Methodology
Every number on a Helious page is machine-captured from a primary source and scored by fixed, published rules. This page describes those rules.
1. Release capture
Scheduled US economic releases are polled on an accelerating cadence around their release time (every 3 seconds when a print is imminent). The moment a source publishes an actual, the desk posts the print with its forecast and prior. Sources are the publishing agencies, BLS, BEA, Census, Federal Reserve, Treasury, via their releases and the fastest reliable mirrors of them; each print page names its source.
2. Surprise scoring (the σ figure)
A print's surprise is standardised: z = (actual − forecast) / σ, where σ is the historical standard deviation of that series' surprises (seeded per series and refined over time). |z| under 0.25 reads "on the screws"; the BEAT/MISS label and its bond/equity direction follow fixed per-family rules: a hotter CPI is bearish Treasuries, a payrolls miss is bullish. The z-score shown on every print page is this number.
3. Auction verdicts
Treasury auction recaps compare each result to the auction's own history: bid-to-cover against its recent average, the stop against the when-issued yield (the tail), and the bidder split. Verdicts are threshold-based: a stop-through with above-average cover reads STRONG, a tail with weak cover reads WEAK, everything between IN LINE, and the thresholds do not move story to story.
4. Scores on relayed headlines
Wire headlines in the live feed carry model scores for bond and equity impact (keyword evidence, source weight, novelty and, for high-conviction items, whether the market's first reaction confirms the read). Relayed headlines are never presented as Helious reporting and are excluded from search indexing; only first-party data pages are indexable.
5. Revisions & corrections
When an agency revises a figure, the page updates and is marked revised. Errors we introduce are corrected as soon as they are identified, and the page notes the correction. Spotted something wrong? Email support@helious.news and it is reviewed the same day.