u/CoolioBeansTTV

The market is getting more efficient, especially with OpenAI and Claude getting better at stock research, but even with new tools I still go back to my GOATs. Here is my list of tools that provide an edge:

• For Technicals: TradingView (Still the GOAT for charting).
• For Fundamentals/DCF: Finviz or Simply Wall St (Great for visual learners).
• For Insider Trading: OpenInsider (Simple but effective for tracking cluster buys).
• For Analyst Rating: TipRanks (analyst ratings and ratings of the analysts)
• For Reddit Tracking: AltIndex. (Alerts on trending stocks)
• For Earnings Calls: Quartr (Great for listening on the go).

Am I missing any good tools? 

Every stock purchase members of Congress disclosed in filings this week, compiled by AltIndex. Gottheimer's MSFT buy is the big one: $250,001 to $500,000, bought on August 14, disclosed September 15, 32 days later.

Ticker	Politician	Disclosed range	Transaction date	Lag (days)
MSFT	Josh Gottheimer	$250,001 to $500,000	2026-08-14	32
AMAT	Josh Gottheimer	$1,001 to $15,000	2026-08-06	40
RSG	Josh Gottheimer	$1,001 to $15,000	2026-08-06	40
QSR	Josh Gottheimer	$1,001 to $15,000	2026-08-06	40
NFLX	Byron Donalds	$1,001 to $15,000	2026-08-12	35
LIN	Thomas H. Kean	$1,001 to $15,000	2026-08-10	35
MTZ	Thomas H. Kean	$1,001 to $15,000	2026-08-21	24
NVO	Scott Franklin	$1,001 to $15,000	2026-08-26	23
ACN	Scott Franklin	$1,001 to $15,000	2026-08-26	23
PEP	Scott Franklin	$1,001 to $15,000	2026-08-26	23
IBP	David Taylor	$1,001 to $15,000	2026-09-08	10
PG	David Taylor	$1,001 to $15,000	2026-09-08	10

Did any of you catch this one when the filing went up last week?

A web traffic estimate is an outside guess at how many people visited a company's website in a given month, and AltIndex tracks it across public companies. AMC went from roughly 24.1 million visits last August to an estimated 48.6 million this August, a 101% increase, and the stock is down about 9% over that same year. IMAX's estimated traffic was up 366% and its stock is up about 60%, Cinemark's was up 80% and its stock is up about 20%, so the same signal pointed up for all three and the stocks did three different things. When traffic is climbing and the stock isn't, what do you go look at next?

Tesla and Uber are approaching autonomous transportation from almost opposite directions.

Tesla wants to own the vehicle, autonomous-driving technology and robotaxi network.

Uber largely abandoned developing its own driving system. Instead, it wants to connect autonomous-vehicle operators with the riders already using its platform.

That makes them two very different investment bets on the same technological shift.

The Tesla case

Tesla has begun producing its purpose-built Cybercab and recently started carrying passengers in Austin.

If Tesla’s autonomous-driving technology works reliably and receives regulatory approval, the upside is enormous. Tesla could potentially earn revenue from:

• Manufacturing Cybercabs.
• Operating its own ride-hailing network.
• Selling or licensing autonomous-driving software.
• Allowing privately owned Teslas to join the network.
• Capturing more of each fare because it owns more of the technology stack.

But Tesla must prove much more than Uber.

It needs to demonstrate that unsupervised driving works safely at scale, that Cybercabs can be manufactured economically, that regulators will permit large deployments and that riders will choose the service.

The initial Austin launch showed how high expectations already are. Tesla shares rallied 5.4% before the event and then fell roughly 6% the following day as investors received relatively little information about the speed of expansion. And people on Reddit laughed at the event.

Tesla offers greater upside if it becomes the dominant autonomous-driving platform, but it also carries substantially more technology, manufacturing and regulatory risk.

The Uber case

Uber doesn’t need to invent the winning autonomous-driving system. It can potentially host vehicles from Waymo and multiple other operators on the same marketplace.

Its main advantages are existing demand and network density.

In Q2, Uber handled 3.9 billion trips and $58 billion in gross bookings. Revenue rose 12% to $14.2 billion, and trailing 12-month free cash flow exceeded $10 billion for the first time.

That is a large existing business capable of funding the transition.

Uber also recently announced 3,300 layoffs after its tracked job openings had already fallen about 53% (according to AltIndex who tracks job postings) from their April peak. But the types of positions it continued advertising were interesting: autonomous-vehicle infrastructure, operational safety, remote support, OEM relationships and rider experience.

That doesn’t prove Uber is shifting resources directly from employees to autonomous vehicles. It does suggest that AV commercialization remains strategically important while overall hiring contracts.

Uber’s opportunity is to become the operating and distribution layer for autonomous transportation without assuming the entire cost of developing the vehicles.

The risk is that the company controlling the best autonomous technology may not need Uber. If Tesla or Waymo can attract riders directly, Uber could lose influence over pricing and economics. Autonomous fleets may also demand a larger share of fares than human drivers currently receive.

The deciding question

I think the investment outcome depends on which part of the market becomes scarce.

If reliable autonomous vehicles remain scarce and one technology provider dominates, Tesla has the stronger position. It would control the most valuable part of the system, while ride-hailing apps become replaceable distribution channels.

If autonomous vehicles eventually become available from several competing manufacturers and operators, Uber’s position becomes more attractive. It could aggregate supply, route demand between fleets and remain the app customers use without having to select an autonomous-driving provider.

My current view is that Uber is the better risk-adjusted investment in autonomous transportation.

Its existing business is growing, it already generates substantial cash, and it can benefit from several autonomous-driving companies succeeding. Tesla has considerably greater upside if its technology dominates, but much more future success appears to depend on one company solving manufacturing, autonomy, regulation and network deployment simultaneously.

Put differently: Tesla may be the bigger winner if it gets everything right. Uber may benefit if almost anyone gets it right.

Which would you rather own for the autonomous-driving transition: the company building the vehicles and intelligence, or the marketplace that already has the passengers?

AltIndex tracks how many jobs a company is advertising and how its own employees rate the business, which is the kind of data you can check between earnings reports. TSMC's open listings went from 408 in early June to 774 in early September, roughly 90% more roles in three months, and the share of employees reporting a positive outlook on the business went from 63% last October to 73% in September. A company nearly doubling the jobs it's trying to fill is usually staffing up for demand it can already see, and the people inside seem to think the same thing. That is not a promise of revenue, plans get cut, and the stock is already up 78% over the past year at about 31.8 times earnings, so a fair amount of this is in the price. Does hiring data move the needle for you at all, or do you only trust what's in the financials?

Marvell is the current example, numbers from AltIndex. It reported record revenue of $2.74 billion, up 37% from a year ago, with data center sales up 46% and the revenue forecast raised for both of the next two fiscal years, and the stock fell 10.3% that day. Even after that drop it's up about 181% over the past year, so a strong quarter was already what the price assumed, and the one genuinely new thing, when the bigger money from the expanded Google chip deal actually shows up, came in at fiscal 2029 rather than sooner. If a good quarter is already in the price, what does a company have to say to move the stock up?

Every stock purchase members of Congress disclosed in filings this week, tracked by AltIndex. Twenty buys from five members.

Boozman's is one catch-up filing: CBOE, CL and AVGO on 2025-04-08, META on 2025-04-15, MSFT, UNH and ORCL on 2025-04-16, MSFT again on 2025-04-22. Eight purchases, every one of them in the $1,001 to $15,000 range, all disclosed on 2026-08-20, so 485 to 499 days. Every other buy in the table was disclosed within 46 days of the trade.

Ticker	Member	Disclosed range	Transaction date	Lag (days)
CBOE	John Boozman	$1,001 to $15,000	2025-04-08	499
CL	John Boozman	$1,001 to $15,000	2025-04-08	499
AVGO	John Boozman	$1,001 to $15,000	2025-04-08	499
META	John Boozman	$1,001 to $15,000	2025-04-15	492
MSFT	John Boozman	$1,001 to $15,000	2025-04-16	491
UNH	John Boozman	$1,001 to $15,000	2025-04-16	491
ORCL	John Boozman	$1,001 to $15,000	2025-04-16	491
MSFT	John Boozman	$1,001 to $15,000	2025-04-22	485
EL	John Boozman	$1,001 to $15,000	2026-07-02	46
CVX	John Boozman	$1,001 to $15,000	2026-07-02	46
EQT	Thomas H. Kean	$1,001 to $15,000	2026-07-07	43
TOST	Thomas H. Kean	$1,001 to $15,000	2026-07-08	42
AMZN	Thomas H. Kean	$1,001 to $15,000	2026-07-08	42
APTV	John Boozman	$1,001 to $15,000	2026-07-09	39
UPST	Tony Wied	$15,001 to $50,000	2026-07-14	36
PYPL	John Boozman	$1,001 to $15,000	2026-07-30	18
JPM	Steve Cohen	$100,001 to $250,000	2026-08-05	13
PG	David Taylor	$1,001 to $15,000	2026-08-11	10
GOOGL	David Taylor	$1,001 to $15,000	2026-08-11	10
IBP	David Taylor	$1,001 to $15,000	2026-08-14	7

What actually happens when a purchase shows up in the record 499 days after the trade?

Every stock purchase members of Congress disclosed in filings this week, tracked by AltIndex.

Michael Rulli's oldest one is ORCL, $1,001 to $15,000, bought on 2025-01-14 and disclosed on 2026-08-10, a lag of 573 days. All 14 of his buys in this week's data were disclosed on that same day in one filing, with transaction dates going back to January 2025.

Ticker	Politician	Disclosed size	Transaction date	Lag (days)
ORCL	Michael Rulli	$1,001 to $15,000	2025-01-14	573
AAPL	Michael Rulli	$1,001 to $15,000	2025-08-01	374
NVDA	Michael Rulli	$1,001 to $15,000	2025-08-01	374
META	Michael Rulli	$1,001 to $15,000	2025-09-18	326
KO	Michael Rulli	$1,001 to $15,000	2025-12-03	250
LLY	Michael Rulli	$1,001 to $15,000	2026-01-02	220
PLTR	Michael Rulli	$1,001 to $15,000	2026-01-09	213
MSFT	Michael Rulli	$1,001 to $15,000	2026-02-05	186
ADBE	Tony Wied	$50,001 to $100,000	2026-06-09	62
CRM	Tony Wied	$15,001 to $50,000	2026-06-09	62
HCA	William R. Keating	$15,001 to $50,000	2026-06-30	45
CB	Maria Elvira Salazar	$15,001 to $50,000	2026-07-01	40
TD	Ro Khanna	$100,001 to $250,000	2026-07-16	27
CRWD	Josh Gottheimer	$1,001 to $15,000	2026-07-15	27
SPTI	Charles J. "Chuck" Fleischmann	$15,001 to $50,000	2026-07-28	17

Is there any actual consequence for a filing that lands 573 days after the trade?

Carvana's hiring numbers stopped me this morning.

According to altindex, open job postings were sitting around 1,000 in mid January. Today the count is over 2,150. More than double in six months, and up 35% in the last month alone. Companies don't staff up like that to run a flat business.

The stock went the other way. $88 in mid January, $67 now.

What they're spending on is public if you go looking. They launched new car sales and the early numbers look real. Q1 revenue came in at $6.4B, up 52% YoY, and EPS beat. On July 7 they rolled out same-day delivery in Milwaukee. In late June they announced a new inspection and reconditioning center in Sarasota. Ro Khanna disclosed a buy back in May too, for whatever congressional trades are worth to you.

Also might be early because no ones talking about the company. CVNA was getting 130+ Reddit mentions a week in February. Last week it got 3. The retail crowd fully moved on right while the company doubled its headcount ambitions.

Stock did pop 4% today, so maybe that's starting to change.

I don't own it and I'm still deciding. My hesitation is the 38x earnings multiple, which already prices in a lot of execution.

Has anyone dug into the new car side of the business? Trying to figure out whether hiring growth actually leads revenue here or whether I'm reading tea leaves.

For starters I'm a software engineer with basically zero quant experience.

I work on a product is built around alternative data for researching stocks, think social media, hiring data, insider and congress trades, web traffic, that kind of stuff. We've been collecting it for about five years. It's pretty well established by now in the investing space that the right alternative data has an edge. A model built on nothing but credit card data out of MIT beat the analysts' consensus 57% of the time. Changes in Glassdoor ratings have led forward returns by about 10% a year in peer reviewed work. We've had some institutional interest, but we've never once traded on our own signal.

So I want to. And I want Claude to run it.

The plan is to wire Claude to two things. An MCP server I built that exposes all this alt-data across a few thousand US names, and an Alpaca brokerage account for execution. Claude pulls the signals through the MCP tools, figures out what fits the strategy, and places the trades through Alpaca. I think a lot more people are about to start building LLM driven strategies, and I'd rather learn it in public with real money on the line than paper trade it.

If I land on a strategy I actually believe in, my company will even fund it with $100k for three months and we'll post some updates around it.

Here's the rough starting point. Please pick it apart:

- Universe: liquid US equities, 2B+ market cap, ~3,000 tickers
- Signals: social sentiment and mention volume (Reddit, X, Stocktwits), insider buying, congress trades, hiring acceleration, web traffic and wikipedia pageviews, plus some fundamentals
- 10 names, equal weight
- Entry: 3+ signals fire and hold across 2 weekly reads, so I'm not chasing one print
- Exit: 2+ of those signals reverse
- Rebalance weekly, only act on a trigger
- Benchmark: QQQ

The part I actually want help on is how to run it. My plan is to put Claude on a weekly routine that pulls the signals, decides the changes, and sends the orders to Alpaca, If you've set up a recurring Claude agent that touches a real API or real money, I'd love to hear how you did it and what broke.

Happy to get into the MCP side too. If anyone wants to know what the server exposes or how Claude actually uses the tools, ask and I'll go deep on it.