cyb50-quant/research/dragon/v2/dragon_glued_refined_branch_review.md

Dragon Glued Refined Branch Review

Branches

• workbook_preserving: official reconstruction baseline.
• alpha_first_selective_veto: current formal alpha-first branch.
• alpha_first_glued_refined_hot_cap: refined glued research candidate with 40 <= c1 < 75, b1 >= 0.10, plus intact low weak-range veto.

Headline Comparison

• workbook_preserving: trades 106, avg_return 2.57%, profit_factor 3.37, real BUY / SELL 105/105
• alpha_first_selective_veto: trades 102, avg_return 2.86%, profit_factor 4.04, real BUY / SELL 101/101
• alpha_first_glued_refined_hot_cap: trades 91, avg_return 3.42%, profit_factor 5.11, real BUY / SELL 90/90

Trade Quality

• avg MFE / MAE: alpha 6.93% / -2.57% vs refined 7.62% / -2.57%
• short bucket 00-05d: alpha -1.72% vs refined -1.67%
• short bucket 06-10d: alpha -0.69% vs refined -0.59%

Walk-Forward Comparison

• Anchored expanding: alpha 8/9, avg 4.00% vs refined 9/9, avg 4.52%
• Rolling 3Y: alpha 7/7, avg 5.19% vs refined 7/7, avg 5.76%

Trade-Diff Summary

• refined vs alpha-first: removed 11, added 0
• The refined branch is still a removal-driven candidate; improvement comes from deleting weak trades, not from adding a new complex trade tree.

Stability Read

• refined beats alpha on avg_return in 6 yearly buckets out of 10 overlapping sell years
• avg_return delta vs alpha: 0.56%
• profit_factor delta vs alpha: 1.06
• overlap delta vs alpha: BUY -11 / SELL -11

Governance Judgment

• Upgrade gate status: PASS on headline quality and walk-forward thresholds
• The refined branch is stronger than the current alpha-first baseline and stronger than the older full glued candidate.
• The remaining blocker is governance: overlap loss is still large enough that promotion should be explicit rather than silent.
• Recommended status: keep alpha_first_selective_veto as formal baseline; mark alpha_first_glued_refined_hot_cap as the leading next alpha-first candidate.