iNiveś
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scoringmethodologyAugust 18, 20262 min read

The six Vitals, and why they don't add up to Alpha

Quality, Value, Growth, Stability, Momentum, and Yield — what each measures, which data drives it, and how they combine into Pulse instead of the headline score.

P

Pradeep

Founder

The iNiveś score page shows a lot: Alpha, Pulse, six Vitals, a dozen Signal gates, and a rank tier. This post is the map. Once you know which number answers which question, the dashboard stops looking crowded.

The six Vitals

Each Vital is scored 0–100 per holding, from fundamental and market data:

VitalQuestion it answersPrimary inputs
QualityIs the business profitable and well-run?Return on capital, margins, earnings stability
ValueIs the price reasonable for what you get?Earnings, book value, cash-flow multiples vs peers
GrowthIs it getting bigger, profitably?Revenue and earnings trends, reinvestment quality
StabilityDoes it hold up when markets don't?Volatility, drawdowns, balance-sheet strength
MomentumIs the market rewarding it right now?Price trends across daily and quarterly windows
YieldDoes it return cash to owners?Dividend yield and payout consistency

Pulse is their aggregate

Pulse is the value-weighted composite of the six Vitals, normalized to a common index scale. A portfolio heavy in cheap, stable dividend payers will have a Value, Stability, and Yield skew; one heavy in growth names will skew to Growth and Momentum. Pulse gives you that shape in one number.

Pulse does not feed Alpha. Alpha is the price-competitiveness score — valuation, profitability, and sentiment minus risk and rate drag. The two answer different questions:

  • Alpha: "Is what I own worth its current price?"
  • Pulse: "What kind of portfolio do I own?"

Signals: the pass/fail layer

Above the scores sit the Signal gates — threshold checks that determine whether Conviction (the 0–10 gated action score) is curated or raw. If all gates pass, you see Conviction. If any gate fails, you see the raw Signal with a warning triangle, and the failing gates are listed as chips.

Gates are not score deductions. They are vetoes — liquidity, leverage, margin, and governance checks that a blended score can mask. A holding can score 80 on Alpha and still fail a gate that disqualifies it from a curated Conviction.

How a raw data point becomes a score

Each Vital input travels through the 119-node scoring DAG: normalization → peer comparison → factor grouping → Vital scores → Pulse. Every node's configuration is versioned, and every stored score records the version it was computed with, so a score is always reproducible.

You can inspect the graph yourself — the DAG viewer on any holding shows how each input flows to the final number, node by node.

Reading them together

A practical triage order:

  1. Alpha — is the portfolio competitively priced?
  2. Signals — does anything fail a hard gate?
  3. Vitals — where is the portfolio concentrated, and is that intentional?
  4. Conviction vs Signal — is the action score curated or gated?

Scores are a starting point for questions, not verdicts. But a portfolio with a clear Vital shape and no failing gates is a portfolio you can explain — which is the actual goal.

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