What this page covers
Every Cityfort stock and IPO page follows the same process. This page explains where our numbers come from, how we check them, and how we fix mistakes.
Research and drafting use AI tools. Every number is then checked against the company's own filings before a page goes live.
Where our numbers come from
We sort sources into tiers. Only tier 1 and tier 2 sources can supply a number on a stock or IPO page.
Tier 1: filed with the SEC or published by the company. Annual reports (Form 10-K), quarterly reports (Form 10-Q), earnings releases (filed on Form 8-K), proxy statements (DEF 14A), IPO registration statements (Form S-1 or F-1) and final prospectuses, plus investor presentations and earnings-call transcripts. Every SEC filing is public on EDGAR, and each page links to the exact document.
Tier 2: independent and official. Credit rating reports from S&P, Moody's and Fitch, court and regulator records, and official statistics.
Tier 3: context only. Company websites and reputable news help us find events and understand a business. We then confirm what we can in a tier 1 filing.
Data websites that collect numbers from many companies are never our source. We use one only as a cross-check. If its figure differs from ours by more than 2%, we go back to the filing and find out why. We never use analyst ratings or price targets.
We never use social media, forums, tip services or video commentary.
How a page is checked before it goes live
A page must pass two checks. Only then is it offered to the owner of Cityfort for approval.
- Validator. A script checks the page's structure. It confirms that every number cites a source and every price carries its date, and it scans the wording for terms our rules ban.
- Fact-check. A separate review, which did not write the page, traces every number and claim back to its source. Figures we calculated, like margins, are recalculated. The same review checks every sentence against our education-only rules (see "What we never do" below).
Any mismatch is fixed and checked again. A page that still fails is held back, with the reason recorded. Nothing goes live without the owner's approval.
Official (GAAP) and adjusted numbers
US companies report official results under US GAAP, the accounting rules the SEC requires. Many also publish "adjusted" (non-GAAP) figures that leave out some costs, such as stock-based compensation.
Our pages use the official GAAP numbers. Where a company's own adjusted figures or operating measures help explain it, we show them in a separate section, labelled as the company's, next to the nearest official figure.
Fiscal years
Many US companies end their year in a month other than December. We use each company's own fiscal year and say when it ends: "FY2025" means the company's fiscal year 2025, as the company names it.
Data depth: rich, standard and limited
Each stock page shows a badge for how much material we had.
- Rich: five years of annual reports, investor presentations, call transcripts and segment data. The page has every section.
- Standard: annual and quarterly reports. The page covers the core plus how money flows through the business, competition, growth, management and history.
- Limited: only the filings the law requires. The page covers what the company sells, who pays it, three or more years of numbers, ownership, risks and what to watch.
We never fill a gap with an estimate. If a company does not disclose something, the page says so.
How pages are updated
Pages are updated when companies file new quarterly or annual reports, or after a major event such as a merger, a stock split or an IPO. Each page shows the date of its last update and the latest results it covers.
Updates add to a page. Past quarters, past "what changed" notes, sources and resolved risks all stay. A page's web address never changes.
Corrections
We will get things wrong sometimes. When we do, we say so on the page.
How to report an error: write to us through the contact page. Tell us the page, the number or sentence, and where you saw the correct figure.
What happens next: we check the claim against the original filing. If we were wrong, we aim to fix it within 48 hours.
How corrections are shown: the fix appears in the page's "What changed" section with its date. We do not quietly change numbers.
How we show prices
Any share price, market value or price-based ratio shows the date it is from, right next to the number. Pages are rebuilt about once a week, so a price can be days or weeks old by the time you read it.
A price is shown as a fact, never as a judgement: we never call a stock cheap or expensive, and we never give a target.
For IPOs we show the terms in the company's filings (expected price range, shares offered, offering price), each with its date and the formula for anything we calculate. We never predict how a stock will trade after listing.
What we never do
Cityfort is not a registered investment adviser or broker-dealer. We publish general education only. So we never:
- tell you to buy, sell or hold a stock, or whether to take part in an IPO
- give price targets, "fair values" or expected returns
- say whether a stock's price is too high or too low
- predict where a stock price will go
- rate or rank stocks as investments
- claim our readers made money
When a company's managers talk about the future, we report it as their statement, with the date and source. It is not our forecast.
Moat bars rate a business trait, not the stock
Some pages show bars from 1 to 5 next to things like brand or cost advantage. These bars rate one feature of the business, with a written reason from the filings. They are not a score for the stock.
Read the full disclaimer.