Deflation counts cells the way |t| does: a signal tested long and short is one two-sided cell, not two. Cells used below: recorded on the test look.
3The null control
Machinery verdict
yes
Composition-matched expectation
0.0975
Worst |t| vs that expectation
2.5627
Unconditional hold, same clustering
0.0960
Seeds
3
Measured
yes
A machinery check, not an edge: it asks whether the pipeline invents an effect on scrambled returns beyond what the assets it holds pay unconditionally.
4The held-out result
Trades
1,815
Clusters (the unit of inference)
560
Gross, per trade
0.2347
Cluster mean
0.5969
Clustered t
2.4159
Year
Mean per block
2019
-0.7368
2020
-0.4368
2021
1.4604
2022
-0.6160
2023
0.5439
2024
0.6392
2026
-0.0555
Unconditional hold, same clustering
0.0960
Hold clusters
2,178
5Fill realism
Fill assumption
n
Gross
assumed
23,872
0.0148
touch
22,977
-0.0354
through
22,081
-0.0637
Touch / assumed
-2.3920
Under resting-fill pricing this record has no gross left to haircut: the touch leg is negative. The ratio above crosses zero and is not a fraction that survived.
The entries that never fill are disproportionately the good ones, so the assumed row is an upper bound on what any of this could have executed at.
6Deflation
Cells searched
32
Degrees of freedom (clusters − 1)
559
Observed |t|
2.4159
Noise clears this 5% of the time (95th pct)
3.1736
Median of the noise maximum
2.3095
Observed clears the 5% line
no
Deflated Sharpe probability
0.0000
The record claims 32 cells against 64 ledger rows (two-sided pairing counts one cell per signal tested in both directions); the threshold below is the smaller, weaker deflation. Thresholds are simulated at report time from the recorded cell and cluster counts (100,000 draws, seed 0) — seeded, so they reproduce. Sharpe: recorded. Deflated Sharpe: recorded. The MEAN of the noise maximum is not a bar — pure noise beats its own expected maximum about 45% of the time. The 5% line is.
7The bar, as graded
Condition
As registered
Observed
Graded
gross_2x_cost
gross >= 0.46
0.2347
computed from the recorded metrics
FAIL
null_flat
null_max_abs_t < 3.0
2.5627
computed from the recorded metrics
PASS
t3
t >= 3.0
2.4159
computed from the recorded metrics
FAIL
year_2022_positive
y2022 > 0.0
-0.6160
computed from the recorded metrics
FAIL
Cells registered
64
Cells spent
64
Within budget
yes
Graded against the file on disk. Unregistered conditions are ignored: adding one until something passes is the failure this library exists to prevent.
8Anchoring
What
Commit
Committed (self-reported)
Seen by remote
registration
4f36b2f50550
2026-08-18T20:44:54+02:00
none
IN HISTORY
test_look
9134410043b3
2026-08-18T20:45:19+02:00
none
IN HISTORY
Registration and test look in different commits
yes
Registration commit precedes the test look
yes
Local only. No remote branch contains these commits, so nothing outside this machine has seen them and the whole history could be rebuilt in a minute.
What a git anchor proves: that the bytes committed are the bytes graded, that the registration commit precedes the test-look commit, and that both are still reachable from HEAD. What it does NOT prove: wall-clock time — commit dates are self-reported and one environment variable forges them, so only a push to a host the researcher does not control was witnessed by anyone else. It also cannot show that the researcher had not already seen the test window: ordering of documents is not ordering of knowledge.
9The rest of the record
assumed_gross
0.014808
dsr
0.000025
fill_haircut
-2.391981
hold_gross
0.096029
n_cells
32
null_expected_gross
0.097509
null_max_abs_t
2.562709
null_ok
yes
sr
0.102092
through_gross
-0.063713
touch_gross
-0.035419
y2022
-0.616050
Every remaining top-level entry of the test-look payload, so nothing recorded is hidden by this rendering.