Thesis ledger
Dated forecasts and market interpretations with assessment criteria and subsequent outcomes. This records research, not portfolio performance.
Publication range: 2 Jul 2026 – 5 Nov 2026. Source: Hawk Thorne research record. Thesis descriptions retain the content recorded in the ledger.
Forecasts
25Claims about future events, assessed against a stated condition and time horizon.
- Held
- 14
- Broke
- 9
- Unresolved
- 0
- Awaiting assessment
- 2
Interpretations
134Assessments of current conditions. New evidence can sustain, revise or retire an interpretation. These do not contribute to forecast accuracy.
- Sustained
- 12
- Revised
- 26
- Retired
- 14
- Awaiting assessment
- 53
- Historical assessments
- 29
Assessment rules and forecast calibration
Since 27 July 2026, forecasts and interpretations follow separate assessment rules. Earlier interpretations graded against price thresholds remain in the history and are excluded from calibration.
Declared probabilities compared with assessed outcomes. Brier is the mean squared error; a lower score indicates less error within this sample. A small sample does not establish future forecasting accuracy.
Forecast calibration
scored forecasts: 23 · Brier: 0.248
The sample includes only resolved forecasts with a recorded probability. Interpretations and unresolved entries are excluded.
The options market is pricing calm into a rates market pricing a firmer path and a Treasury yield at the 99.2nd percentile of its year, a positioning gap the 8 September note's credit-stress finding does not explain.
What would prove it wrong
If the VIX closes above 20 in the five sessions following the 11 September Core CPI y/y print, the options market has repriced its assessment of the rate-path risk it is currently underpricing.
Read analysis#How it settled
VIXCLS closed below 20 on 2026-09-10 (close 17.84)
WTI's managed-money short has covered to near zero (725 contracts), leaving little further short-covering fuel for its rally, while Brent's net long, though trimmed this week, still sits far from exhausted at a 52-week COT index of 3.0, giving Brent more room to extend on a persisting Saudi supply risk premium than WTI has left to give back.
What would prove it wrong
If the next COT report shows WTI's managed-money net short rebuilding into a net long while Brent's net long is trimmed further toward or through a net short, the asymmetry described here is falsified.
Read analysis#How it settled
The 8 September 2026 note expected Brent's net long, at a 52-week COT index of 3.0, to extend on a persisting Saudi supply premium; instead Brent fell 3.71% over five sessions as wire reports describe Saudi Arabia rerouting crude through Oman, moving against that premise even though the COT report itself has not yet shown the net long trimmed.
The regime's stated credit-stress driver is not corroborated by high-yield spreads, VIX or financial conditions, all sitting near their year's lows; the genuine extreme is the Treasury supply and rate-path story, with the 10-year yield at the 99.2nd percentile of its own year.
What would prove it wrong
If credit stress materialises as an independent driver, high-yield spreads and financial conditions indices would break their year's lows in tandem with deteriorating economic data on CPI or labour prints, removing the Treasury supply explanation's centrality to the regime read.
Read analysis#How it settled
High-yield credit spreads remain at the 8.3rd percentile and the financial conditions index at the 4.8th percentile of their own year, both still nowhere near the extremes needed to corroborate the regime's stated credit-stress driver, so the 8 September reading that the Treasury supply and rate-path story is the genuine extreme still holds.
The 10-year Treasury yield's 99.2nd-percentile level already prices most of the current Treasury supply wave, even as the regime's stated credit-stress driver shows no corresponding extreme in high-yield spreads.
What would prove it wrong
If the 9 or 10 September Treasury auction (reopening) results require the 10-year yield to close above 4.95% to draw participation, and the yield holds above that level through the close of 17 September, the thesis that the supply story is already priced fails.
Read analysis#How it settled
DGS10 closed above 4.95 on 2026-09-10 (close 4.95)
WIG-BANKI's 2.44% five-session gain into 4 September 2026 prices further NBP easing from 3.75%, a bet a single-source wire report directly contradicts by calling for a 25bp hike after November, and the NBP's own March projection (CPI above 3.5% through 2026) does not clearly support either side ahead of the 9 September RPP decision.
What would prove it wrong
This reading is sustained if the RPP holds the reference rate at 3.75% on 9 September with no tightening language on the CPI path exceeding 3.5% into 2027; it is undercut if the Council signals it is considering a hike, or if the July projection round pushes the CPI return-to-target date beyond mid-2027 with explicit tightening language.
Read analysis#How it settled
The 7 September note's falsifier called for either a Council signal of hiking consideration or an explicit tightening turn in the projection round; instead the 9 September decision produced neither, a hold with unchanged rhetoric despite economists flagging a deteriorating inflation outlook the Council did not engage with, which is a distinct and less resolved outcome than either branch the prior note anticipated.
Fed funds futures price a firmer twelve-month rate path, 37.5 basis points higher, on an August payrolls beat of 162,000 against a 55,000 forecast, while the VIX sits at 15.2 (33rd percentile) with large positive S&P 500 dealer gamma showing the options market pricing calm.
What would prove it wrong
If the VIX closes above 20 in the five sessions following the 4 September 2026 payrolls release, the options market has repriced its assessment of the labour-driven rate path.
Read analysis#How it settled
no VIXCLS close above 20 through 2026-09-12
WIG-BANKI's rate-cut bet, still visible in its 0.92% five-session gain into 3 September 2026, remains unconfirmed by any updated NBP projection and is now directly tested by the 9 September RPP decision with the reference rate still at 3.75%.
What would prove it wrong
This reading is sustained if the RPP holds the reference rate at 3.75% on 9 September while deferring to a still-unpublished projection update; it is retired if the Council cuts or explicitly brings forward the mid-2027 return-to-target date from the March round.
Read analysis#How it settled
New reporting in the pack forecasts a 25bp RPP hike after November and frames the 9 Sep decision as directly affecting loan installments, contradicting the prior's framing of the bet as merely 'unconfirmed' and awaiting an unpublished projection; the reading must be revised to account for a hike expectation rather than a cut/hold binary.
Russell 2000 futures' record-crowded speculative net short shrank by 2,940 contracts in the week to 25 August as the Russell 2000 fell 1.53% over five sessions, a mismatch that leaves the position looking pressured.
What would prove it wrong
If the next COT report shows the Russell E-Mini net short resuming its extension while the Russell 2000 stays below its 20-day high of 3068.42, this week's covering reads as a pause inside a still-crowded short rather than a genuine unwind.
Read analysis#How it settled
^RUT closed below 3068.42 on 2026-09-04 (close 2975.65)
Fed funds futures price a firmer, not looser, twelve-month policy path (43.5bp) even as the VIX sits in the 4th percentile of its trailing range with dealers short gamma in S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 options, a divergence the 4 September labor report can only partially resolve, since it tests the options market's near-term calm but cannot on its own validate or invalidate a cumulative twelve-month rates path.
What would prove it wrong
If the VIX closes above 20 in the five sessions after the 4 September Non-Farm Employment Change release, the options market's low-volatility pricing will have failed the one leg the report can actually test.
Read analysis#How it settled
no VIXCLS close above 20 through 2026-09-11
Leveraged funds covered 20,724 contracts of their Euro FX net short in the week to 25 August 2026 while EUR/USD fell to 1.16, breaking the 21 August squeeze thesis that required the short to shrink only while the currency held its 20-day high.
What would prove it wrong
EUR/USD trades at or above 1.1681 in the next CFTC Commitments of Traders week while the Euro FX net short deepens, which would show the 25 August covering was a mechanical unwind that reversed rather than the start of the crowd's exit from a losing position.
Read analysis#How it settled
EURUSD=X closed below 1.1681 on 2026-09-03 (close 1.15996)
WTI's managed-money net short has covered to the 98.7th percentile of its own three-year range, leaving little further squeeze potential, while Brent's net long sits at only the 44.9th percentile, giving that grade more room to absorb a continuing geopolitical risk premium than WTI has to give back.
What would prove it wrong
If the next COT report shows Brent's managed-money net long being trimmed rather than extended while WTI's short starts rebuilding, the asymmetry described here narrows and the reading should be revised.
Read analysis#How it settled
COT update shows Brent spec_net_wow at -2,298, i.e. the managed-money net long was trimmed rather than extended, which is precisely the stated falsifier condition; combined with any WTI short rebuilding this narrows the asymmetry the original stance relied on, so the reading must be revised rather than sustained.
Fed funds futures price a firmer, not looser, policy path over the next year even as the VIX sits near its lowest levels of its recent range, leaving dealer short gamma in S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 options positioned to amplify whatever the 4 September labor data delivers.
What would prove it wrong
If the 4 September Non-Farm Employment Change prints at or below negative 23,000, the priced-higher Fed path should compress and the VIX's low-percentile signal will have been wrong.
Read analysis#How it settled
no ^GSPC close below 7500 through 2026-09-09