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CLAIMS.md — Proven vs Hypothesis Matrix

The running scoreboard of every quantitative claim in the book. Updated per chapter after HITL review. Status codes: PROVEN (reproduced from a recorded run on the clean lake / reconciled post-reset round), HYPOTHESIS (plausible, tested once or never, or pre-clean-lake / chat-derived idea), REFUTED (tested on clean data and contradicted), REFERENCED (external citation).

Boundary rule: only claims traceable to exp 21+ or post-reset live rounds may be PROVEN. Pre-clean-lake experiments (exp 8–18) and opencode chat transcripts are idea sources — their claims are HYPOTHESIS at best and are marked (idea: pre-clean-lake).

Signal & features

Claim Status Evidence
General stochastic features (no TA/HMM/OU) have highest ICIR 0.340 on clean data PROVEN EVIDENCE#012 → exp 23
Compact stochastic set is the clean-lake reference (RankIC 0.0663, RankICIR 0.2545) PROVEN EVIDENCE#013 → exp 24
Adding OU mean-reversion (sp_ou_zscore) hurts on clean data PROVEN (refuted direction) EVIDENCE#014 → exp 25
Multi-horizon momentum (M1) degrades the reference PROVEN (refuted direction) EVIDENCE#017 → exp 29
GARCH(1,1) vol-regime features add no signal PROVEN (refuted direction) EVIDENCE#019 → exp 31
Risk-adjusted 22d Sharpe drift (M2) improves portfolio metrics HYPOTHESIS (one clean-lake run, unreproduced) EVIDENCE#018 → exp 30
Dropping model-specific feature families (ou, hmm) improves the rank signal HYPOTHESIS (idea: pre-clean-lake, exp 9) EVIDENCE#003 → exp 9
Adding moment/volatility families regresses the signal HYPOTHESIS (idea: pre-clean-lake, exp 11) EVIDENCE#004 → exp 11
Baseline 1-day LGB signal is weak / costs erase most of the edge HYPOTHESIS (idea: pre-clean-lake, exp 8) EVIDENCE#001/002 → exp 8
More features ≠ better signal on a small (50-name) cross-section HYPOTHESIS (3+ supporting runs, panel-specific) EVIDENCE#003/004/014/017/019
Mean reversion (OU z-score, trend-slope reversal) is the stable single-feature edge HYPOTHESIS (chat-derived clean-data study; see book/references/chat-ideas.md) —
Assets are submartingales long-horizon / mean-reverting short-horizon (VR<1 at 5–20d) HYPOTHESIS (chat-derived martingale study, exp 19 never closed) book/data/chat_mining/martingale-study.txt

Model

Claim Status Evidence
Seed count is load-bearing: 2 seeds < 5 seeds on clean data PROVEN EVIDENCE#016 → exp 28
n_drop 2→1 flips net excess (−3.21% → +2.13%) with identical signal metrics PROVEN EVIDENCE#015 → exp 26
Cost drag is the binding constraint, not signal quality PROVEN (clean data) EVIDENCE#015 → exp 26 (IC/RankIC identical across n_drop)
5-seed RankIC ensemble raises performance vs single model on ablated set HYPOTHESIS (pre-clean-lake exp 12 idea; re-validated directionally by exp 22–24 but not as a clean A/B) EVIDENCE#005
Fractional-Kelly sizing beats equal-weight top-k net of costs HYPOTHESIS (exp 15 never finished) run never completed

Portfolio construction & risk

Claim Status Evidence
TopkDropout beats stochastic-control OptimalStopControl on the ensemble signal HYPOTHESIS (idea: pre-clean-lake exp 13/14; not re-tested post-reset) EVIDENCE#006/007
$5M liquidity floor improves IR and cuts drawdown HYPOTHESIS (idea: pre-clean-lake exp 18; not comparable post-reset) EVIDENCE#008 → exp 18
Size/concentration caps hurt by cutting deployed capital HYPOTHESIS (idea: pre-clean-lake exp 18) EVIDENCE#008 → exp 18
Entry/risk gates (momentum, HMM) are byte-identical no-ops HYPOTHESIS (idea: pre-clean-lake exp 20) EVIDENCE#009 → exp 20
Signal quality is the bottleneck, not the execution/risk layer HYPOTHESIS (idea: pre-clean-lake exp 20; round-3 live is consistent but short) EVIDENCE#009 → exp 20

Data & reproducibility

Claim Status Evidence
The pre-reset reference signal did not reproduce on a rebuilt lake (IC 0.035→0.002) PROVEN EVIDENCE#010 → exp 21
Old-lake data quality inflated the signal and backtest PROVEN EVIDENCE#010 → exp 21
Signal work must be re-validated after any data rebuild PROVEN (exp 21) / HYPOTHESIS (generality) EVIDENCE#010
Silent NaN-drop (feature-provider path mismatch, stale coverage, mid-experiment regeneration) is a first-order pipeline failure class HYPOTHESIS (chat-documented failure modes; partially re-validated by exp 22 fix) book/data/chat_mining/*.txt + EVIDENCE#010/011
Pre-reset experiment baselines are not comparable to post-reset runs PROVEN EVIDENCE#009/010 (exp 20 R0 note, exp 21)

Live execution

Claim Status Evidence
Live funnel held: 10 targets → 10 decided → 10 placed → 9 filled PROVEN EVIDENCE#020 → round 3
Realized slippage ≈ 4.54 bps, est. cost ≈ $45, turnover 0.74 PROVEN EVIDENCE#020 → round 3 metrics
Execution claims trace to round_id + reconcile, not backtest PROVEN (methodology, round 3 settled) EVIDENCE#020
50-ETF panel results generalize to other universes HYPOTHESIS — TODO(evidence-needed) —
Effective independent names in the 50-ETF book is small (≈4) HYPOTHESIS (chat-derived eigenvalue analysis, pre-reset) book/data/chat_mining/exp-polluted-lake.txt

Open questions (settled by further experiments)

  • exp 30 M2 Sharpe-drift: reproduce on a second window before promoting past HYPOTHESIS.
  • exp 15 Kelly sizing: re-run on the clean lake.
  • exp 18 risk-limit spec: re-validate $5M liquidity floor on the post-reset reference signal (exp 26 lineage).
  • Out-of-universe validation: non-ETF universe for the compact stochastic feature set.