news-alerts/alerts-bulletins/investor-bulletins/how-read-8" } ] }, { "id": "entry-exit", "category": "strategies", "label": "Test an edge", "question": "Should I buy, wait, or sell?", "description": "Make the decision criteria explicit: the thesis, the time horizon, the evidence needed, and the conditions for changing your mind.", "steps": [ "Define entry, review, and exit conditions before looking at the outcome.", "Compare buying, waiting, and exiting in a paper experiment with the same assumptions.", "Model execution: a market order does not guarantee a price, and a limit order may not fill." ], "deliverable": "A conditional decision plan and a paper-trade journal.", "prompt": "Turn this trading thesis into a conditional buy/wait/sell research plan. State the horizon, required evidence, entry and exit conditions, and what would change the thesis. Compare alternatives in a paper experiment with fees, spread and possible non-fills. Explain order-type tradeoffs. Flag missing inputs rather than inventing prices or presenting a personal trade recommendation.", "sources": [ { "title": "SEC: Types of orders", "url": "https://www.investor.gov/introduction-investing/investing-basics/how-stock-markets-work/types-orders" } ] }, { "id": "strategy-edge", "category": "strategies", "label": "Test an edge", "question": "Can a strategy beat a simple benchmark?", "description": "Explore momentum, value, or your own idea with a fair comparison that includes losing periods and the cost of acting on the signal.", "steps": [ "Write the rules, universe, benchmark, and data vintage before testing.", "Keep a later period separate from strategy design; include delisted names where the method requires them.", "Report net results, turnover, drawdowns, and failed variants alongside the winning result." ], "deliverable": "A reproducible strategy comparison with an honest failure case.", "prompt": "Test whether a clearly specified momentum or value strategy adds value versus a suitable simple benchmark. Record rules, universe, data vintage and timestamps. Separate strategy design from a later evaluation period. Account for fees, spread, slippage and delisted stocks. Report turnover, drawdowns, failed variants and limitations. Historical factor data is evidence to examine, not a forecast of returns.", "sources": [ { "title": "Kenneth R. French: Historical research data", "url": "https://mba.tuck.dartmouth.edu/pages/faculty/ken.french/data_library.html" }, { "title": "Bailey et al.: Backtest overfitting", "url": "https://www.davidhbailey.com/dhbpapers/backtest-prob.pdf" } ] }, { "id": "risk-sizing", "category": "risk", "label": "Manage risk & costs", "question": "How much could this trade lose?", "description": "Look beyond a single target price. Examine position size, concentration, overnight gaps, and what several losses would do to a portfolio.", "steps": [ "Compare hypothetical position sizes under ordinary declines, price gaps, and several losses in a row.", "Show how similar holdings could fall together; diversification cannot eliminate market losses.", "Treat stop prices as instructions, not guaranteed loss limits." ], "deliverable": "A scenario table showing exposure, loss, and recovery requirements.", "prompt": "Build an illustrative position-sizing and drawdown study using hypothetical inputs. Compare several position sizes, correlated holdings, overnight gaps and consecutive losses. Show dollar and percentage losses and the gain needed to recover. Explain why a stop order does not guarantee the stop price. Do not infer my risk tolerance or choose an allocation for me.", "sources": [ { "title": "SEC: Asset allocation and diversification", "url": "https://www.investor.gov/introduction-investing/getting-started/asset-allocation" }, { "title": "SEC: Stop and other order types", "url": "https://www.investor.gov/introduction-investing/investing-basics/how-stock-markets-work/types-orders" } ] }, { "id": "net-profit", "category": "risk", "label": "Manage risk & costs", "question": "Does the profit survive trading costs?", "description": "Find out how much of an apparent edge remains after commissions, the bid–ask spread, slippage, and repeated trading.", "steps": [ "Separate gross returns from net returns and list every included and excluded cost.", "Vary turnover, spread, and slippage assumptions instead of relying on one optimistic estimate.", "Compare with a lower-turnover alternative over the same period and report the break-even cost." ], "deliverable": "A cost sensitivity table and a clearly labelled break-even estimate.", "prompt": "Check whether this hypothetical strategy remains profitable after costs. Separate gross and net performance. State assumptions for commissions, bid-ask spread, slippage and turnover; include borrowing costs if relevant. Test adverse cost scenarios and compare a lower-turnover benchmark. Report the break-even cost and explicitly identify excluded items, including any taxes. Do not assume zero commission means zero cost.", "sources": [ { "title": "SEC: How fees affect an investment portfolio", "url": "https://www.investor.gov/introduction-investing/general-resources/news-alerts/alerts-bulletins/investor-bulletins/updated" } ] } ] }