Claims are cheap. Confidence is abundant. Evidence is scant.
Speculah exists to improve the integrity of information in retail investing by separating evidence from claims.
The internet has made investment ideas more accessible than ever. It has also made it remarkably easy to sell expertise without demonstrating it. Performance claims travel faster than verification. Conviction gets mistaken for competence. Audiences become substitutes for track records.
We think investors deserve better.
What we do
Speculah examines the people, products, and claims competing for investors’ attention and money - from investment newsletters and paid trading communities to financial influencers and emerging investment services.
Our work includes:
Evaluations: Structured assessments of investment services, their recommendations, and the evidence supporting their claims.
Investigations: Research into credentials, business practices, conflicts, and representations that warrant scrutiny.
Research and commentary: Frameworks for assessing performance, understanding risk, and distinguishing useful information from persuasive storytelling.
We ask straightforward questions: What was actually recommended? Could a subscriber reasonably have acted on it? How did it perform? How much depended on market conditions, luck, or assumptions that would be difficult to reproduce?
Then we show our work.
How we approach it
Our foundation is measurement, evidence, transparency, and accountability.
Our team brings decades of experience in professional investing and due diligence. We use technology to extend that expertise - collecting records, reconstructing recommendations, and testing claims systematically.
We explain our methods, identify limitations, and distinguish what the evidence establishes from what remains uncertain. Strong results deserve recognition. Unsupported claims deserve scrutiny. When the evidence changes, our conclusions should change with it.
The standard is simple: anyone selling investment expertise should expect questions about the evidence behind it.
Beyond the numbers
Markets are part of a broader story about how people think, what institutions reward, and how societies make progress. We also explore incentives, technology, institutional competence, and the habits of mind that help us navigate uncertainty.
Our outlook favors curiosity, practical problem-solving, and the belief that progress is possible but not inevitable. That requires independent judgment, a willingness to revise our views, and an interest in what works.
From Narrative Combat to Speculah
Speculah grew out of Narrative Combat, where we examined the distance between compelling narratives and the facts beneath them.
The same instinct remains. The focus is now sharper: bringing professional investment scrutiny to the information and services sold to individual investors.
Access
Speculah is free to read. We personally fund the subscriptions, data, technology, and other research costs that make this work possible.
As the project grows, we may explore ways for readers to support it. For now, the best support is to read critically, share work you find useful, and help us ask better questions.
Subscribe to receive our evaluations, investigations, and commentary.
Think Hard.
