How Automate Fundamentals works

Three things, in this order: a free Automate Fundamentals account (email and password), an Alpaca brokerage account with an API key, and a username. The site walks you through each step after you sign up, and the rest of the site opens once all three are done.

Creating an account is free. Paid plans are planned but not yet available; we will announce them before anything changes for you.

No. Automate Fundamentals provides research tools. Analysis written by members is their own opinion. Past results, including target hit rates, do not predict future results.

Alpaca is a commission-free US broker. We use your own Alpaca API key to show your portfolio, positions, orders, watchlists, and live prices. We never hold your money; it stays in your Alpaca account. Linking Alpaca is optional: you can skip it when you sign up and link it later from your Portfolio page.

1. Sign up at alpaca.markets and confirm your email.
2. Sign in to the dashboard at app.alpaca.markets and pick Paper (practice money) or Live with the account switcher at the top left.
3. Find API Keys on the dashboard home page and choose Generate New Keys.
4. Copy the API Key ID and the Secret Key, and paste both on our Connect page. Alpaca shows the secret only once.

Paper Key IDs start with PK; anything else is a live, real-money account. The Connect page shows which one you entered as you type. We recommend starting with paper.

We check your key with Alpaca before saving it. The secret key is stored in Azure Key Vault, never in our main database, and the site never shows it again. Only the start and end of your Key ID are shown, in Settings.

Alpaca stopped accepting the key saved for your account. This happens when you regenerate or revoke keys in the Alpaca dashboard. Enter your current key on the Connect page to continue; the rest of the site stays locked until you do.

Open Settings from the account menu, then Manage key under Alpaca connection.

It is how other members see you on Community Analysis. Your email is never shown to anyone. Usernames are 3 to 20 letters, numbers, or underscores, and must be unique (capitals don't count as different: Zoop and zoop are the same name).

Yes. Open Settings and choose Change username.

Search a stock on Research by ticker or company name, then fill in the form under the stock:

• Price target: the price you expect the stock to reach. It can be above today's price (an upside call) or below it (a downside call).
• Target date: when you expect it to get there, from tomorrow up to 2 years out.
• Conviction: your thesis in 360 characters or fewer.
• Analysis: the full reasoning, up to 5,000 characters.
• Private or public: public analysis appears on Community Analysis and counts on your record. Private analysis appears only in your portfolio, is not tracked, and stays editable. You can't switch between them after posting.

From Alpaca, at the moment you post. It is looked up by our server, not typed in, so every record starts from the real market price.

For 48 hours after you post, you can edit the text of your conviction and your analysis. The edit window is there to fix typos or add a point you missed at the last minute.

The ticker, the price at posting, your price target, and your target date are final the moment you post. This keeps every member's record honest: a target cannot be moved after the fact.

Private analysis is your own notebook. It is not tracked on your record and never graded, so you can change its price target, target date, and text at any time, with no 48-hour limit. The price at posting still comes from Alpaca and does not change.

No. Public or private is fixed when you post. A private analysis could otherwise be published after its target had already been reached and appear on your record as a success. To share a view publicly, post it as a new public analysis.

For a public analysis, write a new one with the new target and date; the earlier one stays on your record and is graded on its own terms. For a private analysis, just edit it.

No. Once posted, an analysis is permanent. You confirm this before posting.

Find the analysis under My analysis on your portfolio and choose Edit. On public analysis the link shows when the 48-hour window closes, and disappears after that. On private analysis it is always there.

Only public analysis is graded. Every day after the US market closes, we check each open public target against that stock's daily prices from Alpaca, from the day it was posted up to its target date:

• Upside call (target above the price at posting): hit the first day the stock's daily high reaches the target.
• Downside call (target below it): hit the first day the daily low reaches the target.

• Pending: the target has not been reached yet and the target date has not passed. It is checked again every trading day.
• Target hit: the price reached the target on or before the target date. We record the day it happened, even if that is weeks early.
• Missed: the target date passed without the price reaching the target.

Once an analysis is graded Target hit or Missed, it never changes.

Your target hits divided by all your graded public targets (hits plus misses). Pending targets don't count until they are graded, and private analysis never counts. You can see yours under My analysis on your portfolio.

Yes. Daily prices are split-adjusted, so a split does not turn a target into a false hit or miss.

Every public analysis from every member, newest first. Each card shows the price at posting, the target, today's price, the target date, and whether it is pending, hit, or missed. Filter by ticker to see what members think of one stock.

Only you, in your portfolio.

Open Settings from the account menu and choose Light or Dark. Your choice is saved to your account, so it follows you to other devices.

Each time you open or reload the portfolio page, we load your latest balances, positions, orders, and prices from Alpaca in one go.

Closing an account deletes the account and its analysis. Account closing will be available in Settings; until then, contact us.