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Prism in plain English

Every term Prism uses, defined. No black boxes — just the vocabulary of how great investors think about stocks, mapped to what you see on the screen.

Core vocabulary

Decision Report

Everything Prism knows about a single stock, in one view.

A Decision Report runs a ticker through every built-in investor framework plus any of your own custom strategies, then synthesizes:

  • Consensus score — a weighted average across frameworks.
  • Archetype — the investing style this business most resembles.
  • Agreement / Disagreement — who endorses, who rejects, and why.
  • Structural concerns — metrics that fail across multiple frameworks.
  • Rule-by-rule drill-down — every threshold, the actual value, and the pass/fail.

Consensus score

The weighted crowd answer across all frameworks.

Each framework contributes a 0–100 fit score, weighted by how strongly it endorses (Strong / Partial / Weak / Fail). The consensus is their average.

It's deliberately not a buy signal — it's a starting reference point that tells you where the crowd of investor playbooks nets out before you form your own opinion.

Polarization

How much the frameworks disagree.

When investors with different philosophies score a stock very differently, polarization is high — and that's exactly when Prism's disagreement view is most useful. Unanimous agreement is rare and easy; disagreement is where the real decision lives.

Framework

A named investor's playbook, encoded as rules.

Each framework is a list of metric-threshold rules (e.g. "ROE > 15%", "PEG < 1"), weighted by importance. Prism ships 15 built-in frameworks — Lynch, Buffett, Graham, Greenblatt, Munger, Fisher, Schloss, Klarman, Marks, Graham Net-Net, Quality Factor, Pure Value, Momentum/CAN SLIM, Dividend Income, and Deep Cyclical. You can edit any threshold, toggle any rule, or build your own from scratch in Studio.

Archetype

The investing style a business most resembles.

Prism aggregates per-framework scores into broad style buckets (Quality, Value, GARP, Deep Value, Growth, Momentum, Income, Cyclical, Risk-First). The winning bucket is the stock's archetype — a shortcut for "which lenses are relevant critics here?".

Structural concerns

Metrics that fail across multiple frameworks.

When a single metric (say, debt-to-equity or current ratio) fails in three or more frameworks, it's probably an objective weakness of the business — not just one investor being picky. Prism surfaces these so you can tell "the Graham lens doesn't like it" from "the balance sheet has a real problem."

Custom strategy

Your own framework, built in Studio.

Any combination of metrics, thresholds, and weights you pick. Save it and it's treated as a first-class framework everywhere else — it appears on every stock's Decision Report, on the screener, on recommendations, and in Compare.

Portfolio analytics

What Prism computes for a whole book, not just one stock.

Sharpe, Sortino, volatility, max drawdown, beta, concentration (HHI), sector tilt, and an archetype mix — plus which model portfolio (Dalio All-Weather, Buffett, Lynch, Graham) yours most resembles.

Fit label

How a single framework rates a single stock.

Four levels based on the % of rules that pass, weighted. Strong match (≥ 80%), Partial match (≥ 60%), Weak match (≥ 40%), Fails criteria (< 40%). Thresholds are tunable per-framework.

The archetypes

Every stock is tagged with the investing style it most resembles. Here's what each tag means.

Quality

Durable moat, high ROE, reinvests at high returns.

Loudest voices: Buffett · Munger · AQR Quality

Classic Value

Cheap on earnings, assets, or cash flow vs. its own history.

Loudest voices: Graham · Fama-French · Schloss

Growth at a Reasonable Price (GARP)

Growth at a reasonable price — PEG-style fit.

Loudest voices: Lynch · Fisher

Deep Value

Heavily discounted — margin-of-safety play. Contrarian.

Loudest voices: Klarman · Schloss · Graham Net-Net

Growth

Sales and earnings accelerating; priced for expansion.

Loudest voices: Fisher · Lynch

Momentum

Strong price action confirming leadership and earnings.

Loudest voices: O'Neil / CAN SLIM

Income

Yield and coverage driven. Cash-return to holders dominates.

Loudest voices: Dividend Growth School

Cyclical

Contrarian cyclical — beaten down but solvent.

Loudest voices: Cyclical Value School

Risk-First

Risk-adjusted value — avoid loss before chasing return.

Loudest voices: Marks · Klarman

The 15 built-in frameworks

Each is a weighted list of metric rules. Every threshold is editable in Studio.

Lynch GARP

Peter Lynch · Growth at a Reasonable Price · 6 rules

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Buy understandable businesses where growth is cheaper than the market realizes. PEG < 1, clean balance sheet, not yet owned by the crowd.

Endorses: Under-covered compounders where earnings growth outruns the multiple.

Rejects: Story stocks, richly valued growth, and anything with crowded institutional ownership.

Buffett Quality

Warren Buffett · Quality Compounder · 7 rules

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Wonderful business at a fair price. Durable moat, high returns on capital, predictable cash flow, honest management.

Endorses: Wide-moat compounders with high ROE, fat margins, and low debt — available at a sensible multiple.

Rejects: Capital-intensive, low-return businesses and anything that requires leverage to look good.

Graham Defensive

Benjamin Graham · Classic Value · 7 rules

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Margin of safety comes from paying below book value and modest earnings multiples, on financially sound companies.

Endorses: Financially sound, dividend-paying businesses trading at low P/E and close to book value.

Rejects: Expensive multiples, speculative growth, and any balance sheet that looks stretched.

Magic Formula

Joel Greenblatt · Quant Value · 5 rules

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Rank the market on two numbers: cheap (high earnings yield) and good (high return on capital). Buy the top of both lists.

Endorses: Businesses that are both high-earnings-yield and high-return-on-capital — cheap and good together.

Rejects: Expensive compounders, and cheap-but-low-return "value traps."

Munger Elite Quality

Charlie Munger · Concentrated Quality · 6 rules

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"A great business at a fair price is superior to a fair business at a great price." Only the very best compounders.

Endorses: Elite-quality compounders — top-tier ROE and margins, fortress balance sheets.

Rejects: Mediocre businesses at any price, and leveraged cheap stocks ("cigar butts").

Fisher Growth

Philip Fisher · Qualitative Growth · 6 rules

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Find rare, well-managed growth businesses and hold them for decades. Sales growth, profitability, and aligned insiders matter most.

Endorses: Durable growth businesses with real revenue + EPS acceleration and aligned insider ownership.

Rejects: No-growth cheap stocks, turnaround bets, and businesses without management skin in the game.

Schloss Deep Value

Walter Schloss · Deep Value · 6 rules

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Buy cheap assets. Low P/B, low leverage, wide diversification — let mean reversion do the work.

Endorses: Unloved, low-P/B, low-debt businesses where the balance sheet covers the downside.

Rejects: Glamour stocks and anything priced on narrative rather than assets.

Klarman Margin of Safety

Seth Klarman · Absolute Value · 6 rules

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Buy only when the price is low enough to protect the downside. "Cash + catalyst" or asset-based margin of safety.

Endorses: High-FCF-yield businesses with net cash on the balance sheet — real margin of safety.

Rejects: Leveraged businesses, thin cash flows, and anything dependent on market sentiment.

Marks Risk-First

Howard Marks · Risk-Adjusted Value · 6 rules

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"The most important thing" is avoiding loss. Price relative to value, plus durability through cycles.

Endorses: Durable, cash-generative businesses that survive a bad market and are reasonably priced.

Rejects: Leveraged businesses, fragile balance sheets, and anything that only works in good times.

Graham Net-Net

Benjamin Graham · Liquidation Value · 5 rules

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Buy below net current asset value — effectively paying less than cash and receivables minus all liabilities.

Endorses: Companies trading near liquidation value — cash-rich, low-debt, priced below book.

Rejects: Growth stocks, premium multiples, and any business priced above its own balance sheet.

Quality Factor

AQR / Asness · Systematic Quality · 6 rules

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Profitable, stable, financially healthy companies outperform long-term regardless of price.

Endorses: Stable, high-margin, low-debt businesses with consistent profitability.

Rejects: Unprofitable, volatile, or highly leveraged companies.

Pure Value Factor

Fama / French · Systematic Value · 5 rules

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Cheapness across multiple ratios (P/E, P/B, yield) has historically earned a premium over the market.

Endorses: Stocks that are cheap on many lenses at once — P/E, P/B, earnings yield, FCF yield.

Rejects: Expensive stocks by any definition of "expensive."

Momentum / CAN SLIM

William O'Neil · Growth + Momentum · 6 rules

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Ride winners. Strong earnings acceleration combined with price action confirming market leadership.

Endorses: Leaders near their highs with accelerating earnings and confirming institutional demand.

Rejects: Laggards, broken charts, and stocks that are cheap for a reason.

Dividend Income

Dividend Growth School · Income + Durability · 6 rules

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Reliable cash back to shareholders, well-covered by earnings and cash flow, from companies that can keep raising it.

Endorses: Dividend payers with healthy coverage, sustainable payout ratios, and durable earnings.

Rejects: Yield traps, zero-dividend growth stocks, and stretched payout ratios.

Deep Cyclical

Cyclical Value School · Contrarian Cyclical · 6 rules

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Buy cyclical businesses when they are beaten down but still solvent — ride the mean reversion.

Endorses: Beaten-down cyclicals with strong balance sheets that can survive the trough.

Rejects: Cyclicals near their peak earnings, and anything with debt that won't survive a downturn.

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