# Prediction-Market Odds as Macro Signal (probe): a killed candidate

**Verdict:** KILLED  **Stage:** screen prototype  
**Identity:** `pm_odds_signal`

Do Polymarket-implied probabilities lead tradable markets? No — they lag them. The forward lead is null across 5 macro markets x 5 ETFs; the reverse is strong: bonds reprice a Fed move first and the odds catch up the NEXT day (corr +0.40 to TLT). Only ~2 years of usable history, all one easing cycle. The free odds are a slower, noisier copy of prices we already see. KILLED at feasibility.

## Why it was worth testing

This died at the screen stage, before a full walk-forward was ever run. Screening exists so that ideas which cannot clear a coarse, cost-aware bar do not consume the far more expensive machinery behind it. A screen kill is a cheap kill, and it is published for the same reason as an expensive one: the trial was still spent, and it still raises the evidence bar for everything already in the book.

## The result

| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Screen net Sharpe | not separately measured |

## What this does and does not say

It says this configuration, on this data, net of the costs we charge, did not clear the bar it pre-registered. It does not say the underlying economic effect does not exist, that no implementation of it works, or that someone with different data or different execution would reach the same conclusion. A null is evidence about a test, not a proof about a market.

It also does not say the trial was free. Every hypothesis tested raises the deflated-Sharpe hurdle for every sleeve already in the book, including the ones that survived. That is why the kill count is published beside the survivor count rather than behind it.