/us-undervalued-growth-screener

Primary-Source Research Checklist — Schema 3 / Contract 3.5 / Audit v3.5

Use this checklist for every broad-screen survivor. Mark each item verified, not applicable, or not verified. A blank field or a Boolean assertion without a resolving source ID is not a pass.

v3.5 Runtime and Independent-Bridge Checks

• Every helper --version reports v3.6.1 / contract 3.5 / the expected fingerprint.
• Audit, checkpoint, and snapshot runtime metadata match the installed skill.
• The user-requested scope remains separate from the executed retrieval scope; no internal single-band rewrite occurred.
• Discovery liquidity uses a documented 20+ session average and source IDs, never one-session volume.
• Current Forward P/E is dated NTM/FY1 and reconciles to positive EPS and price; no distant outer-year substitution.
• Every Broad Screen-selected symbol is present in the committed set and reaches a verified terminal candidate record.
• A bounded pool has a valid generation audit and a clearly labeled conclusion scope.
• Forecast EPS/FCF is independently derived from operating drivers; numerator is not reverse-engineered from target per-share metric.
• Adjusted forecast GAAP and adjustment portions separately tie to the reconciliation.
• Each TTM cash-flow component period has resolving source IDs.
• Corporate cash, eligible securities, customer/settlement funds, and restricted cash are correctly classified.
• ROIC and EBITDA have source-linked inputs or transparent calculations.
• Commercial-biopharma aliases trigger concentration, LOE, and 6x/8x stress checks.
• peak_profit_risk=true has sourced normalization.
• Broad-screen statuses were not overridden by an informal revenue-growth or cycle gate.

0. Checkpoint and Run Integrity

• Initialize a run with manage_run_state.py.
• Record analysis_as_of, common quote basis, repository commit, and configuration.
• Record requested and actual retrieval scope; do not silently narrow the market-cap range.
• Preserve user_requested_scope separately from executed_scope; tool/context budget is not scope authorization.
• If execution is narrower, confirm explicit user authorization and label the limited conclusion scope.
• Reject single-session volume as ADDV; require provider-average or 20+ trading-day average-volume evidence with source IDs.
• Prove universe enumeration with provider total plus exhausted pagination or exhausted market-cap-band audits.
• Attach both listing-universe and candidate-pool audit artifacts with verified SHA-256.
• Record listing-data coverage separately from candidate-pool economic coverage.
• Record candidate-pool status (sufficient, sufficient_pending_enrichment, no_qualifying_candidates, or insufficient_data).
• Preserve the enrichment queue and documented attempts when bulk fundamentals are unavailable.
• Record attempted, resolved, and unresolved counts separately.
• Confirm every in-scope listing symbol is represented in the candidate pool before a market-wide no-candidates claim.
• Confirm candidate_pool_exhaustion_declared=true only after every candidate row is resolved or evidenced as unavailable.
• Confirm independently verified candidate_pool_exhausted=true; do not rely on the declaration alone.
• Confirm only genuinely scored, selection-eligible rows enter the deep-dive set.
• Permit strong cyclicals to enter deep dive with a mid-cycle-normalization requirement.
• Treat growth thresholds as guidelines; document isolated misses rather than using them as automatic rejects.
• Record every screening-funnel stage.
• Save each candidate after preflight and after full verification.
• Enforce unprocessed_candidates = selected_symbols - verified_symbols.
• Verify the selected-set SHA-256 commitment and configured deep-dive budget.
• Resolve every committed selected symbol; never let an LLM silently choose a smaller subset.
• Keep an interrupted run partial; do not publish final-three selections.
• Before publishing “no candidates,” confirm full in-scope candidate coverage, explicit and verified exhaustion, zero queue/unresolved rows, all final dispositions, and at least one assessable row.
• Confirm Markdown exposes nonzero broad-screen review, unavailable, screened-out, and exclusion groups.

1. Corporate-Action Preflight — Perform First

• Confirm exchange listing is active.
• Confirm symbol is active and quote volume is plausible.
• Search for pending or completed acquisitions/mergers.
• Check delisting, suspension, ticker change, split, reverse split, and spin-off.
• Record checked_at and latest_material_event_at.
• Attach resolving source IDs.
• Hard-exclude completed/pending M&A and inactive/delisted securities from normal GARP ranking.
• Route rumors, unknown status, or stale preflight to review.

2. Snapshot Integrity

• Record current-price timestamp, timezone, and session.
• Confirm regular-close versus after-hours/pre-market/intraday.
• Record latest earnings period and publication timestamp.
• Confirm no earnings release or material event occurred after the price timestamp.
• Confirm split adjustment for price, EPS, and shares.
• Confirm reporting currency.
• Map FY1, FY2, and FY3 to the company's fiscal calendar.
• Normalize the formal current valuation period as NTM or FY1 with period end, estimate-as-of date, analyst count, and source IDs.
• Reject outer-year-only, pre-operating, zero-crossing, or excessively dispersed consensus as a current Forward P/E.
• Confirm fiscal versus calendar-year estimates.

3. Source Ledger and Evidence Map

For every load-bearing field, create a source-ledger row with:

• source ID,
• tier,
• document kind,
• title,
• publication and retrieval timestamps,
• URL or filing identifier,
• supported field names.

Create candidate-level evidence entries for price, latest earnings, revenue, cash flow, SBC, debt, cash classification, diluted shares, and corporate-action preflight.

Tier 1 — SEC

• 10-K
• 10-Q
• 8-K
• DEF 14A
• S-3 / 424B5 when dilution risk exists
• Form 4 when insider activity matters
• 20-F / 6-K for foreign issuers

Tier 2 — Company IR

• Earnings release
• Shareholder letter
• Investor presentation
• Prepared remarks/transcript supplied by company
• Guidance
• Investor-day materials

Tier 3/4 — Supplemental

• Quote/market-data vendor
• Consensus database with retrieval time and analyst count
• Exchange/company status source
• Analyst model or calculation with explicit assumptions
• News/context source

When sources conflict, prefer the latest correcting SEC filing and document the discrepancy.

4. Business and Growth

• Summarize business model and revenue drivers.
• Identify recurring, transactional, cyclical, project, and acquired revenue.
• Calculate three- to five-year revenue CAGR.
• Calculate three-year GAAP EPS CAGR when meaningful.
• Calculate three-year standard FCF-per-share CAGR.
• Separate organic and acquisition growth.
• Separate price, volume, mix, and FX where material.
• Identify customer, product, platform, channel, and geographic concentration.
• Assess market share and competitive advantages.
• Classify growth as accelerating, stable, modestly decelerating, clearly decelerating, bottoming, or peaking.

5. Latest Earnings

• Fiscal period/end date/release timestamp
• Revenue, YoY, sequential, and organic growth
• Gross profit and margin
• GAAP operating income and margin
• Adjusted operating income and margin
• GAAP and adjusted EPS
• Operating cash flow
• Standard FCF
• Capex cash-outflow magnitude
• SBC
• Basic and diluted shares
• Guidance and revision direction
• Same-basis consensus comparison
• Segment performance
• Orders, backlog, or sector KPIs
• One-time costs/gains
• Working-capital and tax-rate changes

Do not let a headline beat override deteriorating guidance, cash flow, backlog, take rate, prescription growth, or another core KPI.

6. TTM Cash Flow and FCF

• Identify source statement as standalone quarter, YTD cumulative, FY, or explicit TTM.
• Normalize every capex_cash_outflow as a non-negative magnitude.
• Select one method: reported_ttm, sum_4_discrete, or fy_plus_current_ytd_minus_prior_ytd.
• For sum_4_discrete, confirm four unique standalone quarters.
• For YTD reconstruction, confirm comparable current/prior periods.
• Recalculate standard FCF = OCF − capex cash outflow.
• Reconcile supplied and reconstructed values within configured tolerance.
• Keep company-adjusted FCF separate and document its definition.
• Calculate SBC-adjusted economic FCF separately.
• Explain working-capital contributions.

7. GAAP / Adjusted Discipline

• Record a separate metric_basis for current, year-2, and year-3 periods.
• Confirm all periods use one basis.
• Never combine current GAAP EPS with future adjusted EPS under one multiple.
• For adjusted/normalized metrics, record the GAAP starting metric.
• List every adjustment, amount, label, and recurring status.
• Confirm arithmetic tie-out to the valuation metric.
• Attach source IDs.
• Distinguish company non-GAAP from analyst-created normalization.
• Flag recurring exclusions and changed definitions.

Review exclusions:

• SBC
• restructuring
• acquisition costs
• intangible amortization
• acquired IPR&D
• litigation
• impairment
• tax items
• asset-sale gains
• other recurring “one-time” items

8. Accounting and Earnings Quality

• Reconcile net income and operating cash flow.
• Review receivables, DSO, inventory, and inventory days.
• Review unbilled revenue, contract assets, deferred revenue, and customer advances.
• Review capitalized software/R&D.
• Review goodwill, intangibles, and impairments.
• Review asset-sale gains, tax effects, and pension/non-operating income.
• Review related parties, auditor changes, material weaknesses, restatements, and SEC investigations.

9. Balance Sheet and Cash Classification

• Corporate cash
• Marketable securities available to shareholders
• Customer/settlement funds
• Restricted cash
• Total debt
• Net debt using only eligible cash
• Net debt/EBITDA
• Interest expense and coverage
• Debt maturities, rates, covenants, leases, preferred stock, and minority interests
• Goodwill/intangibles and contingent acquisition obligations

For payments/marketplace businesses, never treat settlement float as corporate cash.

10. SBC, Dilution, and Capital Allocation

• SBC amount, SBC/revenue, and SBC/OCF
• Basic and diluted share history
• Annualized diluted-share change
• RSUs, options, warrants, convertibles
• ATM, shelf, and public-offering history
• Actual buyback dollars and shares
• Average repurchase price
• Net share reduction after employee issuance
• Buyback funding source
• Acquisition returns and impairment history

11. Forecast Quality and Arithmetic Bridge

For every current/year-2/year-3 metric used:

• Period label and period kind
• Metric basis
• Source classification
• Retrieval time and source IDs
• Analyst count
• Estimate low/high or dispersion

For year-2/year-3:

• Revenue assumption
• Gross/operating or FCF margin assumption
• Interest assumption
• Tax rate
• Diluted shares
• Buyback/dilution assumptions
• Acquisition/divestiture assumptions
• Metric numerator and denominator
• Arithmetic tie to valuation metric within tolerance

Flag single-analyst outer-year estimates and unexplained linear extrapolation.

12. Valuation and Scenarios

• Sector-appropriate valuation basis
• Current multiple recomputed as price/current metric
• Supplied multiple reconciled
• NTM/FY1/FY2 multiple labels
• EV/EBITDA, EV/EBIT, EV/FCF where appropriate
• Standard and SBC-adjusted FCF yield
• Own-history median
• Three to five genuine peers
• Same-basis/same-period peer median
• Constant-multiple 2Y and 3Y cases
• 20% contraction 2Y and 3Y cases
• Peer-median case only when valid

13. Sector-Specific Review

Commercial biopharma

• Product-level revenue and top-product concentration
• Nearest material LOE date
• Patent settlement/litigation status
• Next-generation formulation/indication strategy
• Replacement pipeline and launch costs
• Source IDs for concentration and LOE

Payments

• TPV growth
• Revenue/TPV and gross-profit/TPV
• Current and prior gross-profit take rate
• Corporate versus settlement cash
• FX and country exposure
• Standard versus adjusted FCF
• Source IDs

Use sector-kpis.md for all other sectors.

14. Cyclical Review

For scores 3–5:

• Five- to ten-year revenue, margin, EPS, and FCF history
• Orders/backlog/book-to-bill
• Inventory/utilization/capacity
• Customer/industry capex
• Commodity/freight exposure
• Price versus volume
• Recession drawdown
• Mid-cycle revenue and margin
• Normalized per-share metric and multiple
• Normalization method and source IDs

15. Peer Set

• Three to five genuine peers
• Selection reason per peer
• Same metric basis and period kind
• Growth, margins, ROIC/sector return, leverage, SBC, dilution, and valuation compared
• Discount classified as temporary, structural, justified, or unverified

16. Governance and Thesis

• Management capital allocation
• Insider ownership and transactions with 10b5-1 context
• Dual-class/founder control
• Related parties and compensation alignment
• Three- to five-sentence thesis
• Why discounted and why market may be right
• Six- to 24-month catalysts
• Largest concrete risk
• Bear case
• Measurable invalidation conditions
• Next-quarter KPIs
• Best reason not to buy now

17. Final Gate

A candidate may be eligible only when:

• Corporate action is fresh, active, and sourced.
• No hard flag is unresolved.
• Price and event timestamps are consistent.
• Core financial fields have Tier 1/2 evidence.
• TTM cash flow and capex signs are valid.
• Current/future metric bases match.
• Forecast bridge and required GAAP reconciliation pass.
• Valuation basis is sector-appropriate.
• Peer set is valid or explicitly unavailable without inventing a median.
• Data-quality score meets threshold.
• Required cyclical/sector evidence is complete.
• Minimum upside gate passes.
• Invalidation conditions are measurable.
• Run is complete before final-three publication.

18. Schema-v3 Autonomous Completion Checks

Before presenting a live run, confirm:

• Market context contains no placeholder text, is not future-dated, and has policy rate, 10Y yield, inflation, market forward P/E, small/mid-cap context, and resolving source IDs.
• screening_audit hashes to the full row-level universe artifact.
• Every audit-selected symbol has a verified candidate checkpoint.
• No selected symbol remains in unprocessed_candidates.
• source.supports is an array for every source.
• Source kind/tier is correct; no third-party transcript is labeled company IR.
• Q4 and full-year figures are stored separately.
• Current formal valuation metric is NTM or FY1.
• At least one future horizon is rankable after analyst-count checks.
• Current/future metric bases match.
• EV/FCF uses corporate cash plus eligible marketable securities consistently.
• Latest-release and normalized cash/debt values reconcile or have a source-backed note.
• High-growth 21–30x P/E exceptions were not mechanically discarded.
• Auto dealers use floorplan-adjusted leverage.
• Commercial biopharma product concentration and LOE are sourced or derived.
• evaluate_candidates.py --strict --require-final exits 0.
• The first diagnostic report was inspected and repairable blockers were corrected.

v3.5 Final Quality Checklist

• Broad Screen selected lanes are diversified across core/high-growth/near-miss/cyclical opportunities where available.
• Candidate rows retain average_volume and liquidity_source_ids.
• Provider-side share-volume filters are disclosed and do not count as full listing enumeration.
• Every forecast driver has origin, source IDs, and target_solved=false.
• No margin, share count, or residual adjustment was reverse-solved merely to match target EPS.
• Every discrete cash-flow period has explicit source support.
• SEC filing evidence uses an accession-specific Archives URL.
• Recent spin-offs/acquisitions have pro-forma transition normalization.
• Formal eligible names pass score, FCF, ROIC, leverage, dilution, low-case, and LOE quality gates.
• final_three categories remain null when category thresholds are not met.
• prepublish_audit.py exits 0.
• bundle_run_artifacts.py produces a self-contained, manifest-hashed ZIP.