🧬Factor Fingerprint: momentum, seasonality, insider & congress in one DNA strip

In a nutshell

The Factor Fingerprint is a four-bar "DNA strip" that shows, for every stock, its percentile (0–100) across four proprietary QMA factors: momentum, seasonality, insider and congress. You'll find it on the stock detail page (/stocks/[symbol]). It's a descriptive profile — it tells you where a stock sits in each factor versus the whole market, not whether it will go up.

🔰 Super simple

Imagine every stock gets a "report card" in four subjects. Instead of a grade, though, it gets a percentile — a number from 0 to 100 that says how many other stocks it beats.

• 80th percentile = this stock is better than 80% of all stocks in that factor.
• 5th percentile = it's low — it only beats 5% of stocks.
• 50th percentile = dead average, nothing special.

Example for AAPL (illustrative): seasonality 80th / momentum 45th / insider 5th / congress 0th percentile. You read it like this: Apple has a historically strong seasonal window, average momentum, and almost no activity from insiders or congresspeople. That's its "fingerprint" — its character.

How it works

QMA takes the entire universe of stocks and ranks them in each factor. Your stock gets a percentile based on how many others it beats:

Factor	What it measures
Momentum	strength and direction of the price trend vs others
Seasonality	how strong the stock's historical calendar window is
Insider	buy/sell activity by company management (SEC filings)
Congress	US lawmakers' trades in this stock

Each bar is a factual value computed from real data — not a prediction. If there's no data for a factor (e.g. a small company with no congress trades), the bar shows "—".

🎯 For advanced users

This blend is unique. Competitors like Stockopedia or Simply Wall St show the classic quality / value / size trio. But nobody else combines momentum + seasonality + insider + congress in a single fingerprint.

The edge isn't any one bar — it's their combination. A stock with a high percentile across multiple factors at once has a "denser" fingerprint: more independent data sources pointing the same way. A stock strong in just one factor and weak elsewhere has a "thin" fingerprint.

How to use it in QMA

1. Open any stock: /stocks/[symbol] (e.g. /stocks/AAPL).
2. Find the Factor Fingerprint block — four horizontal bars.
3. Read the four numbers and understand the stock's current character: is it a momentum story, a seasonal story, or does it have insiders behind it?
4. Bars showing "—" mean there's no data for that factor — don't read it as zero, read it as "unknown".

💡 What it means for you

Instead of hunting one metric at a time across ten tables, you see the stock's character at a glance. The fingerprint tells you why a stock behaves the way it does — and which data sources drive its profile. It's quick orientation, not a signal to act.

FAQ

Is a high percentile a "buy"?
No. A percentile describes position, not instruction. A high momentum percentile only means "stronger trend than most" — not a recommendation.

Why is AAPL's congress 0?
Because the data contains no US-lawmaker trades in AAPL in that window. A zero percentile = missing underlying activity.

Does the fingerprint change?
Yes — percentiles are recomputed as data changes (new insider filings, new seasonal data, momentum shifts).

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Past performance ≠ future results. QMA is not a registered investment advisor.*