// Three findings. Fixed meanings.

THE FINDINGS SYSTEM

Every test ends in one of three findings. Reading them is RAMP 02.

// THE THREE STATES

DATA VALIDATED

The strategy beat its benchmark on BOTH compound growth (CAGR) and risk-adjusted return (Sharpe), in the training window AND in the held-out walk-forward window it never saw. Both axes, both windows, or it is not DATA VALIDATED.

TRADE-OFF

It beat the benchmark on one axis only: more return with worse risk, or better risk with less return. You decide whether the trade is worth it.

NO EDGE

The rule did no better than the benchmark. The result maps where the edge is not, and your AI reports it in those words.

// THE WALK-FORWARD SPLIT

Every study is split chronologically at the OOS SPLIT YEAR (default 2015). Criteria are formed and evaluated on the earlier window, then replayed untouched on the later window the strategy has never seen. Random splits are refused by design: shuffling time leaks the future into the past, and a leaked backtest is a fiction with good numbers.

// THE METHODOLOGY, STATED IN FULL

Delisted companies. US tickers, including companies that later delisted, priced from 1998. Market-wide backtests rank them from 1998; earlier years hold survivors only.
Fundamentals by filing date. Fundamentals are joined by filing date; about 9% of rows still carry the quarter-end as their filing date while a fix lands, and a restated figure replaces the first-reported one.
No look-ahead. Positions lag signals; formation-only filters; the forward return must span exactly one calendar period.
Gross returns. Costs, taxes, and slippage are not modelled, and every result says so. Real results would be lower.
Complete record. Every period, in the result. A backtest is not a promise of returns.

That is the whole system. When your AI presents QuantGPT numbers, it repeats this methodology, because the manifest it receives on connect tells it to.