Plynk® Explore Methodology
Plynk® Explore Terms and Conditions and Methodology
Your use of the Plynk® Explore Tool (“Plynk Explore”) is governed by the following terms and conditions. In addition, your use of Plynk Explore is subject to the Plynkinvest.com Terms of Use, including all disclaimers of warranties and limitations of liability therein.
1. Plynk Explore Tool
Plynk Explore is intended to serve as a self-directed starting point for your investment research. Using market data, data on individual securities from third-party vendors, and your selections regarding your investment preferences, Plynk Explore provides a potentially relevant list of mutual funds, exchange-traded funds (“ETFs”), and stocks which may be available on the Plynk app. You agree that you will use Plynk Explore for your personal nonbusiness purposes.
Neither Plynk nor the Plynk Explore Tool makes any determination whether a security is suitable for your investment needs. Neither Plynk nor the Plynk Explore Tool monitors your investments or your research. While Plynk Explore may be of use to investors in researching information, you agree that you will not rely upon Plynk Explore as the sole basis for an investment decision and that Plynk Explore does not include all factors that may be necessary for an investor to make a decision to invest. You must decide for yourself if an investment in a security is suitable based on your evaluation of the security, your investment objectives, your risk tolerance, your investment time frame, and your financial situation. Before investing, you should read the prospectus, registration statement, issuer’s financial statements, most recent shareholder report, and other publicly available information.
Plynk Explore is guided solely by the user, and any information obtained should not be considered a solicitation of an offer to buy, an endorsement, or a recommendation for any securities. You acknowledge that your requests and/or searches for information are unsolicited and any information provided in response shall neither constitute, nor be considered as, investment advice by Digital Brokerage Services LLC (“DBS”) or its affiliates.
Download the latest version of the Plynk app to ensure you are using the most recent version of Plynk Explore.
2. Third-Party Data
Stock Data
Stock data used within Plynk Explore is provided by market data providers such as Refinitiv and Zacks Research. Plynk may add other market data providers to Plynk Explore in future releases. The universe of stocks included in Plynk Explore includes Nasdaq- and NYSE-listed securities and, therefore, may not always include all stocks available for purchase via Plynk.
ETF and Mutual Fund Data
ETF and mutual fund data used within Plynk Explore is provided by Morningstar, Inc., a research firm that analyzes and rates mutual funds and ETFs based on various characteristics such as performance, risk, and other factors. Plynk may add other market data providers to Plynk Explore in future releases.
Data and information are provided for informational purposes only. All data is historical and is subject to revision or change by the third-party providers at any time. Performance data quoted represents past performance, and the return and principal value of an investment will fluctuate so that an investor’s shares, when sold, may be worth more or less than their original cost.
Plynk Explore may provide results that identify securities by name, and each name may contain a hyperlink to additional information. The additional information may include, among other things, Morningstar ratings information, price and performance, fees, and volatility measures. Information available in Plynk Explore is dependent upon data provided by third parties, and Plynk cannot guarantee its accuracy, timeliness, or fitness for a specific purpose.
3. Products Listed in Plynk Explore
The securities included in Plynk Explore include only those for which the filtering data are currently available from third-party providers. There are no representations of completeness. Plynk Explore may not include data for all securities included within the Plynk mobile application.
4. Order of Results
Each security included in the results set will be listed in an order determined by the methodology below. The default view is in a descending order based on filtered and sorted results, with securities appearing higher on the list as determined by your preferences expressed during the selection process.
5. Plynk Explore Methodology
Plynk Explore is intended to act as a tool to help you search for securities available for purchase on Plynk that you may be interested in exploring further. The order in which the securities are displayed is determined using a system of filtering and sorting the Plynk Explore universe of securities based on your selections. The top three results (or fewer, if fewer products meet the required criteria) are displayed by default within each category (stocks, ETFs, and mutual funds—in that order), with the ability to “see more” results for each category. The criteria considered for selection is listed below the results.
Categories, which represent themes, industries, or other groupings of investments, for stocks are based on Zacks Themes categories. Categories for mutual funds and ETFs are based on their respective Morningstar Categories. Foundational funds available through Plynk are filtered and organized into categories based on asset allocation (percentage of stocks, bonds and cash that make up the fund). The final list of Foundational Funds is based on Morningstar categories ranking from 15% to 85%+ stocks. Funds are then bucketed into 3 groups based on the percentage of stocks in the fund:
- Bond focused: 0% to 40% stocks
- Balanced: 40% to 65% stocks
- Stock focused: 65% stocks
Based on your selections, the data fields and categories listed below may be used to filter or sort the order of securities displayed on the results page.
Filter
Question 1:
By choosing the “Conservative” filter, your search results will be comprised of lower-risk securities defined as mutual funds and ETFs with a Morningstar Category risk rating of 1–3 on a scale of 10. The Conservative filter will exclude all stocks.
By selecting the “Moderate” filter, your search results will be comprised of mutual funds and ETFs with a Morningstar Category risk rating of 4–6 and stocks that meet the criteria for Moderate. Moderate stocks are defined as having:
- A three-year average annual beta between 0.0 and 1.0 (where beta of 1.0 means equal volatility with the S&P 500); and
- Market capitalization greater than $10.0B; and
- A Starmine by Refinitiv Equity Summary Score of greater than 3.0, which represents a “neutral,” “bullish,” or “very bullish” rating
By selecting the “Aggressive” filter, your search results will be comprised of stocks with higher risk than those defined as Moderate, as well as mutual funds and ETFs that have a Morningstar Category risk rating of 7–10.
Morningstar Category Risk ratings are derived primarily from looking at the average Morningstar Risk score generated by the funds in that category over the previous five years. Morningstar Risk is calculated by examining the variations in a fund’s monthly returns. Funds that have a greater variation in returns, particularly if these variations lead to losses, have higher Morningstar Risk ratings than do funds that have a lower variation in returns.
The investment types typically included by Morningstar in each of the 10 risk tiers are:
| Descriptor | Risk Level | Plynk Category |
|---|---|---|
| Money Market | 1 | Conservative |
| Short Bond | 2 | Conservative |
| Bond | 3 | Conservative |
| Bond/Conservative Balanced | 4 | Moderate |
| Aggressive Bond/Conservative Equity | 5 | Moderate |
| Equity | 6 | Moderate |
| Specialized Equity | 7 | Aggressive |
| Highly Specialized Equity | 8 | Aggressive |
| Commodities | 9 | Not offered |
| Trading | 10 | Not offered |
Question 2:
By choosing any of the categories available in Question 2, your search results will be filtered based on the selections you have made. Results will be filtered to show investments that match at least one of the categories available. For example, if you select “Big Data” and “FinTech,” your results will be filtered to display stocks that match Big Data and FinTech, as well as those that match only Big Data and only FinTech.
Not all category filters are available for all investment types. For example, Big Data and FinTech are only available for stocks and, therefore, do not impact the mutual fund and ETF results. If you select those filters, stocks will be limited to relevant results, but mutual funds and ETFs will only apply filters or sorts from Questions 1 and 3. On the other hand, “Large Companies” and “Smaller Companies” are available for all three investment types; as such, all results will be filtered by those categories. Please see below for complete details about which category filters are available for each investment type.
| Category | Stocks | Mutual Funds | ETFs |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3D Printing | Yes | No | No |
| Artificial Intelligence | Yes | No | No |
| Big Data | Yes | No | No |
| Cloud Computing | Yes | No | No |
| Dividend Stocks | Yes | No | No |
| Drone | Yes | No | No |
| FinTech | Yes | No | No |
| Founder Run | Yes | No | No |
| Index Funds | No | Yes | No |
| Large Companies | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Mobile Payment | Yes | No | No |
| Natural Food | Yes | No | No |
| Robotics | Yes | No | No |
| Smaller Companies | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Staffing | Yes | No | No |
| Wind Energy | Yes | No | No |
| Women led companies | Yes | No | No |
| Foundational funds | No | Yes | No |
“Microcap” stocks (those with less than $735M market capitalization) are not included in Plynk Explore. Smaller Companies include stocks with a market cap of less than $2B and mutual funds and ETFs in the following Morningstar Categories: Small Blend, Small Growth, and Small Value. Large Companies include stocks with a market cap of greater than $10B and mutual funds and ETFs in the following Morningstar Categories: Large Blend, Large Growth, Foreign Large Blend, Large Value, Global Large-Stock Blend, Foreign Large Value, Foreign Large Growth, Global Large-Stock Growth, and Global Large-Stock Value. Foundational funds includes mutual funds in the following Morningstar Categories; Morningstar Category Allocation – 15% to 30%, Morningstar Category Allocation – 30% to 50%, Morningstar Category Allocation – 50% to 70%, Morningstar Category Allocation – 70% to 85%, Morningstar Category Allocation 85%+. The mutual funds are grouped into bond focused, balanced, and stock focused based on their pct. stock allocation.
- Bond focused: 0% to 40% stocks
- Balanced: 40% to 65% stocks
- Stock focused: 65%+ stocks
Sorts
Question 3:
For analyst ratings and performance, Plynk Explore uses:
- The Equity Summary Score by StarMine from Refinitiv for stocks;
- Morningstar’s Overall Star Rating for mutual funds and ETFs;
- The three-year average annual returns for mutual funds and ETFs; and
- The three-year cumulative return of individual stocks.
This data is used to sort the results based on a customer’s selection.
Results Display
Plynk Explore search results will display the top three investments in each category (mutual funds, ETFs, and, if relevant, common stocks). You can see additional search results in each category by clicking “see more.” Within those categories, the resulting list of products will display in a filtered and sorted order based on the criteria you selected. In the case of a tie, products will be listed from high to low based on market capitalization (stocks) or high to low based on net assets (mutual funds and ETFs).
The Plynk Explore results may provide additional information such as historical return data. For instance, results will indicate whether a stock performed in the top 10% over the last three years relative to other stocks that are available to search through Plynk Explore. Please be sure to click on the stock or other products’ name to get additional important information.
Plynk Explore results are not guaranteed to identify securities that relate to all your selected criteria. For instance, if you select performance as a filtering criteria but also selected a category in which no securities performed well over the last three years, you may not see securities from that category in your results. You should always conduct research using multiple sources and perform a thorough investigation into any securities you intend to purchase.
6. Leaving Plynk Explore
By clicking on certain links within Plynk Explore, you will be directed to areas of Plynk or to third-party websites—outside of Plynk Explore—in order to access additional information about a particular product. There may be differences in data within Plynk Explore as well as differences from other areas of the Plynk app and other third-party websites.
7. Taxes
Taxes on distributions and capital gains/losses upon the sale of shares can affect the returns of an investment. Different types of individual securities have different tax consequences. You should consider the impact of these taxes before making an investment decision. You should consult a tax or financial advisor.
8. Key Investment Risks
Equity Securities
Equity securities are subject to market volatility, which may include the risks associated with investing in smaller companies, foreign securities, commodities, and fixed-income investments. Individual securities are generally subject to greater market volatility than investments such as mutual funds and ETFs. They are also subject to the specific risks associated with their sector, region, and industry. Investors should read the issuer’s financial statements and other reports to make sure they understand the issuing company’s business model, finances, and other risks associated with investing in the security.
Fixed-Income Securities
(Plynk Explore does not include individual bonds or fixed-income securities; however, it does include mutual funds and ETFs that may have fixed-income securities among their holdings.) In general, the bond market is volatile, and fixed-income securities carry interest rate risk. (As interest rates rise, bond prices usually fall, and vice versa. This effect is usually more pronounced for longer-term securities.) Fixed-income securities also carry inflation, credit, and default risks for both issuers and counterparties. Lower-quality bonds can be more volatile and have greater risk of default than higher-quality bonds. Floating-rate loans are generally subject to restrictions on resale and sometimes trade infrequently in the secondary market; as a result, they may be more difficult to value, buy, or sell. A floating-rate loan may not be fully collateralized and, therefore, may decline significantly in value. Foreign securities are subject to interest rate, currency-exchange rate, economic, and political risks, all of which are magnified in emerging markets. The municipal market is volatile and can be adversely affected by adverse tax, legislative, or political changes, and the financial condition of the issuers of municipal securities.
ETFs
ETFs are subject to market volatility and the risks of their underlying securities, which may include the risks associated with investing in smaller companies, foreign securities, commodities, and fixed-income investments. Foreign securities are subject to interest rate, currency-exchange rate, economic, and political risks, all of which are magnified in emerging markets. ETFs that target a small universe of securities, such as a specific region or market sector, are generally subject to greater market volatility as well as the specific risks associated with that sector, region, or other focus. ETFs that use derivatives, leverage, or complex investment strategies are subject to additional risks. The return of an index ETF is usually different from that of the index it tracks because of fees, expenses, and tracking error. An ETF may trade at a premium or discount to its net asset value (“NAV”). Each ETF has a unique risk profile, which is detailed in its prospectus, that should be considered carefully when making investment decisions.
Tracking Error
The return of an index-based ETF is usually different from that of the index it tracks. The difference may be small or large and may result from the cost of managing and operating the ETF, the timing of the ETF’s trades, and/or the ETF holding a smaller basket of securities than the complete set of securities held by the index or holding securities in a different proportion than the index.
Spread Risk and Discount/Premium to NAV
An ETF may sometimes trade at a premium or discount to its NAV. The premium or discount to NAV can lead to differences between the bid and ask of the ETF, referred to as the “spread.” The ETF’s premium or discount to NAV and its bid-ask spread may be the result of such things as supply and demand in the market, the lack of liquidity of some of the underlying securities, or the bid-ask spreads of the underlying securities.
Mutual Funds
Mutual funds are subject to the risk of their underlying assets and investment strategy. Mutual funds that target a small universe of securities, such as a specific region or market sector, are generally subject to greater market volatility as well as the specific risks associated with that sector, region, or other focus. The market price may experience periods of increased volatility due to the use of leverage as well as market and fund illiquidity. Please be sure to consult the mutual fund detail page for further information about each mutual fund.
