> Method guides for the questions traders actually search, plus first-party studies and post-mortems. Each states what it establishes and what it does not. - Canonical: https://hadalinstruments.com/research/ --- Method · Evidence · Limits # Research: methods, studies, post-mortems. How to test the things traders argue about, written so the test can be run without me — plus the studies and the incidents that came out of my own house. Three kinds of thing publish here. **Method guides** take a question people actually search, answer it directly, and hand over the procedure — including the cases where the honest answer is that the question as posed has no answer. **Measurement studies** state their sample before they state their finding and name what the measurement does not establish. **Post-mortems** are my own failures, published as first-party testimony — with the forensic packs behind them marked NOT YET PUBLISHED where they have not been released. There are no performance claims here and there never will be. Nothing on this page tells you what to trade. Where an article ships with a dataset, the artifact is content-hashed and the hash is printed beside the download, so the finding can be recomputed rather than believed. Broker feed measurements from the [Observatory](https://hadalinstruments.com/observatory/) battery: NOT YET PUBLISHED — the [methodology](https://hadalinstruments.com/methodology/) pre-registers before broker #1 is measured, and the articles arrive with the artifacts that prove them. Method guides introduce a named term as the answer's name. A name is an editorial act and carries no measurement, so it needs no artifact; every figure still does. The coined terms are collected, one line each, in [the lexicon](https://hadalinstruments.com/lexicon/); the claims each article examines are indexed at [the refutation index](https://hadalinstruments.com/refutations/); definitions for the standing vocabulary live in the [glossary](https://hadalinstruments.com/glossary/). 37 articles published 25 method guides 12 studies and post-mortems ## Method guides One searched question per article, answered in the searcher’s own words. Each teaches the procedure a reader can run on their own records — what a rigorous answer requires, what the common answers get wrong, and where the measured version will publish. No figures appear in any of them: an article that graduates to a measurement moves to the studies shelf with its artifact. 29 August 2026 Answers “does my hmm regime filter use future data in a backtest” ### [Does my regime filter use future data?](https://hadalinstruments.com/research/does-my-regime-filter-use-future-data/) Usually not through a coding bug. The standard workflow decodes the state with the whole series in hand, so each label was computed using the days after it. Hadal Research 29 August 2026 Answers “why did my broker charge me so much in swaps” ### [Why did my broker charge me so much in swaps?](https://hadalinstruments.com/research/why-did-my-broker-charge-me-so-much-in-swaps/) Because a swap is two costs wearing one name: an interest-rate differential anyone can compute, and a residual on top of it that almost nobody checks. Hadal Research 23 August 2026 Answers “do round numbers matter in forex trading” ### [Do round numbers matter in forex?](https://hadalinstruments.com/research/do-round-numbers-matter-in-forex/) A 13-month window gave z = minus 2.59. Run the same test across twelve windows and the mean is plus 0.08, none significant, some pointing the other way. Hadal Research Names: Window Luck 23 August 2026 Answers “does a wick rejection actually mean anything” ### [Does a wick rejection mean anything?](https://hadalinstruments.com/research/does-a-wick-rejection-mean-anything/) An 8% against 46% split at z = 198, and a volatility-matched surrogate reproduces it at +39% against +38%. The effect is real and means nothing. Hadal Research Names: Geometry Ghost 7 August 2026 Answers “does my backtest have survivorship bias” ### [Does my backtest have survivorship bias?](https://hadalinstruments.com/research/does-my-backtest-have-survivorship-bias/) You cannot tell from inside the dataset. The audit is of your selections — the symbols, data sources and strategies that never reached the record. Hadal Research Names: The Absent Denominator 7 August 2026 Answers “why do my forex orders get rejected” ### [Why do my forex orders get rejected?](https://hadalinstruments.com/research/why-do-my-forex-orders-get-rejected/) A rejection is not an error. It is a decision taken inside a window you cannot see — and it makes the fills you did get a sample somebody else selected. Hadal Research Names: The Survivor's Fill 5 August 2026 Answers “what does a funded account breach mean” ### [What a funded trading account breach means](https://hadalinstruments.com/research/what-a-funded-trading-account-breach-means/) Not a data breach. In funded trading it means a rule threshold was crossed and the account was ended or suspended — and the two kinds are not the same. Hadal Research 5 August 2026 Answers “what can a trading statement prove” ### [What can a trading statement prove?](https://hadalinstruments.com/research/what-can-a-trading-statement-prove/) Its own arithmetic and the facts inside the file — the closed ledger — but never the market around your fills, a quote's honesty, or anyone's intent. Hadal Research Names: The Closed Ledger 5 August 2026 Answers “where does a prop firm breach dispute go” ### [Where a funded-account breach dispute can go](https://hadalinstruments.com/research/where-does-a-breach-dispute-go/) The routes a UK trader can take after a funded account is closed against a rule — and the gate on each one, which is where most of them actually end. Hadal Research Names: The Standing Gate 5 August 2026 Answers “why was my account breached while in profit” ### [Why was my account breached in profit?](https://hadalinstruments.com/research/why-was-my-account-breached-in-profit/) An evaluation can end on a day that closed above its limit. The floor and the test run on different clocks, and that gap is where the account went. Hadal Research Names: The Asymmetric Clock 3 August 2026 Answers “how many trades to prove a trading edge” ### [How many trades prove a trading edge?](https://hadalinstruments.com/research/how-many-trades-prove-a-trading-edge/) There is no universal number: the trades required scale with the square of your edge's dispersion-to-size ratio. How to compute your own, from your own log. Hadal Research Names: The Luck Horizon 3 August 2026 Answers “why do correlated pairs decouple on low timeframes” ### [Why do correlated pairs decouple on low timeframes?](https://hadalinstruments.com/research/why-do-correlated-pairs-decouple-on-low-timeframes/) Below a measurable interval, two instruments barely share prints — most fine-grain decoupling is the measurement dissolving, not the relationship breaking. Hadal Research Names: The Coherence Floor 3 August 2026 Answers “why do two dashboards show different numbers” ### [Why do two dashboards show different numbers?](https://hadalinstruments.com/research/why-do-two-dashboards-show-different-numbers/) Usually both are right by their own hidden definitions — the real defect is that neither number's derivation can be produced on demand. A ten-minute test. Hadal Research Names: The Orphan Number 2 August 2026 Answers “how do you verify a trading track record” ### [How do you verify a trading track record?](https://hadalinstruments.com/research/how-do-you-verify-a-trading-track-record/) What a verified quant track record actually requires: the trade list, the accounting rules and the provenance that let a third party recompute it. Hadal Research Names: The Recompute Test 2 August 2026 Answers “is my drawdown limit calculated on balance or equity” ### [Is a drawdown limit on balance or equity?](https://hadalinstruments.com/research/is-my-drawdown-on-balance-or-equity/) The breach that surprises traders is computed on equity while they watched balance. How the definitions differ, why trailing limits bite, how to check yours. Hadal Research Names: The Definition Gap 2 August 2026 Answers “why does my backtest give different results with different data feeds” ### [Why do two data feeds give different backtests?](https://hadalinstruments.com/research/why-do-two-data-feeds-give-different-backtests/) In spot FX there is no single tape: every feed is one venue's filtered, aggregated history. Where feeds diverge, why results move, and how to diff yours. Hadal Research Names: The Two Histories 2 August 2026 Answers “why does my ea work on demo but not on a live account” ### [Why does my EA work on demo but not live?](https://hadalinstruments.com/research/why-does-my-ea-work-on-demo-but-not-live/) Demo fills are simulated: no spread paid, no slippage, no requotes. What changes at a live venue, and how to measure the gap on your own account. Hadal Research Names: The Frictionless Account 1 August 2026 Answers “how do you tell if a ci gate can actually fail” ### [How do you tell if a CI gate can actually fail?](https://hadalinstruments.com/research/how-do-you-tell-if-a-ci-gate-can-actually-fail/) You plant the defect it exists to catch and watch it go red. A gate that has only ever passed proves nothing, because passing is also what a broken one does. Hadal Research Names: The Planted Failure 1 August 2026 Answers “how to test a backtest for overfitting” ### [How do I test a backtest for overfitting?](https://hadalinstruments.com/research/how-to-test-a-backtest-for-overfitting/) You cannot test the backtest. Overfitting is a property of the search that produced it, so the test needs four artifacts most research processes never record. Hadal Research Names: The Search Receipt 1 August 2026 Answers “is my broker trading against me” ### [Is my broker trading against me?](https://hadalinstruments.com/research/is-my-broker-trading-against-me/) As asked it is unfalsifiable. The answerable version is narrower: does your execution quality change with your own behaviour? Here is how to record that. Hadal Research Names: Conditional Independence Of Fills 1 August 2026 Answers “what causes a prop firm drawdown breach” ### [What causes a prop firm drawdown breach?](https://hadalinstruments.com/research/what-causes-a-prop-firm-drawdown-breach/) Rarely a losing streak. A breach happens when a trader watches one termination rule while a different one is closer, and the rules move on separate clocks. Hadal Research Names: The Binding Barrier 1 August 2026 Answers “what is slippage really costing me” ### [What is slippage really costing me?](https://hadalinstruments.com/research/what-is-slippage-really-costing-me/) Not what the spread figure says, and not what your average slippage says either. The cost lives in the asymmetry, and your own statements already contain it. Hadal Research Names: The Slippage Lean 1 August 2026 Answers “what stops an ai coding agent from faking its results” ### [What stops an AI agent from faking its results?](https://hadalinstruments.com/research/what-stops-an-ai-agent-from-faking-its-results/) Nothing you say to it. What stops it is arithmetic: making the honest path to done cheaper than the fake one, and making the fake one leave a shape. Hadal Research Names: The Cost Floor 1 August 2026 Answers “why do backtests fail in live trading” ### [Why do backtests fail in live trading?](https://hadalinstruments.com/research/why-do-backtests-fail-in-live-trading/) Because a backtest is a reconstruction, and every reconstruction borrows from reality in five places. Live trading is where the borrowing is called in. Hadal Research Names: Reconstruction Debt 1 August 2026 Answers “why does my backtest use data that did not exist yet” ### [Why does my backtest use data that did not exist?](https://hadalinstruments.com/research/why-does-my-backtest-use-data-that-did-not-exist/) Not a bug in your code. Your dataset was assembled in hindsight, so the simulation reads a past that was corrected, curated and completed after the fact. Hadal Research Names: The Knowable Set ## Studies and post-mortems First-party work: measurement studies that state their sample before their finding, and incidents in my own house published in full — including the July 2026 case in which an AI agent working on my core engine forged operator sign-offs and fabricated results. 13 September 2026 Answers “can a trading edge be statistically significant but not profitable” ### [The edge that was real and worth half a pip](https://hadalinstruments.com/research/the-edge-that-was-real-and-worth-half-a-pip/) My engine's first end-to-end edge hunt found statistically real structure — leans of half to two percent from a coin flip — and none of it is tradable. Hadal Research Names: Significance Without Size 23 August 2026 Answers “do brokers hunt stop losses by widening the spread” ### [Do brokers hunt your stop losses?](https://hadalinstruments.com/research/do-brokers-hunt-your-stop-losses/) Up-side spread tags run 67% at round numbers against a modelled floor of 77%. The claim that stops are hit more often than chance does not survive it. Hadal Research Names: The Chance Floor Content-hashed dataset 23 August 2026 Answers “do order blocks actually predict anything” ### [Do order blocks predict anything?](https://hadalinstruments.com/research/do-order-blocks-predict-anything/) Controlled for recent momentum, the order-block measure added nothing out of sample. It was redundant, not underpowered — and the distinction is the method. Hadal Research Names: Costume Variable Content-hashed dataset 23 August 2026 Answers “does cot positioning predict reversals” ### [Does COT positioning predict reversals?](https://hadalinstruments.com/research/does-cot-positioning-predict-reversals/) Crowded positioning extremes precede fewer liquidations, not more. The interval excludes zero, p = 0.0066, and the sign is backwards. Hadal Research Names: Wrong-Way Significance Content-hashed dataset 23 August 2026 Answers “is my volatility indicator just measuring time of day” ### [Is my volatility regime just telling me the time?](https://hadalinstruments.com/research/is-my-volatility-regime-just-telling-me-the-time/) I removed the time-of-day pattern from one FX pair and a standard volatility classifier stopped finding compression at all. Six features, all six moved. Hadal Research Names: Clock Regime Content-hashed dataset 23 August 2026 Answers “how do you know a detected regime change is real” ### [The break that cleared neither bar](https://hadalinstruments.com/research/the-break-that-cleared-neither-bar/) A joint change-point detector flagged one break across twelve market channels, then tested it against two independent bars and cleared neither. Hadal Research Names: Surrogate Inversion Content-hashed dataset 23 August 2026 Answers “how do you know a check that never fails is working” ### [The floor that never fired](https://hadalinstruments.com/research/the-floor-that-never-fired/) A guard set at 0.90 never fired in years of use. Measuring the population showed why: every real observation sat ten points above it. Hadal Research Names: Silent Guard Content-hashed dataset 22 August 2026 Answers “do price levels remember what happened there before” ### [The level that remembered nothing](https://hadalinstruments.com/research/the-level-that-remembered-nothing/) My first real finding said price levels remember their own history. At sixteen years and 183,689 revisits, the memory was recency wearing a costume. Hadal Research Names: Recency Mirage 1 August 2026 Answers “is my broker's feed honest” ### [Is my broker's feed honest? How to test it](https://hadalinstruments.com/research/is-my-brokers-feed-honest/) Honest is a comparison, and retail traders have nothing to compare against. Here is the narrower question that is answerable, and how to record the evidence. Hadal Research Names: The Feed Zero Content-hashed dataset 1 August 2026 Answers “why is my live spread wider than my backtest” ### [Why is my live spread wider than my backtest?](https://hadalinstruments.com/research/why-is-my-live-spread-wider-than-my-backtest/) Usually because the backtest used a spread that never existed. Here is how to find which of the four causes is yours, and what each one costs you. Hadal Research Names: The Spread Fiction Content-hashed dataset 31 July 2026 ### [The Burned Door: an AI agent destroyed its evidence](https://hadalinstruments.com/research/the-burned-door/) An agent on my own engine fabricated results and forged sign-offs. What it was like to find out, how I caught it, and what is still not published. Hadal Research 31 July 2026 ### [How much does the range actually widen at NFP?](https://hadalinstruments.com/research/the-nfp-range/) What 1,820 scheduled-release windows across 28 pairs were measured for — and why the range-expansion factors stay unpublished until their artifact ships. Hadal Research