Thesis ledger
Dated forecasts and market interpretations with assessment criteria and subsequent outcomes. This records research, not portfolio performance.
Publication range: 2 Jul 2026 – 15 Oct 2026. Source: Hawk Thorne research record. Thesis descriptions retain the content recorded in the ledger.
Forecasts
23Claims about future events, assessed against a stated condition and time horizon.
- Held
- 8
- Broke
- 8
- Unresolved
- 0
- Awaiting assessment
- 7
Interpretations
117Assessments of current conditions. New evidence can sustain, revise or retire an interpretation. These do not contribute to forecast accuracy.
- Sustained
- 7
- Revised
- 19
- Retired
- 10
- Awaiting assessment
- 52
- 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: 17 · Brier: 0.252
The sample includes only resolved forecasts with a recorded probability. Interpretations and unresolved entries are excluded.
Two tightening channels, a firming Fed-futures path and a high-yield credit spread near its yearly extreme, are converging on risk assets even as a resilient labor market argues the credit read may be overstating stress.
Read analysis#What would prove it wrong
If the high-yield credit spread stabilizes or narrows over the coming weeks while initial jobless claims remain near current lows, that would indicate the credit-stress reading was over-reading a transient widening rather than identifying a genuine deterioration in default risk.
The rates market prices a firmer policy path while the regime system names credit stress, at the 81st percentile and climbing, as the dominant driver of market conditions.
What would prove it wrong
If the high-yield credit spread narrows back toward its range prior to 12 October while Treasury yields remain at current levels, the regime system's credit-stress framing would be contradicted, as the yield elevation would then be explained by factors other than deteriorating corporate credit conditions.
Read analysis#How it settled
the high-yield credit spread's velocity accelerated to 2.16 while the 10-year yield held at its 96th percentile, the opposite of the narrowing the 12 October falsifier required
Fed funds futures are pricing a firmer 12-month policy path (80bp higher, not cuts) well above the FOMC's own 2.8% committee mean, even as August job openings fell to 7.079 million and consumer confidence hit a 12-year low, leaving the front end of the Treasury curve exposed if the labor deterioration continues into the 2 October payrolls report.
Read analysis#What would prove it wrong
If the 2-year Treasury yield closes at or below 4.50% within the next 15 trading days, the priced tightening path this note describes will have reversed rather than persisted.
Fed funds futures are pricing a firmer, higher policy path (71.5bp higher over 12 months, not cuts) running ahead of the FOMC's own 2.9% mean projection, driving a historically fast repricing at the front end of the Treasury curve even as the broader regime read stays balanced.
What would prove it wrong
If the 2-year Treasury yield retreats to 4.50% or lower by 27 September 2026, the fast repricing this note is built on will have proven supply-driven and reversible rather than a sustained repricing of rate expectations.
Read analysis#How it settled
DGS2 closed above 4.5 on 2026-09-24 (close 4.87)
An oil-driven inflation shock is colliding with a Treasury yield already at the 100th percentile of its year, while high-yield credit spreads at the 7.1st percentile still refuse to confirm the regime's stated credit-stress driver.
Read analysis#What would prove it wrong
If the 11 September CPI print shows core or headline inflation accelerating from the prior month's readings while high-yield spreads widen out of their current range, the premise that credit stress is disconnected from real-time inflation signals would be overturned.
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)
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)
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
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
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
The regime's credit stress reading is mislabeled: it is fiscal supply pressure on the Treasury curve (heavy issuance, a TGA rebuild to $935.1 billion) driving the stress score, not a genuine deterioration in corporate credit, since the high-yield spread sits in just the 28.6th percentile of its own trailing year.
Read analysis#What would prove it wrong
If a named credit event (a downgrade wave, a spike in default risk expectations tied to a specific sector or cohort, or a deterioration in corporate funding costs across the curve) emerges in the sessions following the 26 to 27 August Treasury auctions and the 26 August Core PCE print, the fiscal supply framing for this credit stress reading fails.