Trade Pitch

Trade Pitch

The terminus of the research. A finished analysis becomes a position: a direction, a variant view, the evidence that carries it, a scenario tree, an expression, a level that says we were wrong, and a plan for watching it. The pitch is research output for a professional reader, and its verbs describe what the analysis supports; personalised advice and execution instructions sit outside it, which is why the vocabulary ends at re-underwrite rather than at a size, and why size appears only as a fraction of a stated loss budget, per the registered extension in .agents/skills/research-conventions/references/judgment.md.

Every figure in a pitch is load-bearing, which makes this the deliverable where unsupported precision does the most damage. Evidence labels, source tiers, staleness, the readiness posture and the intake limits: .agents/skills/research-conventions/SKILL.md, read before the first figure enters the pitch.

Instrument mechanics for anything other than long common stock, the short-side gate, and the worked reconciliation of two loss limits: .agents/skills/trade-pitch/references/expression.md.

Step 1: Intake, and the posture the inputs support

Read the investor-mandate memory first per .agents/skills/research-conventions/references/intake.md, then ask only about the forks it leaves open. Four things are fixed before any work starts:

The pitch rests on something named. Record the artifact, its as-of, and which of its outputs the pitch uses (the fair-value range, the peer multiple, the revision path). Where no finished analysis exists, say so in one sentence, name which skill would produce it, and either build that first or deliver a screen-grade pitch that says the underwriting is still owed.

Posture is stated once near the top of the artifact, read from the ladder in .agents/skills/research-conventions/SKILL.md against the input state. For a pitch the inputs that count include a live price, a valuation anchor, a dated catalyst, an established borrow on a short leg, and the sizing inputs in .agents/skills/trade-pitch/references/expression.md.

Done when direction, horizon, the source artifact with its as-of, and every mandate slot carry a value or a disclosed default, and the posture is written with the specific input that set it.

Step 2: The variant view

Four fields, and a pitch without all four is a summary of someone else's work:

1. What the market believes. At the current price, in the units of the driver the position rests on: the growth rate the multiple requires, the margin the price embeds, the estimate path consensus is carrying. Ground it in the affected names and their revisions, never in an index move.
2. What we believe. The same driver, our number, sourced to the analysis from step 1.
3. Why the gap exists. The mechanism that lets it persist: a disclosure lag, a KPI the street reads on the wrong basis, a misclassified business, a forced seller, a horizon mismatch, an event nobody has dated. A gap with no mechanism is usually an error in our own work.
4. What closes it. The dated event or the evidence arrival that converts belief into price, marked scheduled, likely or speculative.

The seven questions this section has to satisfy, the rule that price is belief rather than truth, and the requirement to answer the strongest opposing case: .agents/skills/research-conventions/references/judgment.md, read before writing this step.

Done when all four fields are written, the market's belief is stated in the driver's own units and sourced to the affected names, the gap names a mechanism, and the closer carries a date or a window and its confidence.

Step 3: Evidence as falsifiable claims

Convert the argument into two to five claims, in the table of .agents/skills/research-conventions/references/judgment.md, with one column added: the evidence label from .agents/skills/research-conventions/references/evidence.md on each claim's evidence. The working table carries the research label; the delivered document prints the reader-facing word for it.

A needs-source label is drafting state: before delivery the figure is sourced, or the claim takes the unsupported-claim exit in evidence.md.

Done when the table holds between two and five claims, each carries all six fields plus one evidence label, no needs-source label survives, and removing any one claim would change the recommendation.

Step 4: Scenario tree

Three cases, each built from a driver rather than from a haircut to the base target:

Each case moves one named driver to a stated level and carries the arithmetic through to a price, so a reader can move the driver and watch the case move. Provenance is the model, a source, the user, our judgement or illustration, with an as-of. Returns are discounted or annualised against a stated hurdle per the discounting rule in judgment.md, because a multi-year target price is not a return.

Probabilities. A complete set is mutually exclusive, covers the space and sums to one; the rule and what to do otherwise are in judgment.md. When the probabilities are assumed rather than underwritten, the table is labelled an illustrative skew, the weighted figure is withheld, and the posture is re-read from the ladder in .agents/skills/research-conventions/SKILL.md against that input state.

Bear-case survivability. A lower price is not a downside case. State what breaks, through which line item, to what number, and then whether the company survives it: liquidity through the trough, covenant headroom against the stressed metric, and the maturity wall inside the horizon. A company that cannot fund its own bear case has a different downside from one that can, and the difference is the whole risk.

The exit in the bear case uses stressed liquidity, not normal. Normal participation and stressed participation are separate lines, never one blended figure, and where the case is a gap risk the exit price is the post-move price rather than the level we would have liked. Mechanics and the arithmetic: .agents/skills/trade-pitch/references/expression.md.

Done when each case names its driver, its level and the arithmetic to a price; the bear case states liquidity, covenants and maturities through the trough; the probability set sums to one or the table is labelled an illustrative skew with the posture re-read against that state; and the bear-case exit carries a stressed participation figure beside the normal one.