Last reviewed: 8 July 2026

Incomestead publishes about money — a subject where being right matters, and being trusted matters more. Here is how we work, so you can judge us by it.

Who writes here

Everything is written or reviewed by Stefano Starkel, Incomestead's founder — a self-directed investor who runs his own leveraged, multi-strategy book. He is an operator, not a licensed adviser, and we say so plainly. We write from lived experience, and we distinguish clearly between fact and opinion. More about the founder.

We cite primary sources

Claims about rules, regulations, and figures link to primary sources — FINRA, the SEC, and official exchange or regulator documentation — not to secondary blog posts. When we cite a margin maintenance requirement, we point to FINRA Rule 4210 itself, not a screenshot of it. And where a widely-repeated statistic is misleading — the "90% of your returns come from asset allocation" line is a classic — we flag the caveat rather than pass it along.

Caveats travel with the claim

Anything about leverage, margin, or markets carries its real downside in the same breath as its upside. We never inflate a number to make a headline hit harder — our reader checks sources, and so do we.

Education, not advice

Nothing we publish is personalized financial, tax, or legal advice. We explain how things work and how to govern them; the decisions — and the responsibility — stay with you.

The same standard we hold our software to

Incomestead the product is a deterministic engine: the same inputs produce the same result, every time, and every figure is traceable to its source. We try to write to that standard too — transparent, reproducible, and open to correction.

Independence

We make Incomestead, the governance tool these ideas point toward, and we're upfront about that. Beyond our own product, we take no payment to feature companies and earn no affiliate commissions. When we point to something else, it's because we'd use it ourselves.

Corrections

If we get something wrong, we fix it and note the change. Spotted an error? Email hello@incomestead.com.

Written and stood behind by Stefano Starkel, founder. Incomestead recommends. You decide.