we deal the cards
Every claim below was actually tested. The verdict is shown whether it flatters us or not — and most of them don't.
| The claim people believe | GLOOMBORG's verdict |
|---|---|
| Boycotts move share prices | Median −3.1% over 20 days. Yes, modestly.event study · 20-day excess return across tracked boycotts |
| Companies go quiet before bad news | No. No detectable lead.silence detector · pooled lead correlation r=+0.015 · p=0.83 · n=203 |
| Our own trading signal has an edge | No. No edge in-sample.backtest · published, not hidden |
| The January barometer predicts the year | No — noise.folklore test · Halloween holds · January fails · October curse weak |
| The Farmers' Almanac predicts winter | Coin flip.folklore test · no better than chance |
| "Record / worst / unprecedented" means something | Hype words correlate with clicks, not accuracy.language frequency vs outcome |
| Fees and churn don't matter much | They eat more than half.arithmetic of drag · 2% fee + 0.5% churn = 2.5%/yr · (0.975)30 = 53% of terminal wealth gone |
| Leverage amplifies your returns | It amplifies the drag, too.volatility drag · L·μ − L²σ²/2 · 4× on 20% vol = 0%/yr, and a −25% move wipes it |
Two of the truths are arithmetic, not measurement — and that is the whole point. You don't need a rented index to see them; you need the compound-interest formula and the volatility-drag identity. Both are public-domain mathematics, shown in full.
| Truth | The receipt |
|---|---|
| #7 — fees & churn eat the alpha | A 2% fee + 0.5% churn = 2.5% a year of drag. Over 30 years: (0.975)30 = 0.468 — 53% of the wealth you would have had is gone, before a single bad trade. A "small" fee is the biggest drag in the room. |
| #8 — size kills, direction doesn't | Compounded return under leverage L is ≈ L·μ − L²σ²/2. For μ = 8%, σ = 20%: L=1 → 6%, L=3 → 6%, L=4 → 0%, L=5 → −10%. More leverage does not mean more return — it means more variance drag, and a single −1/L move ends the position no matter how right the direction was. |
We could not rent the S&P 500 — it is a licensed product, and there is no public-domain index. So we built one we own, from Federal Reserve series we can hold forever.
| Component | Reading | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Yield curve (10Y − 2Y) | 0.25pp — nearly flat | 87/100 |
| Trade-weighted dollar | 119.51 — at its average | 48/100 |
| Effective fed funds rate | 3.88% — modestly above the 10y mean | 58/100 |
RRX = 64/100 · TIGHTENING · 3/3 components · 100% coverage. It degrades by declaration: a failed component is named, never interpolated, and it refuses to publish on fewer than 3 of 3.
RRX replaces the S&P 500's role in the backdrop. It does not replace the index — and it says so every time.
Does cash convert into capability (capex + R&D) or into distributions (buybacks + dividends)? Each company measured against its own history — never a league table, because a ranking is a conclusion.
The honest part is the coverage: where a filer doesn't report a tag we expect, the engine says so rather than printing a measured-looking zero.
Our backtest found nothing to validate. Published as-is, not smoothed into something sellable.
The silence detector found no detectable lead. Reported as noise, not dressed up as a signal.
Sun and moon phases do not line up with the important events. Measured 17 events; the answer was no.
Truth #11 (candidate): the footprint is measurable, the intent is not. We measure the footprint.