Methodology
Methodology
The public dashboard is an educational composite. It is not a national statistic, not a live tick, and not a promise that gloom forecasts equity returns. This page is the recipe we will put in public without pretending otherwise.
1. What the number is
Each regional and sector print is scaled to a 0–100 mood score. The ordinary band is 40 to 60. Fifty is neither boom nor bust. The daily value is fixed for a UTC date, so two readers on two continents see the same number. Charts on the markets pages show that history in 1M, 3M, 6M, and 1Y windows, with the date on the x-axis and the print on the y-axis.
2. What we sit near
The public household-mood tape is a deterministic educational simulation generated from the series code and UTC date. It is not fitted to, calibrated against, or derived from the University of Michigan, Conference Board, European Commission, Bank of Korea, Statistics Korea, or another official survey. Those agencies are the appropriate source for real consumer-confidence observations. Until verified source series are connected, this tape must not be used as measured household sentiment.
3. Sector mapping
Sectors are not copies of the global average with new labels. Retail overweight purchase-intent style questions. Housing splits, in licensed files, into purchase conditions versus owner shelter comfort. Autos follow vehicle-buying conditions. Travel follows vacation intent and is noisier. Staples move slowly. Consumer tech follows durables-and-gadgets intent. Household energy is an affordability instrument. Labor follows job-plentiful / job-security items. Licensed CSV files expose those legs. The public HTML table does not, on purpose.
4. Lags we will not hide
A survey print dated Friday may describe interviews that ended earlier in the week. Official agencies revise. Our public site does not intra-day revise; it prints once. Licensed feeds timestamp vintage (preliminary vs final) when a source has one. If a vendor cannot say which vintage you stored, you cannot backtest.
5. Alternative data
We do not treat social posts as an official CCI. Public language is a nowcast feature for categories where people complain in public, aggregated, and dropped when a platform’s terms change. No private messages. No lists of people. See the insights essay on social listening.
6. What this site will not do
The public pages will not score a live social stream as if it were a statistical office. That is a different product, and a different contract.
7. Research and source standard
Research published under the current standard separates an executive summary, dated key facts, market interpretation, scenarios, falsification conditions, and the next confirmed releases to watch. A source record must contain the document title, publication date, URL, evidence status, and the claim it supports. AI output remains a draft until a person confirms editorial review.
8. How a claim stays alive
A later column tests the earlier one. The test is loadings, insurance, the 10-year, and whether the physical object in the note actually moved. A repeated paragraph is not new evidence.
9. Market charts and Trident
Article market charts use dated Yahoo Finance chart data and state the unit, period, and last update. They are context, not proof of causation. Trident uses 180-minute futures bars, next-bar model returns, and a roll-gap-adjusted continuous series. Published headline performance excludes commissions, spread, slippage, financing, tax, and contract-specific roll costs.
10. Change log
2026-09-14 — Public educational tape launched. Daily UTC print, eight sectors, six regional lines, bilingual site.
2026-09-14 — Markets charts show dated windows (1M / 3M / 6M / 1Y) with labelled axes.
2026-09-14 — Cycle desk: CPI/PPI sectors, Michigan inflation expectations, and public Fed factory surveys. ISM PMI is licensed and is not on this tape.
2026-09-22 — Added structured source records, Thesis Tracker, research filters, and a human editorial review gate.