Intel · Glossary

Glossary

Twenty terms a quant desk would assume you know. Each definition is short and linked to the Closelook framework that uses it — so a glossary entry doubles as a map into the rest of the site.

A

Alpha: Return above a benchmark. In prediction markets context, Closelook's Directional Alpha framework identifies 51 patterns for generating returns above the market's implied probability.
ATE (Automated Test Equipment): Machines that test semiconductor chips before shipping. Advantest dominates ATE for advanced logic and HBM. Testing is an underappreciated bottleneck — every chip must pass ATE before it generates revenue.

B

Brier Score: Accuracy score for probabilistic forecasts — mean squared difference between predicted probability and actual outcome. Lower is better; perfect = 0, worst = 1. Closelook scores every Predictions call with Brier alongside log-loss so the public scoreboard rewards calibration, not confident wrongness.

C

CapEx Cycle: The pattern of capital expenditure growth and contraction in an industry. AI infrastructure is in the expansion phase. Historical parallels (2000 Telecom, 2018 Crypto) suggest CapEx cycles end suddenly.
Cash-Secured Put: An options strategy: sell a put option while holding enough cash to buy the stock if assigned. Used by Closelook to enter positions at lower prices while earning premium. The Derivatives portfolio is 80-95% cash with puts generating income.
Covered Call: An options strategy: own the underlying stock and sell a call option against it. Generates income but caps upside. Used extensively in Closelook's Derivatives portfolio for income generation in sideways markets.
CoWoS (Chip-on-Wafer-on-Substrate): TSMC's advanced packaging technology that bonds compute dies with HBM memory stacks. The primary packaging bottleneck in the AI supply chain. Capacity sold out since 2023.

D

DXY (US Dollar Index): An index measuring the US dollar against a basket of six major currencies. DXY strength is typically a headwind for non-US tech stocks and commodities including Bitcoin. The Weekly Signal tracks DXY through the Macro dimension.

E

EBITDA Multiple: Enterprise Value divided by EBITDA — the most common valuation metric for comparing companies across sectors. In the context of the Software-Credit Nexus, PE-acquired SaaS companies are leveraged at 8-10x EBITDA, creating risk when margins compress.
Economic Moat: A durable competitive advantage that protects profits. In AI investing, Closelook distinguishes between physics-based moats (ASML's EUV monopoly, TSMC's fabrication lead) and software moats (which agentic AI may erode).
Elliott Wave Theory: A technical analysis framework that identifies recurring fractal wave patterns in price action. Markets move in five-wave impulse sequences (trending) and three-wave corrective sequences (counter-trend). Closelook applies Elliott Wave analysis to BTC and NDX as a qualitative overlay on the Weekly Signal framework.
EUV (Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography): The most advanced chipmaking technology using 13.5nm wavelength light. ASML is the sole supplier of EUV machines. Required for all advanced chips below 7nm. ASML's EUV order book is a Closelook Sentinel indicator.

F

Functional Index: A proprietary Closelook concept: indices weighted by supply chain function rather than market capitalization. Reveals structural dynamics that cap-weighted ETFs (SMH, SOXX) miss.

G

Golden Cross: Bullish trend-follow signal when the 50-day moving average crosses above the 200-day moving average. The Death Cross is the mirror image. Simple, widely watched, often self-fulfilling on index futures. The Pattern Scanner logs Golden / Death Crosses across Rubin and Euro-AI as one of 51 Directional-Alpha patterns.
Gross Margin: Revenue minus cost of goods sold, divided by revenue. A simple quality gauge. SaaS compounders sit at 70-85%, semiconductor designers at 50-70%, commodity producers below 30%. Expanding gross margin usually signals pricing power; contracting margin is an early warning. HALO 100 screens compounders on sustained gross-margin levels.

H

HBM (High Bandwidth Memory): Vertically stacked DRAM dies connected to GPUs via advanced packaging. Essential for AI accelerators — HBM3E is current generation, HBM4 is next. Micron and SK Hynix control supply.

I

Implied Volatility: The market's forward-looking volatility forecast, extracted from option prices. Not historical — expectational. High IV means rich option premium; low IV means cheap premium. Closelook's Derivatives portfolio sells premium when IV Rank is in the upper quartile and steps aside when it collapses.

J

January Effect: Seasonal anomaly where small-cap equities historically outperform in January, driven by December tax-loss selling reversing plus start-of-year reinvestment flows. Documented since the 1970s, the effect has attenuated since 2000 as index futures and tax-aware strategies arbitraged it out. Noted in the Weekly Signal's seasonality layer but never a standalone Closelook thesis.

K

Kelly Criterion: A mathematical formula for optimal position sizing. It calculates the fraction of capital to allocate to a trade based on the probability of winning and the payoff ratio. Closelook uses a fractional Kelly approach (typically half-Kelly) to determine position sizes across all five model portfolios.

L

Linear Regression Channel: A statistical trend channel constructed by regressing price on time, then plotting upper and lower parallel bands at one or two standard deviations above and below the regression line. Used for mean-reversion entries inside a trend. Closelook's Cointegration Monitor leans on LRC deviations to timestamp pair-trading entries.

M

Market Breadth: How many stocks are participating in a market move — advance-decline line, new highs vs new lows, the share of stocks above the 200-day moving average. A narrow rally carried by a handful of mega-caps is structurally fragile; broad breadth confirms regime strength. Closelook feeds breadth into the Money Temperature composite.
Market Regime: The prevailing market environment that determines whether risk-taking is rewarded or punished. Closelook scores regime on a 0-100 composite: 80+ is Green (risk-on), 50-79 Yellow (caution), below 50 Red (risk-off). Regime determination is the first and most important level of the Weekly Signal.
Maximum Drawdown: The largest peak-to-trough decline in portfolio value. Closelook reports max drawdown for every portfolio and uses the Weekly Signal regime system to manage drawdown risk — Red regime triggers capital preservation.

N

Net Revenue Retention (NRR): Measures how much revenue existing customers generate year-over-year including expansion, contraction, and churn. NRR above 120% is exceptional (customers spend more). The SaaSpocalypse thesis predicts NRR compression as agents replace SaaS seats.

O

OHLC: Open, High, Low, Close — the four price points that summarise a trading interval. OHLC bars and their cousin, the candlestick, are the foundation of price charts and almost every technical pattern. Closelook's Stock Detail page renders OHLC with a 50/200 SMA overlay using the LightweightCharts library.

P

PEG Ratio: Price / Earnings divided by earnings growth rate. PEG below 1 is the textbook growth-at-a-reasonable-price threshold; PEG above 2 signals the market is paying richly for growth assumptions that may not materialise. HALO 100 uses PEG bands as part of its compounder screen; Hypergrowth relaxes them in exchange for higher growth signal.

Q

Quick Ratio: (Current assets minus inventory) divided by current liabilities. Measures short-term liquidity without assuming inventory can be sold quickly. Above 1.0 means a company can cover near-term obligations from liquid assets alone. Rubin 100 requires a Quick Ratio above 1.2 for cyclical semiconductor and memory constituents — margin of safety for capex-heavy names.

R

Regime: A persistent market state defined not by the calendar but by the combination of volatility, correlation, breadth and momentum. Risk-on, risk-off and transition are the three canonical regimes. Closelook's Money Temperature composite classifies the live regime across calm / warning / stress. See the full Market Regime entry for the Closelook framework.
RSI (Relative Strength Index): Wilder's 1978 momentum oscillator. Compares the magnitude of recent gains to recent losses and outputs a value from 0 to 100. Above 70 is overbought, below 30 is oversold; divergences between price and RSI often precede reversals. The Pattern Scanner flags RSI divergences as one of 51 patterns in the Directional Alpha library.

S

Sentinel Ticker: A Closelook concept: companies at supply chain chokepoints whose data provides early warning for the broader cycle. The three Sentinel Tickers are ASML, Advantest, and Micron.
Sharpe Ratio: Risk-adjusted return: excess return over the risk-free rate divided by standard deviation. A Sharpe above 1.0 is good, above 2.0 is excellent. Closelook reports Sharpe ratios for all five model portfolios to enable comparison with benchmarks.

T

TAM (Total Addressable Market): The total revenue opportunity a product would capture if it owned 100% of its market. SAM (Serviceable) and SOM (Obtainable) are progressively more realistic subsets. TAM is the ceiling — and when the TAM math stops expanding, the stock's growth multiple compresses. HALO 100 uses TAM expansion as one of four compounder-quality dimensions.
Trend Following: Systematic strategy that buys breakouts and sells breakdowns, assuming trends persist longer than efficient-market theory suggests. The managed-futures industry's canonical approach: momentum + risk parity + small position sizes. Closelook does not run pure trend-following, but the Pattern Scanner's 51-pattern library includes moving-average crossovers, channel breakouts and volatility-breakout entries.

U

Unsystematic Risk: Idiosyncratic risk specific to a single company, industry or position — fraud, a lost contract, a failed product launch, a regulatory strike. Diversifiable: adding uncorrelated names reduces unsystematic risk toward zero. Systematic (market) risk cannot be diversified away. Closelook's Reference Portfolios diversify unsystematic risk while preserving thematic systematic exposure.

V

VIX (Volatility Index): The CBOE Volatility Index, measuring expected 30-day volatility of the S&P 500. Higher VIX = more fear. Closelook uses VIX in the Volatility dimension of the Weekly Signal for equity assets. BTC uses DVOL/BVIV instead.

W

Weighted Average: An average where each value carries a weight reflecting its importance. Index construction stands or falls on weighting choice: cap-weighted, equal-weighted, fundamentally-weighted and momentum-weighted give very different portfolios from the same universe. Rubin 100, HALO 100 and Euro-AI 50 publish all three weightings so users can compare.

X

XAU (Gold and Silver Index): The PHLX Gold/Silver Sector Index, tracking the 30 largest precious-metals miners — Newmont, Barrick, Agnico Eagle, Wheaton, Pan American. When XAU breaks out against a weakening DXY, the Money Temperature reads stress-regime signals. XAU is one of eight instruments feeding Closelook's macro temperature composite.

Y

Yield Curve: The relationship between interest rate and maturity, typically plotted for US Treasuries from 3-month to 30-year. A normal curve slopes upward; a flat curve signals late-cycle; an inverted curve (short rates above long) has preceded every US recession since 1970 at roughly 12-18 months' lag. The yield-curve slope is one of eight Money Temperature instruments.

Z

Z-Score: Standard deviations from the mean: (x minus mu) divided by sigma. Tells you how extreme an observation is relative to its own history. +/- 2 sigma covers ~95% of normal observations, +/- 3 sigma ~99.7%. Closelook's Cointegration Monitor opens pair trades at +/- 2 sigma on the spread and exits near Z = 0.

39 terms · more land with each 101 entry.