TRADRILL / GLOSSARY / TRANSMISSION CHAINS
What Is a Transmission Chain?
Category: Transmission chainsChinese: 传导链
Short definition
A transmission chain is a written sequence of hops from a real technology event to the listed companies it touches, where every hop names a relationship type, cites a source you can open, and states a magnitude — and where the chain ends in arithmetic, not a conclusion.
What it means
A transmission chain is the unit a Tradrill note is built from. It starts at an event (a supply agreement, a product launch, a capacity announcement), moves through the parts or techniques the event involves, and lands on specific companies. Each step — a hop — is a claim of the form "A affects B through relationship R, at magnitude M, according to source S." The chain is the ordered list of those claims.
What makes it a method rather than a story is the three-part rule on every hop: a relationship type (supply chain, revenue exposure, competitor, partnership), an evidence link, and a magnitude with the basis it was computed on. A hop missing any of the three is not stored and not shown. The rule exists because the failure mode of reading technology news is not ignorance but unanchored inference — a chain forces each inference to carry its own receipt.
A chain deliberately stops before the question readers most want answered. It says how large the exposure is and what the evidence supports; it does not say what to do about it. That boundary is what keeps the object educational: the value is in the arithmetic being checkable, and a checkable calculation is worth more to a learner than an opinion they cannot audit.
What a well-formed chain looks like
Before trusting a chain, check that it has these properties:
- Every hop names one relationship type — not "is related to" but supply chain, revenue exposure, competitor or partnership.
- Every hop links to a source a reader can open, and quotes the passage it relies on.
- Every magnitude states its basis: which period, which filing, which denominator.
- Magnitudes are labelled disclosed or estimated, and estimates list their assumptions.
- The chain says what its evidence does not support, not only what it does.
- It ends in a calculation and a market-reaction record, not in an instruction.
How to read a chain
Read it as an auditor, not as a consumer:
- 1.Start at the event and confirm it happened: open the event source before reading any hop.
- 2.For each hop, read the quote first and the claim second — ask whether the quote actually contains the relationship and the number.
- 3.Track the magnitude arithmetic across hops; the smallest exposure in the chain usually bounds the whole story.
- 4.Note which hops are estimated and what assumptions they carry; those are where the chain is most likely to be wrong.
- 5.Write down your own judgement of the chain before looking at the market-reaction section, then compare.
Frequently asked questions
Is a transmission chain a prediction?
No. It is a description of exposure — which companies an event touches and how much of their business is involved, according to cited evidence. It does not forecast prices and it does not tell a reader what to do; readers form their own view and can test it in simulation.
Why does every hop need a magnitude?
Because without a number, "affects" is unfalsifiable. A relationship worth 0.02% of revenue and one worth 20% are both "exposure"; only the number separates a headline from a material link. The magnitude also carries a basis so a reader can recompute it.
What happens when a hop cannot be sourced?
It does not enter the chain. A note may mention the suspected link in its failure-analysis section as an open question, but an unsourced hop is never drawn as part of the chain.
Related terms & reading
Related terms: Supply-chain hop · Revenue exposure · Evidence pack · Point-in-time validity · Paper trading
Keep reading: How to Keep a Trading Journal (for Practice) · How to Spot and Avoid Trading Scams and Investment Fraud
Practice this term in simulation
Tradrill is a training platform for learning to read technology stocks: transmission-chain notes trace how a real tech event reaches a specific listed company, a paper-trading simulator lets you test your own thesis, and behavioral reports show you your own habits. No stock picks, no price targets, no real-money trading.
Educational content, not financial advice. Definitions describe trading behavior and risk concepts in general terms; they are not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any instrument. AI-generated analysis. Not financial advice. Always do your own research.