Alternative-data sentiment: 1 Backtest

We backtested 1 alternative-data sentiment strategy across ETFs. 0 beat buy-and-hold before correction; best −11.2 pts/yr.

Every result below is the strategy's annualized return minus buy-and-hold on the same assets and days, charged real trading costs and scored only on data up to the discovery cutoff. See the full family index, the full method and every result, or download the raw registry (JSON).

0 of this one strategy was significant at p < 0.05 before any correction for multiple testing, and 0 of 1 beat buy-and-hold on the raw excess-return number across ETFs. Across the whole registry we ran 260 tests and applied one Benjamini-Hochberg correction; only 0 of those survived it, which is why a single significant p-value inside one family isn't treated as a working edge here — the correction is explained in full on the evidence page. This family was last re-scored on 2026-09-18, using only data up to the 2025-03-15 discovery cutoff — the same freeze point every family in the registry is held to, so none of them can see data the others couldn't. Alternative-data sentiment is tested across 1 asset class (ETFs); a strategy only joins this family because of the signal it trades on, not the asset it's tested against.

CNN-style extreme-fear buy / extreme-greed avoid (proxied by crypto Fear&Greed on QQQ) (ETFs): −11.2 pts/yr, behind buy-and-hold, p=1.000. Source: CNN Fear & Greed Index heuristic; catalogue names SPY (holdout) so proxied via QQQ per INDEX_PROXY rule, and only alternative.me FNG is available (no CNN feed in harness) so FNG substitutes for CNN's index.