Methodology

How briefings are produced

TradingBrief covers 17 markets: three US indices (S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, Dow Jones), three European indices (DAX 40, FTSE 100, CAC 40), three commodities (Gold, Silver, Crude Oil), two cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum), and six currency pairs.

Three sessions are produced on weekdays, all in Berlin time: European Open (~05:25), US Open (~15:15) and Close (~22:15). On weekends only Bitcoin and Ethereum continue, since their markets trade around the clock — twice a day, ~09:00 and ~21:00 Berlin time. Every other market's exchange is shut over the weekend, so a briefing for it then would just be stale content presented as fresh.

Live prices come from the broker IG.

Analysis is AI-generated (EU AI Act labelling): each briefing is produced by a large language model of Anthropic's Claude family, using live market data and publicly available information. No human writes or reviews it before publication.

What a stance means

Every briefing carries a stance: Bullish, Neutral or Bearish.

The stance is a view on the horizon stated in the recommendation itself. It is a view on likely direction — not a trade instruction, not a price-target guarantee, and not advice tailored to any individual's situation.

How the track record is scored

Every published recommendation is scored against one fixed rule:

1. The entry price is the exact price snapshot the briefing was actually generated from — never re-fetched afterwards.
2. The horizon is parsed from the recommendation's own text; for a stated range ("1-2 weeks") the upper bound is taken.
3. The target date is the publication date plus the horizon, in days.
4. The exit price is the last daily close on or before the target date.
5. The band is the median absolute daily return for that market, multiplied by the square root of the trading days in the horizon — computed over that market's full available daily close history, not just the horizon window.
6. A hit is recorded when the realised move sits on the side of that band the stance claimed; the boundary itself counts in favour of the claim. Bullish hits when the move clears the band to the upside; bearish hits when it clears the band to the downside; neutral hits when the move stays inside the band.

Limitations

• Recorded calls currently cover the English-language European-Open session only.
• History before the live recording path went live is reconstructed from published briefings dated 19 July 2026 onward.
• Recommendations whose horizon is stated in "sessions" rather than hours, days, weeks or months cannot be mapped to calendar days and are excluded from scoring.
• Prices are mid quotes (the average of bid and ask), not tradeable fills.
• No spread, slippage or trading costs are modelled.

Why no success percentage is shown

TradingBrief publishes the recommendation history — not an aggregate hit-rate percentage.

Reason: at the current sample size, the observed rate is not statistically distinguishable from a no-skill baseline. Over a short observation window, a raw figure is also dominated by overall market drift rather than by the quality of individual calls.

A figure will only be published once it is statistically defensible.

Regulatory framing

The recommendation history is retained and made available in line with the EU Market Abuse Regulation's requirements for investment recommendations (MAR Art. 20, together with Delegated Regulation (EU) 2016/958).

Content is information, not investment advice. TradingBrief performs no suitability or appropriateness assessment of any individual user, and claims no licence, registration, supervision or approval from any financial supervisory authority.