Disrupting Fundamental Research: Exposing the Two-Track Truth Behind Wall Street
Wall Street has spent decades selling confidence with numbers it does not always believe. David Trainer, CEO of New Constructs, argues that the deeper risk is not just bad research or conflicted incentives, but a capital market that gradually loses trust in its own truth.
TAMPA BAY, Fla., May 21, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The market does not have a data problem. It has a truth problem. On this episode of Disruption Interruption, host Karla Jo Helms (KJ) speaks with David Trainer, CEO of New Constructs, about why Wall Street research has long been shaped by conflicts of interest, why retail investors still operate at a structural disadvantage, and why AI may finally be powerful enough to expose what human analysts either miss or avoid. As Trainer puts it, "If we can't trust the integrity of our capital markets, then perhaps the United States loses the single biggest advantage it has had as a country since our inception."
Why Wall Street Still Rewards the Wrong Story
Trainer's diagnosis starts with the sell-side research machine itself. During his time at Credit Suisse, he says he saw firsthand how firms maintained "two sets of numbers"; one kept low for retail investors so companies could "beat" expectations, and another kept private for institutional clients that reflected a truer view of profitability. The problem was never about informing investors. It was about preserving banking relationships and keeping deals flowing.
That conflict remains visible in today's ratings culture. Trainer notes that 96% of Wall Street analyst ratings are still "buy" or "hold," leaving only about 4% as sells. His explanation is blunt: analysts do not exist to challenge the system that pays them. "Expecting Wall Street to talk bad about a stock is like expecting a car salesman to talk bad about their cars," he says.
Trainer also points out that the system has never been as fair as it pretended to be. Regulation Fair Disclosure was only introduced in 2000, after years in which selective tipping to favored Wall Street firms was legal. Meanwhile, payment for order flow remains legal today, allowing firms to profit from retail trade data before those orders are filled. The result, he argues, is a market where ordinary investors are still playing a game designed for someone else.
Trainer's Bet: Automate the Truth, Not the Spin
Trainer's answer is not more commentary. It is better analysis at scale. New Constructs built what he calls a "robo-analyst" to read every word and footnote in corporate filings, strip out accounting distortions, and produce a cleaner view of profitability and valuation than traditional Wall Street research. "The solution is to create a technology that is going to do the work that expert humans can do in these filings to build models that provide the truth about profitability and valuation."
That approach is now expanding through AI. Trainer says Google Cloud chose New Constructs to build the first AI investing agent because its data is "clean" and fully auditable back to original filings. The result is Finsights, an investing chatbot designed to answer questions such as which companies are overstating earnings, hiding off-balance-sheet debt, or most likely to miss expectations next quarter. To Trainer, that is where AI becomes genuinely useful: not as a shortcut for noise, but to scale the work of real subject-matter expertise.
His mission is larger than stock picking. He believes transparent, auditable data is one of the few real defenses against both Wall Street manipulation and future AI abuse. "The best defense is for the truth to be fully and totally disseminated to all the equity market participants, especially retail," he says. His wager is that when markets are flooded with spin, the real disruptor is not faster hype, it is verifiable truth.
Links
Disrupting the Wall Street Game: AI vs. the Rigged System, with David Trainer
Disruption Interruption is the podcast where you will hear from today's biggest Industry Disruptors. Learn what motivated them to bring about innovation and how they overcame opposition to adoption.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidtrainer/
Website: https://start.newconstructs.com
About Disruption Interruption™
Disruption is happening on an unprecedented scale, impacting all manner of industries — MedTech, Finance, IT, eCommerce, shipping, logistics, and more — and COVID has moved their timelines up a full decade or more. But WHO are these disruptors and when did they say, "THAT'S IT! I'VE HAD IT!"? Time to Disrupt and Interrupt with host Karla Jo "KJ" Helms, veteran communications disruptor. KJ interviews badasses who are disrupting their industries and altering economic networks that have become antiquated with an establishment resistant to progress. She delves into uncovering secrets from industry rebels and quiet revolutionaries that uncover common traits — and not-so-common — that are changing our economic markets… and lives. Visit the world's key pioneers that persist to success, despite arrows in their backs at www.disruption-interruption.com.
About David Trainer
David Trainer is the founder and CEO of New Constructs, the investment-research and financial technology firm he launched in 2002 to expose the accounting distortions Wall Street leaves buried in corporate filings. A Wall Street veteran and corporate finance expert, Trainer spent more than six years as a stock analyst, including roles at Credit Suisse First Boston and Epoch Partners. He later served on the Financial Accounting Standards Board's (FASB) Investor Advisory Committee and authored Modern Tools for Valuation. Today, through New Constructs, he combines human expertise with machine learning and natural language processing to deliver auditable, footnote-level analysis designed to give investors cleaner data, truer profitability, and a stronger defense against both Wall Street spin and future AI-driven market manipulation.
About Karla Jo Helms
Karla Jo Helms is the Chief Evangelist and Anti-PR® Strategist for JOTO PR Disruptors™. Karla Jo learned firsthand how unforgiving business can be when millions of dollars are on the line — and how the control of public opinion often determines whether one company is happily chosen, or another is brutally rejected. Being an alumnus of crisis management, Karla Jo has worked with litigation attorneys, private investigators, and the media to help restore companies of goodwill into the good graces of public opinion — Karla Jo operates on the ethic of getting it right the first time, not relying on second chances and doing what it takes to excel. Helms speaks globally on public relations, how the PR industry itself has lost its way, and how, in the right hands, corporations can harness the power of Anti-PR to drive markets and impact market perception.
References
- Investor.gov. (n.d.). Payment for order flow. investor.gov/introduction-investing/investing-basics/glossary/payment-order-flow
- New Constructs. (n.d.). About New Constructs. newconstructs.com/about-us
- U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. (2000, August 15). Selective disclosure and insider trading. sec.gov/rule-release/33-7881
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SOURCE Disruption Interruption
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