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Yellowbrick shows two kinds of returns. Pitch returns ask how one idea did after it was published. Author returns ask how that author’s included ideas have done as a group. Neither number is a fund NAV, a brokerage statement, or a claim that you would have earned the same result. They are research scores: did the idea work, and has this author’s body of work worked. Tap a returns row in the app for a one-line summary. This page is the full method.

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Pitch returns

Pitch returns measure the stock from the first price a reader could reasonably trade after the write-up, out to each window. We do not use the close on the pitch date. That price already includes the day’s news, and many posts go out after the close. Entry is the dividend- and split-adjusted open on the next calendar day (or the next session with a price). Exit for a window is the adjusted close on or before that horizon.
Windows you see on a pitch: A dash means that window is not ready yet (for example a pitch from last week has no 1Y) or we do not have a usable price.

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Shorts and bearish ideas

A bearish pitch is scored so a falling stock is a win. We flip the sign of the raw price return. A −20% move in the shares is shown as +20% for a bearish idea.

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Compared with the market

Filters such as excess return compare the same window to a simple benchmark: SPY when the company was larger than about $2B in USD at the pitch, otherwise IWM. The benchmark uses the same entry and exit dates, and the same sign flip for bearish ideas. The pitch card itself shows the idea’s own return, not the excess figure.

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When we stop counting a pitch

If an author later reverses the thesis, we can cut off further windows after that date. Windows that had already finished stay in place. The idea does not keep accruing as if the original call were still live.

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Author returns

Author returns are the equal-weight average of that author’s included pitch returns for each window. Every included idea counts as one. A mega-cap write-up and a small-cap write-up have the same weight. A “new position” and an “add” have the same weight. We do not scale by dollars, shares, “conviction,” or how loud the post was. On a pitch card, the author row is the record as of that pitch date. Only windows that had already finished by then are in the average. A later homerun does not rewrite what you would have seen at the time. On an author page (and similar profile surfaces), the row is the author’s current snapshot: the same method, rolled forward to the latest completed windows.

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Why this is not a portfolio return

A portfolio or “if you had followed this author” number would need position sizes, when they added or trimmed, cash, hedges, and what you could actually fill. Public write-ups almost never include that. Inventing sizes would be a story, not a measurement. Equal-weight idea returns answer a different, cleaner question: when this person publishes a new idea, how do those ideas tend to do? That is more useful for choosing who to read:
  • One oversized winner cannot hide a pile of poor ideas.
  • Recycled posts on the same name do not dominate the average (see Which pitches count).
  • You can compare a concentrated fund writer with a high-frequency blogger without pretending you know either book.
If you need profit and loss, use the author’s own letters or your own fills. Yellowbrick is scoring the research, not simulating a sleeve.

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Which pitches count

An idea is included in author returns when all of these are true:
  • It is a new or added long or short (initiate or increase), not a monitor, hold, or close
  • It is not a duplicate of the same company, date, and thesis
  • There is no other included initiation or add in the same company within the prior year
The one-year cooldown keeps a campaign of posts on one ticker from counting as many independent ideas. A close does not reset that clock. After a year, a fresh initiation in the same name can enter again. Updates, recaps, and “still like it” notes can still appear in the feed. They just do not get a second vote in the author’s average. We can also exclude a pitch when the write-up is not actually a new idea. The rules above are the default.

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What the windows mean for authors

Author 1M is the average of included pitches whose one-month window has finished, not “this author’s last 30 days of publishing.” 1Y and 2Y work the same way. A dash means too few completed windows, or none. That is why a very new author can show 1M before 1Y, and why a long record still waits on each idea’s own horizon.

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What these numbers are not

  • Not your personal return if you traded the idea
  • Not tax-, fee-, or borrow-aware (shorts especially)
  • Not a live mark-to-market of an author’s fund
  • Not a promise that past idea returns will continue
Prices are split- and dividend-adjusted. We still depend on mapping the write-up to the right listing, a usable pitch date, and a price series. If something looks wrong, use Report an Error on the pitch.
Use author returns to decide who is worth following. Use pitch returns to see whether that specific idea worked after it was published. Filter Home by either when you want a higher bar.