Methods and accountability
Source policy
A citation should let a reader locate the evidence for a claim and understand its limits. A working link alone is not verification.
Updated
Put it to work
Check a number against its source
- Open the original filing or release and find the exact table or passage.
- Match the company, period, currency, unit, and accounting basis to the claim.
- Write down the document date and the page or section. If the figures disagree, hold the claim and report the discrepancy.
Prefer the original evidence
Use regulatory filings, issuer financial statements, and original announcements for reported company facts. Use original regulator or court materials for legal developments, distinguishing a party's announcement from a complete case record.
Issuer claims about future demand, performance, or opportunity remain attributed claims. They are not independent forecasts. Secondary reporting can supply context and leads, but important financial values should be reconciled with primary evidence.
Record the right dates
Retain the source publisher, title, direct URL, access date, relevant publication or reporting date, and usage note. Each changeable claim has an as-of date. Do not confuse the quarter end with the filing date or the date a source was accessed.
A current access date does not make an old price or legal status current. A rolling quote page is insufficient proof of an unretained historical multiple.
Reconcile definitions before comparing
Check currency, units, quarter versus year-to-date or trailing periods, consolidated versus segment figures, and GAAP versus adjusted definitions. Keep reported and calculated figures distinguishable.
When credible sources conflict, investigate the definition, period, revision, and source version. If the discrepancy remains unresolved, state it and withhold the disputed value or conclusion; do not choose the more convenient figure.
Market data and missing values
Manually checked historical observations carry explicit dates and are not described as live. Do not imply an exchange license, redistribution right, or data-service relationship that has not been established.
Unknown values stay unavailable with an explanation. Quote freshness, licensing, and reproducibility must be established before adding a current-data service.
Use sources proportionately
Link to original documents and paraphrase the facts needed for the analysis. Respect the source's rights and usage terms; public access does not automatically authorize copying a document or republishing a dataset.
Recheck important source links and their contents during review. If evidence becomes unavailable, retain the known provenance internally and qualify or hold the affected claim rather than silently replacing its support.