Methodology

1. Why this page exists

Financial data is only as useful as it is trustworthy, and you cannot judge that without knowing where the numbers come from and how old they are. This page states both plainly, including the things we do not do.

2. Where the data comes from

Market data on Financial IQ is supplied by Financial Modeling Prep (FMP), a third-party market data provider. This includes quotes, historical prices, company profiles, financial statements, ratios, earnings dates, dividends, insider activity, and the stock screener universe.

We do not operate our own market data feed and we are not an exchange, broker or data originator. Where a figure is wrong at source, it will be wrong here too. If you spot something that looks incorrect, please tell us.

3. How current the numbers are

Data is cached briefly to keep the site fast and to stay within our provider's rate limits. Cache lifetimes differ by data type, because a share price goes stale in seconds while a quarterly balance sheet does not:

Prices are delayed, not real-time. Nothing on this site should be used for time-sensitive trading decisions. Figures may also lag briefly after market open or during unusually high volatility.

4. What we calculate, and what we do not

Being specific matters here, because "AI-powered" is often used to imply more than it should.

• Financial health scores are supplied by our data provider, not computed by us. We display them; we do not originate them, and we make no claim that they are proprietary.
• Ratios and per-share figures shown on comparison pages come from the provider's calculated fundamentals. Where we derive a figure ourselves — for example a dividend yield from price and annual dividend — it is arithmetic on provider data, not a model output.
• Reading time on articles is estimated at roughly 200 words per minute.

5. How the AI assistant works

Ask Vera is a conversational assistant with access to 41 data tools that query the same live market data described above. When you ask a question, it selects and calls the tools it needs and answers from what they return.

Two consequences worth understanding:

• Answers are generated at the moment you ask, from data fetched then. Two people asking the same question minutes apart may see different numbers, and that is correct behaviour rather than inconsistency.
• Language models can be wrong. They can misread a figure or state something confidently that is not so. Vera is a research aid, not an authority — verify anything you intend to act on, and prefer the underlying data pages over a summary of them.

6. Research articles

How articles are produced, reviewed and corrected — including our use of AI in drafting — is set out separately in our Editorial Policy.

7. Not investment advice

Financial IQ is an information and tools platform. Nothing on this site is financial, investment, legal or tax advice, and nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell any security. We do not know your circumstances, objectives or risk tolerance. Past performance does not indicate future results. Always do your own research, and consider taking professional advice before investing.

8. Corrections

If something here is inaccurate or out of date, we want to know. Contact us and we will correct it.