QuantAscent — Product Overview¶

What Is QuantAscent?¶

QuantAscent is a desktop application that gives individual investors the same analytical tools that quantitative hedge funds use — without writing a single line of code.

Build investment strategies from real financial data. Backtest them against 20 years of history. When you're confident, deploy them for automated execution through your Interactive Brokers account. Track every position, every trade, and every dollar of performance — all from one application.

You don't need a broker connection to get started — the Research tools, Strategy Builder, Backtesting, Company Analysis, and Company Screener all work standalone on the built-in financial database. Connect IBKR when you're ready to run a strategy with real or paper money.

Whether you're screening for undervalued stocks, building a multi-factor scoring model, or just want a clearer picture of what you own and why, QuantAscent puts you in control.

Who Is It For?¶

QuantAscent is built for self-directed investors who want to make more informed decisions about their money. You don't need a finance degree or programming skills — just curiosity about what drives stock returns and a desire to be more systematic about investing.

Active individual investors who want to go beyond gut feelings and stock tips
Quantitatively curious people who want to explore what metrics actually predict returns
DIY portfolio managers who want professional-grade tracking and automation without paying for Bloomberg

Core Features¶

Research & Discovery¶

Explore What Actually Works

QuantAscent includes a research engine with 120+ financial metrics computed for 5,000+ US stocks — spanning value, quality, growth, momentum, and safety. Rather than guessing which metrics matter, you can test them:

Signal Rankings — See which financial metrics have historically predicted stock returns, ranked by predictive power
Quintile Analysis — Split the stock universe into five groups by any metric and compare their performance. Does buying "cheap" stocks actually work? Now you can see for yourself.
Threshold Scanning — Sweep cutoff values for any metric to find the sweet spot (e.g., "What P/E ratio below which stocks tend to outperform?")

Company Screener

Filter the entire universe in real time across 120+ financial metrics. Set conditions like "ROE > 15% AND Debt-to-Equity < 1.0 AND Market Cap > $1B" and instantly see which companies pass. Click any result to dive deeper.

Company Deep-Dives

Select any ticker for a full fundamental breakdown:

16 key metrics at a glance (valuation, profitability, financial health)
8 interactive trend charts: price history with moving averages, revenue & earnings, profit margins, cash flow, profitability, balance sheet health, valuation multiples, and per-share metrics
Upcoming earnings dates and recent news headlines

Strategy Building & Backtesting¶

Build Strategies Visually

Create investment strategies by adding scoring criteria as visual cards — no coding required. Each criterion defines a financial metric, a threshold, and a point value. Stocks that score above your minimum threshold qualify for your portfolio.

For example, you might build a strategy that awards points for: - High free cash flow yield (value) - Improving return on invested capital (quality) - Strong recent price momentum (momentum) - Low debt-to-equity ratio (safety)

Add filters for market cap range, sector, industry, or country. Set how many stocks to hold and how often to rebalance. Then backtest it.

Backtest Against Real History

Run your strategy against up to 20 years of real financial data. QuantAscent computes 16 performance metrics so you can see exactly how your strategy would have performed:

Return Metrics	Risk Metrics	Risk-Adjusted	Portfolio Stats
CAGR	Max Drawdown	Sharpe Ratio	Win Rate
Total Return	Annualized Volatility	Sortino Ratio	Avg Stocks Held
vs. S&P 500	Alpha & Beta	Calmar Ratio	Best / Worst Period

Results include a portfolio growth chart benchmarked against the S&P 500. Every backtest is automatically saved so you can revisit and compare previous runs without re-computing.

85 Built-In Strategies

Not sure where to start? QuantAscent ships with a library of pre-built strategies organized by factor — Equal Weighting, Momentum, Quality, Value, and Financial Strength. Every sector ships all five factor variants (e.g. "Technology — Momentum", "Healthcare — Value"), plus universe-wide cuts of each factor, alongside a set of index-tracking strategies. 85 in total, each with cached 10-year backtest results. Use them as-is, or as templates to learn from and customize.

Portfolio Management¶

Dashboard

Your portfolio at a glance: current value, daily P&L, risk metrics (Sharpe, Sortino, max drawdown, volatility), and a performance chart with S&P 500 overlay. A monthly returns heatmap shows your performance calendar — green months and red months, side by side with the benchmark. Returns are tracked two ways: Time-Weighted Return (TWR) measures strategy performance, while Money-Weighted Return (MWR/IRR) measures your actual investor return accounting for the timing of deposits and withdrawals.

Holdings

Every open position with real-time prices from Interactive Brokers: shares owned, cost basis, market value, daily change, unrealized P&L, and percent of portfolio. Place buy and sell orders directly from this view.

Trade History

A complete record of every trade, organized in a tree view by strategy and symbol. See realized P&L broken down by short-term and long-term gains, with FIFO lot matching for accurate cost basis tracking.

Strategy Performance

Track each strategy's contribution independently. Compare your strategies against benchmarks (S&P 500, Nasdaq-100, Russell 2000, Dow Jones) across configurable date ranges. See which strategies are pulling their weight.

Benchmark Tracking

Daily rolling returns across multiple windows (1 day, 7 days, 30 days, 90 days, 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, 10 years) plus cumulative MTD, QTD, and YTD — for both your portfolio and four major benchmarks.

Automated Trading¶

Strategy Execution

Strategies you build and backtest can be deployed for live automated trading through Interactive Brokers. The execution engine handles the full rebalance cycle:

Exit positions that no longer qualify under your strategy's criteria
Trim positions that are overweight
Enter new positions that now meet your scoring threshold
Preview proposed trades before committing — see exactly what will be bought and sold

Smart Order Handling

Orders start at the mid-price and automatically adjust if not filled
Batch processing submits all orders simultaneously for efficiency
Built-in safety: if sell orders fail, the entire rebalance stops to protect your portfolio
Dry-run mode lets you test execution without placing real orders

Strategy Scheduling

Set each strategy to rebalance on its own schedule — daily, weekly on a specific day, monthly, or quarterly. The background scheduler runs automatically and handles the full morning pipeline: downloading activity statements from IBKR, reconciling trades, updating benchmarks, and executing strategy rebalances at their configured times.

Margin Support

Optional margin trading with a configurable leverage cap (up to 4x). Position sizing automatically respects your margin limits.

Accounting & Tax¶

Trade Reconciliation

QuantAscent automatically downloads IBKR FLEX activity statements and reconciles them against your local trade log. Open positions, closed lots, and realized P&L are cross-validated daily.

Tax-Ready Reporting

Wash sale detection and tracking with holding period adjustments
Realized gains broken down by short-term and long-term
Tax schedules formatted for your CPA
Lot-by-lot detail with FIFO cost basis

Strategy Manager¶

Manage all your strategies from a central hub. See your allocation across strategies at a glance, toggle strategies active or inactive, configure rebalance schedules, and monitor execution status. QuantAscent supports multiple strategy types running simultaneously:

Equity Scoring — Multi-factor scoring models that dynamically select stocks based on your criteria
Fixed Allocation — Maintain target weights in specific ETFs or stocks with tolerance-based rebalancing
Discretionary — A built-in strategy that automatically tracks trades you make directly in your brokerage account outside of QuantAscent, so nothing shows up as "Unknown"

Getting Started¶

The first launch starts you in Demo Mode — a hidden sample portfolio with three years of simulated daily activity that fills every execution view, so you can explore the Dashboard, Strategy Performance, Holdings, Account, and Trade Log immediately without an IBKR setup. Every page shows a persistent yellow banner reminding you these are sample numbers; clicking the banner opens the broker setup flow when you're ready.

While in Demo Mode, all the research-side tools (Strategy Builder, Backtesting, Research, Company Analysis, Company Screener) are fully live against the real financial database — only the broker-statement-driven views are showing demo data.

When you're ready to connect a real account, the setup wizard walks you through:

Database Sync — Download the financial data library (5,000+ companies, 20 years of data)
Metrics Matrix — Build the analysis matrix from your local data
Strategy Library — Install the 85 built-in factor strategies and their cached backtests
IBKR Connection — Configure your Interactive Brokers Flex credentials (optional — you can run the app indefinitely in Demo Mode)
Data Catchup — Backfill any missing portfolio, trade, and benchmark data

The IBKR setup can be triggered later from the demo banner or from Settings > IBKR Connection. See the Setup Guide for detailed steps.

How It Works¶

QuantAscent runs entirely on your computer. Your financial data, trade history, and strategy configurations are stored locally — nothing is sent to external servers except the API calls needed to fetch market data and execute trades through your own brokerage account.

The application connects to two data sources:

Your Interactive Brokers account — for real-time prices, trade execution, and activity statements
QuantAscent data library — a periodically updated database of financial fundamentals, ratios, and computed metrics for the US equity universe (downloaded once and updated automatically)

Automatic Updates¶

QuantAscent checks for updates each time you launch the app. On Windows, updates download and install silently in the background — the app restarts automatically with the new version. No manual downloads or reinstalls needed. You can also check for updates manually from Settings > Software Updates.

System Requirements¶

Windows 10 or later, or macOS 12 (Monterey) or later
RAM Required: 12 GB. 16+ GB is recommended
Storage: 20 GB Required
Interactive Brokers account (only required to connect live or paper money — research, backtesting, and screening all work without one)
Internet connection for market data and trade execution

Documentation¶

Setup Guide — Install, connect IBKR, configure the Flex query, and walk through first launch
Screen Guide — Detailed reference for every tab and dialog in the app
Research Analysis — Methodology behind the quant engine: IC analysis, quintile breakdowns, backtesting, and metric definitions
FAQ — Answers to common questions
Glossary — Plain-language definitions of financial and quantitative terms
Alpha Release Notes — Version history, known limitations, and what to expect