The questions the desk actually gets.

What is Intel Desk?

Intel Desk is a geopolitical intelligence brief built for traders, analysts, macro researchers and defence professionals. It tracks 198 named OSINT, wire and Telegram source profiles on a 120-second refresh cycle, scores headlines for sentiment and market impact, and fires critical alerts through a live desk.

Is Intel Desk financial advice?

No. Intel Desk is an intelligence aggregation tool. It surfaces publicly available information and scores it for sentiment and relevance. It does not provide financial advice, trading recommendations, or any form of regulated investment guidance. Always do your own research and consult a qualified adviser before acting on anything you read here.

How fresh is the data on Intel Desk?

Feeds refresh every 120 seconds. Market data is provider-dependent and shown with its freshness. From a headline being published to appearing on the desk is typically inside the next source sweep, with direct squawk and streaming integrations faster where upstreams support it. The specifics are in the methodology.

How is Intel Desk different from a financial terminal?

Traditional financial terminals are general-purpose data platforms. Intel Desk is purpose-built for conflict-driven energy and defence intelligence. It integrates OSINT sources, source-weighted headline tone, provider-dependent AIS vessel context and OFAC SDN screening that standard terminals do not cover out of the box.

Is Intel Desk a free Bloomberg alternative?

Yes, and it starts free. A Bloomberg Terminal runs about $27,660 per user per year on a two-year contract. The Intel Desk free tier, live wire, proof pages, the scorecard, one watchlist and a 15-minute delayed tape, costs nothing, and the full Desk plan is $39 a month. For a full feature-by-feature comparison see the dedicated Bloomberg alternative page, and for plans see pricing.

What does Intel Desk cover?

Iran and the Strait of Hormuz, Russia–Ukraine, Indo-Pacific, NATO–Europe, and the energy, defence, sanctions and macro stories that attach to them. The live wire runs across squawk feeds, wire services, OSINT Telegram channels, specialist analysts, government releases and market data. A representative list of source categories is on the sources page.

Who is Intel Desk built for?

Energy and commodity traders with conflict-driven exposure: crude, LNG, tankers, FX, and precious metals. Also used by macro researchers, OSINT analysts, defence and sanctions specialists, and journalists covering the Middle East, Russia/Ukraine, and the Indo-Pacific.

Can I add my own portfolio and watchlist?

Yes. Add your own tickers and keywords on the dashboard, and every relevant headline is auto-tagged against them. US, London and European equities, commodities, FX pairs and indices are supported. Critical alerts on watchlist instruments push email and browser notifications.

How does Intel Desk handle non-English sources?

Russian, Ukrainian, Farsi and Arabic sources may be machine-translated into English when the upstream request succeeds before scoring, with the original text preserved on the item so the translation can be verified. Translations are intentionally literal and do not editorialise. The source and translation availability are always labelled.

How does Intel Desk verify what it publishes?

Every event carries a reliability letter, A, B, or C. A means corroborated across at least two independent tiers. B means a single credible source, not yet confirmed. C is a single OSINT source worth watching but not yet standing on anything. The full verification chain is preserved on each item so you can make your own call. See methodology.

How much does Intel Desk cost?

Full desk free during Early Access. No card and no automatic conversion. At paid launch, new accounts get the full desk free for 3 months; after that the real free tier keeps the live wire, proof pages, scorecard, one watchlist and a 15-minute delayed tape.

The Desk plan is $39/month, or $29.08/month billed annually ($349/year), and adds the real-time wire, unlimited watchlists, routed alerts, briefings, full replay and mobile critical mode. A Founding seat is $299/year for the first 100 accounts, price locked. For scale, a Bloomberg Terminal runs about $27,660 per user per year.

Accounts opened before paid launch keep today's features free. Full plan detail on the pricing page.

Does Intel Desk store my trading data?

Intel Desk can optionally connect to Trading 212 through a user-scoped, read-only API request. You enter your own credentials in the browser; they are sent over TLS for your request, held only in that browser session, and never persisted by Intel Desk. Broker data is not written to your Intel Desk profile and Intel Desk does not place, modify or cancel orders.

Anonymous visitors receive no Trading 212 holdings, account totals, cash, equity, or profit-and-loss data. Full detail is in the privacy policy.

Who built Intel Desk?

An active energy and defence researcher who needed faster situational awareness than any terminal on the market could deliver. Intel Desk is built and run day-to-day against live markets and live conflicts, the features on the desk are the features the builder actually uses.