Replicate RecessionAlert: Recession Fear Indicator

Objective

Replicate A Recession Fear Indicator from data/recessionalert.sqlite page https://recessionalert.com/a-recession-fear-indicator/ and any matching fixture sheet. Spreadsheet/DB fixtures are the source of truth. Never invent thresholds. Never live-crawl. Fail closed on missing disclosed rules. Acceptance: offline runner/spec reproduces the disclosed fear-indicator signal from SHA-verified fixtures, or a fail-closed gap report. No live site access.

Approach

1. Verified page cache in data/recessionalert.sqlite: https://recessionalert.com/a-recession-fear-indicator/ sha256 2cb8464ee21e8b28af0f8dcbf7bacbd3ddeffc040c53717a198c0b701fa019dd, 83313 bytes, fetched_at 2026-08-22T23:39:13Z. No live fetch; all evidence from offline bytes and sqlite asset inspection. Manifest research/artifacts/recessionalert/manifest.json and inventory research/findings/recessionalert_inventory.md pin the same SHA.

1. Inspected all six SHA-verified xlsx assets offline via sqlite bytes without download: CMHI_DATA b3c8587608044073d3ed9246a12402a184267fae87cb147a5028e720c6e6493c (DAILY/WEEKLY/MONTHLY), OPTIMUM_DATA c01364504b43f157c9fd58752b2c8c9774318f04542f736198ce74cf4d0350d4, WeeklyData fc2be5f1fc2a2e38949ae566f6e8cb4699a95562975a498fb5a53510cc40d67c, MonthlyData 435d142f7e8851a740c78a3d24db6bb15930b21a861cb5520d0a494e6575dced. None contains a dedicated Fear sheet or Fear column mapping. MonthlyData DATA contains SuperIndex-adjacent history only; sharedStrings mentions superindex but no fear mapping.

1. Froze identity in research/findings/specs/recessionalert-fear-indicator.json (sha256:7a6545a195ea89806ae733fa03a207734bccf1d2d4058437a318e7ba886ac283): Other-indicators continuous gauge, direction risk_warning, neither buy nor sell, not playable, cadence/publication_lag unknown_not_disclosed, thresholds null, input Google global search volume for term recession, claimed peaks 2008 NBER recession start +2 week lag and Aug 2011 spike around S&P 500 bottom. Eight fail-closed gaps inventoried; validation_protocol is empty-by-design.

1. Proved data provenance and temporal boundaries: Google Trends provenance only, no SHA-pinned Fear series, redistribution limited to hashes and gap notes, point-in-time availability unknown_not_disclosed, late-input immutability vacuously satisfied by refusing to invent a series, and exhaustive maximization search (live Trends scrape, synthetic backfill, constituent rebuild) rejected without invention.

1. Froze causal validation as empty robustness matrix (baseline, extra lag, subperiod, adjacent parameters omitted intentionally to preserve fail-closed semantics) with late-input unavailable-state satisfied.

1. Selected disposition insufficient_evidence and registry disposition no_registry_change for research/fixtures/buy-signals-v1.json and research/fixtures/risk-off-indicators-v1.json — no Other-indicators entry created, consistent with fail-closed gaps.

1. Published gap report as durable spec research/findings/specs/recessionalert-fear-indicator.json (gap publication). No docs/site-data/signals/history.json rebuild, no docs/other-indicators.html mutation, no research/fixtures mutation.

1. Wrote this changelog entry and rebuilt docs/site-data/results.json, docs/results.html, docs/results/qm-09tp.21.html via python3 -m research.reports.results. Ran python3 research/scripts/check_static_reports.py docs and python3 -m research.artifacts check --mode full --offline (rebuild on drift).

Files / code / data changed

• research/findings/specs/recessionalert-fear-indicator.json — frozen fear-indicator identity, gaps, and acceptance trace (sha256:7a6545a195ea89806ae733fa03a207734bccf1d2d4058437a318e7ba886ac283)
• research/results/qm-09tp.21.md — this durable task note (id qm-09tp.21)
• docs/site-data/results.json, docs/results.html, docs/results/qm-09tp.21.html — rebuilt changelog (newest entry qm-09tp.21)
• data/recessionalert.sqlite (page/workbook cache) — fixtures (read-only, not rewritten)

Validation

• ls -l research/findings/specs/recessionalert-fear-indicator.json — passed (spec exists; receipt check-1)
• python3 -c 'import sqlite3; con=sqlite3.connect('"'"'file:data/recessionalert.sqlite?mode=ro'"'"', uri=True); cur=con.cursor(); cur.execute("SELECT sha256 FROM pages WHERE url='"'"'https://recessionalert.com/a-recession-fear-indicator/'"'"'"); sha=cur.fetchone()[0]; assert sha=='"'"'sha256:2cb8464ee21e8b28af0f8dcbf7bacbd3ddeffc040c53717a198c0b701fa019dd'"'"', sha; print('"'"'page sha verified, no late input consumed'"'"')' — passed (page SHA re-verified offline; receipt check-2)
• python3 -m research.reports.results — rewrote docs/site-data/results.json with qm-09tp.21 newest, docs/results/qm-09tp.21.html exists
• python3 research/scripts/check_static_reports.py docs — passed
• python3 -m research.artifacts check --mode full --offline — passed (or rebuilt)
• No live crawl, no data/market.sqlite mutation, no secrets printed, no hand-edit of generated HTML/canary

Results

No playable Fear Indicator was registered. The page discloses only the Google Trends input and two anecdotal peaks; eight rules (threshold, lookback/smoothing window, cadence/lag, boolean vs continuous semantics, machine-readable series, historical span/revision policy, SuperIndex relationship, exit rule) remain undisclosed and no SHA-pinned series exists among the six offline assets. The durable spec is the accepting gap report. Changelog entry research/results/qm-09tp.21.md is searchable via git grep qm-09tp.21.

Links

• Task: qm-09tp.21
• Page: https://recessionalert.com/a-recession-fear-indicator/ (cached sha256:2cb8464ee21e8b28af0f8dcbf7bacbd3ddeffc040c53717a198c0b701fa019dd, 83313 bytes)
• Spec: research/findings/specs/recessionalert-fear-indicator.json (sha256:7a6545a195ea89806ae733fa03a207734bccf1d2d4058437a318e7ba886ac283)
• Assets: CMHI_DATA b3c85876, OPTIMUM_DATA c0136450, WeeklyData fc2be5f1, MonthlyData 435d142f — no Fear sheet
• Results: research/results/qm-09tp.21.md, docs/site-data/results.json, docs/results/qm-09tp.21.html