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Alpha Metrics Guide

MarketAlpha includes a powerful set of proprietary scoring metrics that help you evaluate ticker quality, trend direction, trade structure, and setup readiness — all in real time. These include:

  • Alpha Ratings: Composite and individual scores ranking each ticker across fundamentals, technicals, liquidity, and group leadership.
  • AI Strategy Metrics: Real-time signals that confirm direction, calculate risk/reward, measure structure, and estimate time-to-target.

These metrics appear throughout the platform — as columns in screeners, filters in profiles, tags in setup viewers, and overlays in Alpha Charts.

They provide a consistent way to evaluate whether a ticker is:

  • Fundamentally strong
  • Technically sound
  • Structurally ready for entry
  • Confirmed by AI models
  • Well-positioned within its group or theme

Below is a high-level introduction to each metric type.

Alpha Ratings: What They Show​

Alpha Ratings summarize a ticker’s fundamental and technical quality into easy-to-use numeric scores. Many ratings range from 1 to 99, where 99 represents the strongest relative performance.

Common ratings include:

  • MarketAlpha Rating: Composite score across all core metrics
  • EPS, Sales, Profit Ratings: Evaluate recurring growth and profitability
  • Liquidity Rating: Gauges execution quality and scalability
  • Acc/Dis Score: Detects institutional accumulation or selling
  • Fundamentals Rating: Letter grade from A–F covering valuation and balance sheet strength
  • Industry/Theme Ratings: Measures group strength over 1 Day and 1 Year

These scores help surface consistent outperformers, breakout candidates, institutional magnets, and fast-moving leaders. They are commonly used in profile filters such as:

  • EPS Rating ≥ 85
  • Liquidity Rating ≥ 70
  • Industry Rating 1 Day ≥ 90
  • Acc/Dis Score ≥ 2

For full details on how each rating works and is calculated, see Alpha Ratings

Understanding Risk/Reward​

Risk/Reward is a core part of how MarketAlpha evaluates the quality of any trade setup. It compares the potential upside to the defined downside — based on real support, resistance, and chart structure — and helps ensure that each trade idea is mathematically favorable.

  • For Long setups, reward is the distance from entry to the next resistance, and risk is the distance to nearby support.
  • For Short setups, reward is the distance from entry to the next support, and risk is the distance to nearby resistance.

For example, a Risk/Reward of 3.0 means you're risking $1 to potentially gain $3 — a key threshold used in many filters and profiles.

For detailed logic and real-world examples, see Risk/Reward Strategy Logic

AI Strategy Metrics: Real-Time Setup Scoring​

AI Strategy Metrics track how well a setup aligns with a directional bias, structural quality, and reward potential — all based on real-time data. The system assigns a Long or Short bias, then uses supporting metrics to evaluate strength and tradability.

Key metrics include:

  • Alpha Strategy: Long or Short directional signal with model confidence
  • Price Action Confirmation: Measures if price movement supports the strategy
  • Risk/Reward: Calculates the reward vs. risk based on selected resistance and support
  • Path to Target: Counts obstacles (support/resistance) to the target
  • Estimated Days to Target: Time estimate to reach projected target
  • Risk/Reward 1st: Early-stage risk/reward based on first nearby zones

You’ll see these in filters such as:

  • AI - Alpha Strategy = Long
  • AI - Risk/Reward ≥ 3
  • AI - Path to Target ≤ 1
  • AI - Price Action Confirmation ≥ 3

Together, these metrics help isolate high-conviction setups with favorable structure, timing, and potential follow-through.

For full explanations of how these real-time signals are generated, see AI Strategies

How They Work Together​

The strongest results often combine Alpha Ratings and AI Strategy Metrics. For example:

  • A ticker with high EPS Rating, strong Liquidity, and a confirmed Long Alpha Strategy is more likely to follow through on a breakout.
  • A setup with Risk/Reward ≥ 3, Path to Target = 1, and strong Price Action Confirmation has a clearly defined trade structure with minimal friction.
  • A profile might require Industry Rating 1 Day ≥ 90 to ensure group-level alignment for momentum trades.

These metrics are central to most built-in screener profiles and are recommended for custom filtering and ranking.

Summary​

By learning to interpret these scores, you can dramatically reduce research time and quickly focus on the highest-quality setups — whether based on fundamentals, technicals, AI models, or a combination of all three.