Strategy + market review — 2026-10-03¶

Consolidated read from the code/doc/issue review. This is a proposal note, not an amendment: no mapping_version, regime config, charter rule, or live authorization changes from this note. The "treat as research for 6–12 months" gate is deliberately excluded per owner direction.

Position¶

TOMIC 2.0 is a regime-aware SPY options underwriting process, not a claim that VRP is always positive. The defensible market posture is: defined-risk premium selling only when canonical SPY ATM IV30 still shows adequate premium after canonical measurement, cost, tail, and execution buffer; long-vol only as an explicit regime tilt; flat in transition.

What changed since the proxy era¶

Canonical SPY ATM IV30 is ~2.62 vol pts below the VIX proxy on average; sign flips in ~40.7% of days. θ=3.0 on the proxy is roughly θ=0.4 on the consistent measure.
On canonical IV30, all-regime mean vrp_realised drops from ~+0.0333 to ~+0.0070; long-win % roughly doubles from 15.2% to 29.5%, with two regimes inverting to favour the buyer.
The long-vol mapping change is not withdrawn: ungated book, no straddle row, prose rules, and exit-path vs entry-richness evidence still stand. The conjunction is no longer evidence-backed until rebuilt on canonical IV30.

Accepted direction¶

Score by canonical SPY ATM IV30 after the 1 Nov cutover. VIX remains diagnostic, not the gate input.
Withdraw θ=3.0; choose 6 / retire / v0 only after the Tier-1 rebuild and the shadow distribution.
Require EV to clear costs + tail reserve + execution buffer in canonical terms. If the canonical edge is below ~1 vol pt after costs, the expected edge is not worth the operational risk.
File outcomes daily; without outcomes.jsonl, the learning function remains decorative.
Keep live small: EXIT first, then 1 lot, then ≤3 concurrent until ≥10 reconciled live receipts.

Not accepted¶

"Wait 6–12 months before treating this as strategy." Use shadow + outcomes + small live receipts as the validation path instead.