Frequently Asked Questions
Everything people ask about Barebone. Something missing? Ask us directly.
Getting started
- What is Barebone?
- Barebone is a mobile investment research terminal. It gives retail investors access to the same analytical infrastructure institutional desks use — fundamentals, technicals, earnings intelligence, insider and congressional activity, super investor tracking, and live portfolio monitoring, all in one place. Ask any question about any stock and get a complete, data-backed answer in under 30 seconds.
- What are the core benefits of using Barebone?
- Most retail investors are making decisions with worse information than the people on the other side of their trades. Barebone closes that gap. You leave every session with a clearer picture — the right entry point on a trade, an honest assessment of a company's quality, or exactly where your portfolio's risks are hiding. Research that used to take hours and cost thousands is now a question away.
- Who is Barebone for?
- Anyone making real decisions in the market who wants better information behind them. Not a substitute for good judgment, but a way to make yours sharper. That includes retail investors who want institutional-quality research without the institutional price tag, busy professionals who can't spend hours buried in filings, students building genuine market intuition, and active traders who need to generate and pressure-test ideas quickly. If you've ever felt like you were trading against people with better information, Barebone is built for you.
- What can I analyze with Barebone?
- Stocks, ETFs, crypto, forex, commodities, and major indices across more than 30 global markets. For any of them you can go deep on fundamentals and valuation, technical levels and pivot zones, analyst and retail sentiment, insider and congressional activity, super investor positioning, earnings, and breaking news — all grounded in live market data rather than a model's stale training cutoff. Ask a broad question or a precise one, and Barebone draws on the data that actually matters for what you asked.
- How do I get started with Barebone?
- Barebone is free to download on iOS and Android — find it on the App Store or Google Play, or use the download links at the top of this page. Open the app, ask your first question about any stock or market, and you'll have a complete, data-backed answer in under 30 seconds. There's nothing to configure first; connect a brokerage later if you want live portfolio monitoring.
How the research works
- How does Barebone's research actually work?
- Barebone routes each query through a proprietary architecture that selects the right combination of AI models and specialized analysis algorithms for the job — not every question benefits from the same approach. Analyses like technical levels, valuation models, and support/resistance mapping are run through dedicated algorithms rather than AI inference alone, which means more accurate outputs and far less room for error on the numbers that matter. The AI layer synthesizes and contextualizes; the algorithms handle the precision. The result reads like research from a desk, not output from a chat window.
- What data does Barebone have access to?
- Barebone pulls from dozens of institutional-grade data streams: real-time global market feeds, earnings transcripts, SEC filings, insider transactions, congressional trades, super investor 13F holdings, Wall Street analyst consensus, prediction market odds, macroeconomic calendars, and social sentiment across major investing communities. Each analysis draws from the data types that actually matter for the question at hand. We don't disclose our data providers.
- How do you keep the numbers accurate?
- The numbers don't come from an AI guessing — they come from the data. Quantitative work like valuation multiples, technical levels, and support and resistance is computed by dedicated algorithms against institutional-grade data feeds, not produced by language-model inference. On top of that, a fact-checking layer cross-references the figures cited in an analysis against the underlying source data before they reach you. The AI interprets and explains; the precision on the numbers is handled where it belongs — in the data and the algorithms.
Portfolio & security
- How does portfolio monitoring work?
- Connect your brokerage in under a minute via encrypted, read-only sync — holdings, cash, and buying power import automatically. Barebone tracks your live holdings, trades, P&L and risk metrics in real time. When you want a deeper read, our dedicated portfolio AI agents, largely utilizing quantitative algorithms as opposed to purely large language models, analyze against your actual holdings, and synthesizes findings into a single report covering portfolio health, risk concentration, macro exposure, and rebalancing considerations — with a weekly portfolio health report generated automatically. Beyond monitoring, our entire AI research terminal is engineered to keep your portfolio in mind at all times, allowing you to not only ask questions about your portfolio in real time, but to also research opportunities with your portfolio, risk profile, and preferences in mind.
- Is my brokerage data safe? Can Barebone trade on my behalf?
- Barebone uses read-only access — we can see your holdings, but cannot place trades, move funds, or take any action on your account. Your brokerage credentials never touch our servers; authentication is handled entirely by an encrypted third-party integration layer. Your data serves one purpose: powering the analysis inside the app.
- Which brokerages can I connect, and can I add holdings manually?
- Most major U.S. brokerages connect in under a minute through an encrypted, read-only integration — your holdings, cash, and buying power import automatically and stay in sync. Not with a supported broker, or prefer to keep things manual? You can add and edit positions by hand with ticker search and cost basis, and Barebone analyzes and monitors them exactly the same way.
Trust & comparisons
- Who built Barebone, and why should I trust it?
- Barebone was built by investors and engineers who believed the research infrastructure available to institutions should be accessible to everyone. The platform runs on institutional data, rigorously tested analysis algorithms, and an AI architecture designed specifically for financial research — not repurposed from a general-purpose model. We're not a brokerage, we don't take commissions, and we don't provide financial advice. We're here to give you better information.
- Is Barebone a financial advisor?
- No — Barebone is a research and analysis platform, not a registered investment adviser or broker, and it doesn't manage money or place trades. It's built to give you institutional-grade research so you can make your own informed decisions; treat its analysis as one input alongside your own due diligence, and consult a licensed professional for advice specific to your situation.
- How is Barebone different from ChatGPT and AI chatbots?
- A general chatbot has no live market data, no dedicated financial analysis pipelines or algorithms, and a documented tendency to invent plausible-but-wrong numbers on finance questions. Barebone is purpose-built for investment research: real-time data, specialized analysis algorithms, interactive charts, and every figure verified against the source.
- See the full comparison →
- How does Barebone compare to other research products?
- Most tools give you one or the other: raw data with no interpretation, or human-written opinions that are already hours or days old. Barebone generates institutional-grade analysis on demand for the exact question you asked, grounded in live market data, and shows the reasoning behind every call.
- Compare Barebone to other tools →
Want the full picture? Read our research library or see how Barebone compares to other tools.