Glossary

Terms Wellow uses, both modes.

The vocabulary that shows up across exposure cards, causal chains, philosopher alignment, behavioral exposure, and the data-to-watch section. Research terms first, Philosophy terms below.

Research mode

Investment thesis vocabulary

Conviction: A future-facing belief about how the world will change. The input to Wellow. Not a question, not a ticker, not a screen. A sentence like 'travel will become more frequent' or 'AI agents will replace customer support'.
Refined thesis: A one-sentence restatement of the conviction that names the underlying mechanism, not just the surface belief. Where the conviction is the input, the refined thesis is the cleanest articulation of what would have to be true for the belief to play out economically.; Conviction: 'travel will keep growing.' Refined: 'Premium travel demand outpaces economy travel as wealth concentration drives a structural shift in leisure spending.'
Wellow Take: The one-sentence opinionated read on the cleanest way to express the thesis. Directional, not exhaustive. Names the asset structure that earns the most attention before getting into picks.
Polarity: The directional shape of a conviction. Bullish (X will grow), bearish (X will decline), or structural (X will reshape Y). Wellow classifies polarity before picking any ticker; bearish theses route through hedges, inverses, and replacement plays, never 'direct beneficiaries' that would lose under the thesis.
Exposure type: How a specific ticker relates economically to the thesis. One of five values that determine card sort order on the thesis page.
Direct beneficiary: A company whose revenue scales directly with the belief. If the thesis is 'travel demand grows', a direct beneficiary is a hotel franchisor whose top-line moves with global lodging demand.
Indirect beneficiary: A company that benefits via a second-order channel rather than from the thesis itself. Same travel-demand thesis: a payments network like Visa benefits from cross-border card volume, not from owning hotels.
Enabler: The picks-and-shovels exposure: companies that sell into the direct beneficiaries. For an AI-data-center thesis, enablers are power-equipment makers, networking gear, thermal-management vendors. Not the model labs, but what the model labs buy.
High-beta expression: A smaller, more volatile pure-play on the thesis. Higher upside if the belief plays out, harsher drawdown if it doesn't. Often a single-product company or recent IPO whose future is more directly tied to the thesis than a diversified incumbent.
Hedge: A counter-position that cushions if the thesis is wrong. On a bullish travel thesis, a hedge might be airline shorts via inverse ETFs in case fuel costs or labor blow up margins.
Thesis fit: How tightly a ticker's economics align with the thesis. High / medium / low. Different from 'business quality' (which asks how good the business is regardless of thesis).
Exposure purity: What share of the company's economics actually depend on the thesis playing out. A pure-play hotel chain has high exposure purity to a travel thesis; a megacap conglomerate that 'touches everything' has low exposure purity.
Counter-argument: The one-sentence read on what a sharp investor on the other side of the trade would point out. Mandatory per pick, framed as intelligence (what's the smart bear seeing?), not a disclaimer.
Causal chain: The four-step narrative from belief to investable surfaces: first-order effects, second-order effects, market implications, and the specific business models worth researching. The single biggest differentiator between a structured thesis and a generic stock list.
First-order effects: The immediate, mechanical effects of the belief being true. Concrete and economically meaningful. 'Higher TSA throughput', not 'demand rises'.
Second-order effects: Downstream effects that depend on the first-order playing out. 'Pricing power for premium travel', 'loyalty program economics improve'.
Market implications: Reframings of where capital flows differently if the chain holds. 'Earnings expansion in travel and payments', 'multiple expansion for asset-light operators'.
Investable surfaces: The specific subsectors and business models the user could research. Not tickers — the labels feed the ticker section that follows. 'Hotel franchisors', 'OTA platforms', 'premium credit card issuers'.
Bullish-when (rises / falls): Per macro data point, which direction of the metric strengthens the thesis. Drives the green/red color on delta chips. For a travel thesis, TSA throughput is bullish-when-rises; jet fuel price is bullish-when-falls.
Backtest: The hypothetical equal-weight return of the thesis's recommended tickers over 1y / 3y / 5y, compared against SPY. Computed at generate time. A rear-view sanity check, not portfolio optimization.
Coverage (in backtest): How many of the recommended tickers had enough price history to count toward a lookback period. Surfaced explicitly ('6 of 8 tickers with 5y of history') so the reader knows the figure is partial. Periods with under 50% coverage are omitted entirely.
Anti-thesis: The 'invalidation' kind in the risks section: the specific thing that, if it happens, breaks the whole thesis. Not the same as a generic risk. Every Wellow thesis must include at least one.
Market-implied probability: When a belief maps to a live Kalshi prediction market, the thesis shows that market's YES price as a probability (e.g. 33%) with its recent trend, polled live. It's the market's current odds on the event behind the belief, not Wellow's forecast. Shown only when a confident match exists.

Philosophy mode

Worldview vocabulary

Belief: The Philosophy-mode equivalent of a conviction. A short sentence about how to live, what to value, or what to choose. The input that becomes a structured worldview.; 'Career is more about what you enjoy than what you're good at', 'lifestyle is a self-fulfilling prophecy', 'love is mostly about getting to know yourself.'
Refined worldview: A one-sentence restatement of the belief as a precise philosophical claim, with the hedging stripped out. Where the belief is the input, the refined worldview is the cleanest articulation of what you're actually committing to.
Take (Philosophy): The 20–25 word compressed insight: what the belief implies and what it costs. Strong stance, no fluff. Distinct from the Research-mode 'Wellow Take' but plays the same editorial role.
Philosopher alignment: The set of canon thinkers whose worldview maps to yours, mapped to or against. Returned as 3–6 entries spanning strong / partial / opposed, picked from a curated set of 35+ philosophers.
Strong / partial / opposed: The three alignment levels. 'Strong' = the philosopher's worldview substantially overlaps yours. 'Partial' = real overlap with a real divergence (and the divergence is named explicitly). 'Opposed' = the philosopher would push back, ideally with the strongest version of the counter — never a strawman.
Why it fits / counterargument (per philosopher): Two short sentences attached to every alignment entry. 'Why it fits' is the specific overlap with the belief. 'Counterargument' is where that philosopher would push back or qualify, including for strong-alignment entries where they share most but not all of it.
Axis vector: A six-dimensional classification of any belief or philosopher across individualism / collectivism, structure / freedom, stability / change, rational / experiential, meaning / nihilism, and risk / safety. Used for matching, not scholarship — calibrated to find good alignments, not to write academic essays.
Behavioral exposure (Philosophy): What the belief commits you to across four life surfaces: career, financial, lifestyle, and relationships. Each item is a concrete action, not a category — 'bias toward roles where comp ≥ 40% variable', not 'career risk'.
Causal chain (Philosophy): The four-tier path from belief to who you become. First-order is what you do this week if you take the belief seriously. Second-order is the patterns that emerge over months. Third-order is the identity that hardens. Outcomes are what life looks like at the end. Each tier is causal, not descriptive.
Contradictions: The internal tensions in the belief, surfaced in second person. 'You value X but consistently choose Y.' Sharp and specific — the place the worldview most often catches you off-guard.
Signals to watch: Self-trackable, falsifiable behavioral signals that show whether you actually live the belief. Not feelings, not macro indicators. 'The percentage of your week spent on activities that align with your stated principles', not 'do you feel aligned?'
Risks (Philosophy): Where the belief breaks, in three categories. Psychological (you become rigid / dogmatic), practical (you turn down opportunities or alienate the wrong people), misapplication (you use the belief as cover for inaction or rationalization). Every worldview names at least one of each.

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