FAQ

1. WhatOur Mission, Philosophy & Investor Pledge
2. AccomplishmentRestoring Investor Trust - Creating The New Wall Street
3. HowHow is StockSmart different from competitive offerings?
4. CostSubscriber Levels and Costs
5. WhoWho uses StockSmart?
6. WhyWhy use StockSmart?
7. ContributionResponsible - Smart - Investing
8. PurposeWhat was the Founders premise in creating StockSmart?
9. ProductsWhat Products does StockSmart offer?
10. CustomersHow do Customers use StockSmart?
11. TechnologyAutomated Guidance & Research Solutions
12. MethodHow does StockSmart work? - Why is it Smarter?
13. BenefitsThe Benefits of StockSmart
    • Benefit to Management - C-Levels & Outside Directors
    • Benefit to the Consumer Web
    • Benefit to RIAs, Financial Advisors & Stockbrokers
    • Benefit to the Markets

1. What - FAQ - What is the Philosophy of StockSmart?

Our Mission, Product Philosophy, and Member Pledge

StockSmart's mission is to be the pre-eminent provider of relevant information affecting the capitalized value of an individual company on a 24/7 basis.

Our product philosophy is based on our belief that investors of all types are entitled to and deserve readily accessible, up to the minute guidance and clarity. StockSmart's software creates the clearest picture of what stocks, industries, and markets are doing. StockSmart's proprietary technology and web-based delivery systems create reliable, trustworthy, readily accessible, affordably priced investment research.

Our Member Pledge is to continually innovate and adapt our product offerings to the rapidly evolving information world in order to satisfy our member needs for affordable, professional-grade, next-generation investment research and analysis on a real time, 24/7 basis.

2. Accomplishment — FAQ — What is the Goal of StockSmart?

Restoring Investor Trust — Creating The New Wall Street

In the Old Wall Street, products were sold to investors with no responsibility for how they would perform, and many losses occurred.

In the New Wall Street - relying on StockSmart technology - responsible brokers will guide investors with knowledge of valuation. They will be able to evaluate returns more fully in the context of risk while weighing the relative merits of individual stocks and ETFs vs. other choices.

Smart investors will similarly have the benefit of StockSmart technology to guide themselves.

Professional investors and portfolio managers will more easily see and make better choices by applying StockSmart technology.

In every case, people will be protected, even from themselves.

3. How — FAQ — How is StockSmart different?

StockSmart - Distinctive From Competitive Offerings

Central to StockSmart's design is proprietary software that plugs into, unifies and then integrates vast underlying data sets into simple to understand company, industry and investment product reports on a 24 hour, seven day a week basis.

These live data feeds provide complete financial information on more than 7,000 public companies in 26 industry and 126 sub industry groups. This data is received on a continuous basis, instantaneously cleansed, aggregated and analyzed before being streamed to individual members as updated web and mobile delivered reports.

Individual Reports are:

• Company, industry and/or industry sub-segment specific, tailored to individual member product categories.
• Continuously streamed together into one consistent performance measurement model.
• Easy to understand; summarized into risk/reward ratings for top line comparability with greater detail according to member need.

The overall result - StockSmart offers the very best quality information to retail investors at a fair competitive price while providing investment professionals a different way to work — Faster, Better, Smarter.

4. Cost — FAQ — StockSmart Subscriber Levels and Costs

Subscriber Levels and Costs

StockSmart's subscription levels and monthly costs are tailored to the individual needs and usage patterns of our members. Whether the 401K retail investor, interested in an overview of broad based funds, or the financial advisor monitoring the varied investments of his or her clients, all reports are institutional grade, objective assessments, delivered on a real time basis.

Beyond our free services, and free introductory trial period initial subscriber level, there are eight member levels ranging in price from $10 to $2,000 per month as increased access and customization requirements drive complexity.

Ratings

Ratings are free — Guiding decision making and reducing risk for All.

The free Ratings show "What do do."
[A= Buy Now, B=Monitor to Buy on weakness, C=Hold, D=Sell on Strength, F=Sell Now]

For retail users, that is generally enough.
Most retail users do not need the "Why" behind the decision. Seeing "What to do" is enough.

Access to details on the Ratings is by Subscription, primarily for Pro's.
Pro's want to compare, use their own judgment and see the basis for decisions to fully know "Why."
Pro's can integrate StockSmart analytics into their own workflow for ease of use and time management.

Portfolio

The retail Portfolio is free.
Portfolio Analysis, Diversification Analysis, Re-Balancing, and EZ tax-calc of gains & losses is by Subscription.
Professional Portfolio management is under AUM.
("Do not Buy" Lists and De-Risking of Portfolios for Pension funds and 401(k) Plans are also available.)

Research

The first ten pages of the Research Reports are free.
In-depth detail and Peer-View^™ analytics and Industry forecasts are by Subscription for Pro's and C-Levels.

Earnings

The Earnings Season Advantage^™ analytics and Industry Trackers are by Subscription for Pro's and C-Levels.

5. Who — FAQ — Who uses StockSmart?

• StockSmart helps retail investors play up a level or two, see the patterns like the Pro's do, understand what they own and know what to do.
• StockSmart helps Pro's work Smarter - do their job faster, easier, more reliably, and more enjoyably.
• StockSmart helps C-Levels truly see and understand their company, industry, customers and competitors in full context. With StockSmart, C-Levels are able to make better decisions and be among the best in their peer group.

6. Why — FAQ — Why use StockSmart?

• StockSmart helps people make thoughtful, informed, fact-based choices.
• StockSmart's automated systems do the work of a full research department. Subscribers can fast-forward to a reliable, informed answer.
• The focus is creating informed guidance, and better understanding, a counter to sensationalism.
• Media hysteria disadvantages the uninformed. This includes retail investors, professional investors, and C-Levels alike. In each case, StockSmart can help people make smarter, measured, dispassionate decisions.
• When people stampede they make poor choices, and become easy targets for those schooled to behave counter-cyclically. StockSmart is the antidote to misinformation — and ally of the informed.
• StockSmart offers 3C's Research — Current, Complete, Correct — covering the full breadth, with extensive detail, and comparing the relative positioning and value of each company to the peer group.

7. Contribution — FAQ — What is the Contribution of StockSmart?

Responsible — Smart - Investing

StockSmart offers a different — Smarter - way to approach stock selection and portfolio management.

StockSmart Research is untouched by human hands. 100% objective and fact-based.

StockSmart technology serves as an automated, outsourced CIO, Chief Investment Officer.

Formulaic, monochromatic approaches are overly simplistic, susceptible to crowd behavior and unable to generate superior results.

These include indexing, valuation, momentum, event-driven, technical and even fundamental analysis at times.

StockSmart technology unifies the various approaches into an inclusive rules-based method to create better outcomes.

Transparency & Investor Success

StockSmart is focused on holdings based data consistent with XBRL (Extensible Business Relationship Language) which facilitates the free flow of data globally, supported by the SEC.

Stock Smart is important because once consumers can look at all their holdings as a portfolio, it will be clear that until a broker can make a recommendation in the context of all a client's holdings, it is not possible for the broker to know whether their recommendation increased return, reduced risk or enhanced the tax efficiency, liquidity, cost structure, etc. of all a client's holdings as whole. Essentially, without that full context, brokers cannot add value literally. This is a game changer.

With the free flow of holdings data it becomes clear brokers by design are not accountable for and have no ongoing responsibilities for their recommendations.

Generally, the investor consumer does not know basic facts. For instance:

• Are they taking twice the market risk for half the return?
• Are they aware they are paying ten times what they should for an investment mandate?
• Is the broker treating trade execution as a profit center to maximize rather than a cost center to minimize in the client's best interest?

Brokers cannot address the tax efficiency of the client holdings as a whole as it requires an overarching strategy that personalizes advice which triggers unwanted fiduciary liability.

Thus StockSmart facilitates diagnostics which add material value not possible in a brokerage format or a TAMP.

8. Purpose — FAQ — What was the Founders premise in creating StockSmart?

"Computers are incredibly fast, accurate and stupid. Human beings are incredibly slow, inaccurate and brilliant. Together they are powerful beyond imagination."
…Albert Einstein

Einstein's quote captures the essential premise of StockSmart, specifically:

• To combine the best of man and machine and usher in a new era for investors.
• To create a reliable process that scales, and benefits many millions, not just a select few.
• To help people reach a heretofore slightly out-of-sight objective, and actually become successful investors.
• To enable intuitive pattern recognition, and thereby change and modernize investing.
• To help these people achieve "success" not in the sense of winning the lottery, but through skill and insight. Through knowledge created by bridging man and machine.
• To apply a scientific methodology, with facts and logical outcomes and consequences.
• To improve understanding and guide decision making.
• To ensure decisions are fully fact-based by embedding validated, objective criteria.
• To incorporate myriad data sets. To navigate the vast sea of information. To parse for meaning, and filter out noise. To discover and reveal the essential truths, and offer new levels of transparency, access and affordability so that all may share and benefit.
• To produce a live mosaic, an easily-read interactive map of the underlying information. To show the best way forward by illuminating the path, while minimizing risk.
• To mark the territory, and simply say: "Here lies danger" and "Here lies the promise of reward" so that all may make better choices and more readily achieve their goals.
• To make it easier for all parties to understand the dynamics affecting each company and the ecosystem in which it operates, the industry peer group, plus suppliers and customers.
• To create new insights with which investors can judge and select ETFs and mutual funds.
• To detect quicksand and help people both protect and grow their money through better visualization of imminent underlying risk.
• To change the way companies interact with investors, and vice versa, improving communication and the two-way exchange of information.
• To change the way officers and directors evaluate, measure and achieve success and their impact on the many millions who rely upon them as investors, employees and customers.
• To widely distribute trustworthy, reliable 3-C Research — Current, Complete and Correct — and thereby create digital decision making.
• To restore Trust to capital markets, with a sophisticated, elegant, intuitive man-machine system able to validate and verify.

StockSmart — It's Simply Smarter^™

9. Products — FAQ — What Products does StockSmart create?

StockSmart Products

1. Research — Reports, Ratings, Earnings Analysis — Stocks, ETFs, Mutual Funds. Industry & Sector levels.
2. Portfolio Watchdog — Portfolio Balancing, Re-balancing, Analysis and Sector rotation, EZ tax calc.
3. Market Tracking — Stocks, ETFs, Mutual Funds. Bonds, Options. Company, Industry & Sector levels.
4. Earnings Season Advantage^™ — Automates and simplifies the quarterly reporting process. Built-in analytics.
5. Peer View^™ Industry forecasts and peer group competitor analysis.
6. Broker Model — StockSmart's CAI^™ Computer-Aided Investing Model establishes non-fiduciary status.
7. Compliance — Certified Fiduciary Cloud Compliance Solutions for RIAs and Financial Advisors.

10. Customers — FAQ — How do Customers use StockSmart?

StockSmart Customers

1. Investors (Risk, Research & Portfolio Management Solutions, Decision Support with Alerting).
2. Brokers, RIAs, Financial Advisors (Compliance, Research & Portfolio Solutions).
3. Professionals — money managers, mutual funds, hedge funds, private equity, M&A, lawyers.
4. Corporate officers, directors, planning, sales and investor relations (Analytics & Communications).
5. Others — job seekers, students, salesmen, researchers (Company and Industry insights / analysis).
6. Media & Social Media — News outlets, magazines, websites, bloggers, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter.

11. Technology — FAQ — Automated Guidance & Research Solutions

StockSmart technology brings professional-grade next-generation investment research and analysis to institutions and individuals, serving professionals and novices alike. Automated trading solutions are widely available, but StockSmart is the first to offer a fully automated Research solution and high-quality algorithm-driven research guidance. StockSmart applies artificial intelligence to capital markets with an analytics engine and fully searchable financial platform.

StockSmart technology also produces risk ratings to accelerate and improve decision making, adding a fully quantitative process to initiate and validate Buy/Sell triggers. In-depth earnings analysis is integrated as a core component of the ratings and research reports.

Public company coverage from Wall Street firms (especially for small- and mid-cap companies) has ebbed in recent years, creating a demand for company research at all levels, including the companies themselves and the C-level executives who need advanced analytics to manage those companies properly.

StockSmart technology unifies and integrates the enormous amount of data that becomes available every trading day. StockSmart assembles the complete industry ecosystem to understand better the relative merits and positioning of each stock and ETF. StockSmart's ETF research allows investors to select ETFs that reduce composite risk and exclude unfavorable ETF combinations.

12. Method — FAQ — How does StockSmart work? — Why is it Smarter?

The answer involves "Autonomous, Methods-Based Price Discovery"

StockSmart asks — and answers — a very important question — for every stock and at every point in time: Is this the "right" price?

While the question is simple, the answer is not, and the technology built to draw conclusions and answer questions by applying validated, interrelated data is a major achievement. From predictive indicators, including internally-generated industry forecasts, earnings estimates, options analysis, technical analysis, and ratings, plus external criteria such as financial reporting, social media and news, StockSmart derives sentiment and pushes foresight even further. The accompanying portfolio management platform makes it easy to be effective and apply the knowledge StockSmart creates, showing when portfolios are in or out of balance, and zeroing in on risk exposure with fact-based criteria and advanced visualization.

Others display information, piling on more and more, until users are drowning in information overload. StockSmart does the opposite — StockSmart combines all the information to determine and convey the essential answers users are seeking. StockSmart generates those simple Yes-No answers, but does so using a sophisticated process.

The method by which decisions are arrived at inside the StockSmart platform is critically important for investor success. In addition to extensive proprietary technology and a great deal of data, StockSmart incorporates a deep mastery of technique, with abundant Wall Street expertise built into the machine that creates every decision.

Feeds are a key factor as well, both in unifying the many feeds and in the nature of the feeds themselves. Additionally, new feeds are now emerging, including social media feeds, greatly expanding the interacting information sets which StockSmart is able to process, the raw materials from which the differentiated intelligence and understanding are created.

Never before has the full industry ecosystem been available as a basis for decision making. Never before has a system been able to consider so many factors to steer and vet investor and corporate decision making. StockSmart reaches a higher level of detail and sophistication, fully-inclusive and dynamic, constantly referencing the trading and the changing underling metrics. StockSmart makes every decision in this superior context, and answers — for each stock, ETF and mutual fund — Yes or No. This is the right price, or it is not. Where the price is right, there is no action to be taken. The value lies in knowing which prices are incorrect, and what to do about it.

Professional portfolio managers, mutual funds, RIAs and advisors need these answers, hedge funds too. As is evident from the excruciating performance pressures, today few are able to make these decisions correctly, and fewer still to be consistently successful over time. New services from StockSmart will help. Individual investors also struggle. Here too, StockSmart will help, and introduce better investing for all.

13. Benefits — FAQ — What are the Benefits of StockSmart?

Benefit to Management — C-Levels

• CEO's and CFO's gain a new communications platform. C-Levels can add their own message and materials, including video presentations and interviews, to the StockSmart Research Reports.
• This new access and direct communications channel will help the C-Level and Investor Relations teams normalize trading by increasing the availability of timely and fact-based information.
• Earnings season will be easier to manage and control as management can instantly see how their own performance compares with the peer group, and sharpen their messages accordingly.
• As these objective automated Research Reports become widely available, control will shift back to the Boardroom. CEO's will become increasingly able to drive the conversations and impact the investment decision making surrounding their stock.
• The reports are a new resource for management, employees and other constituents, helping all to — literally — "get on the same page." The StockSmart Reports will be that page, or set of pages they will use to more easily discern and communicate the messaging and information flow about their company and industry while keeping the facts front and center.

Benefit to the Consumer Web

• With the help of StockSmart, investors can be assured they are making the best possible decisions and are not exposed to inordinate risk.
• StockSmart's portfolio watch dog and balancing guidance make it easy and intuitive to purge risk and achieve diversification and favorable sector exposure just like the pros do.
• StockSmart brings time management and peace of mind like never before, making it easier for individual investors to be successful and highlighting risk and opportunity in new ways.
• Stocks are rated in order to signal proper decision making, all with objectivity, and never with conflicts or a push to trade. ETF research reports and ratings make it far easier to select winning ETFs, identify new investment possibilities and make valid comparisons to stock and mutual fund alternatives.
• Individuals come to StockSmart for a "second opinion" to test portfolios and test the recommendations of their brokers and advisors, as well as their own ideas.

Benefit to RIAs, Financial Advisors and Stockbrokers

• Brokers are often judged harshly and struggle to differentiate themselves. StockSmart helps on both counts, making it easier for brokers to make Smart recommendations and back up their recommendations with solid, fact-based objective research of high quality.
• StockSmart offers Brokers and RIAs the equivalent of a full research department, yet better, always timely, always objective, and fully inclusive, covering small caps and large.

Benefit to the Markets

• "Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing." — Warren Buffet
  StockSmart solves that problem. We make it simple to be Smarter!
• Better research access, improved transparency and better management of the earnings season can reduce trading irregularities and predatory opportunistic behaviors.
• By changing the process by which companies are judged and valued StockSmart can improve trading decision making, and de-risk portfolios. Ultimately, and collectively, this improves the market itself.