A Conjecture is a dated, public forecast by a named source (an institution such as the Federal Reserve, CBO or EIA; a company leader; a research group) that Palanor turns into a rule it can check against a series it already carries, then tracks every day until the deadline. Open Conjectures under Explore in the menu. Confirmed ones also have a public page at palanor.com/conjectures.
The four parts of every page
- Their words. A short verbatim quote (40 words at most), who said it, the date, and a link to the primary source. Every quote is checked against the source page before it is shown.
- Our reading. How Palanor turned the claim into a rule: the series, the target, the deadline, and the path we assume from the day it was said to the deadline. It is labelled as ours. A point forecast (a single number) counts as a hit within a band around it, one typical change of the series wide; the page says how wide.
- The evidence. A live chart of the series with the implied path drawn dashed and labelled as the source's path, and where the series stands in its own record.
- The status. Before the deadline: On track, Behind or Ahead (for a single-number forecast: On track, Above the path or Below the path). At the deadline: Hit or Missed. Claims that can't be checked as stated (about exposure or potential, conditional on something else happening, or with no date) are recorded as Not checkable as stated, with no score, and the page says why.
How the status is measured
The distance from the implied path is measured in units of the series' typical change: how much it usually moves in a quarter (or between readings, for yearly series), over the ten years before the rule was confirmed. Within one typical change of the path is On track. Ahead means further along in the claim's direction; Behind means short of it. A single-number forecast (EIA's "gasoline averages $2.92 in 2026") isn't ahead of or behind anything: reality sits above or below the number, so those pages say Above the path or Below the path instead.
The record can't be rewritten
- Nothing is scored until its rule is confirmed. Rules for institutional numeric forecasts are built by code from the published numbers. Every other claim is confirmed by a Palanor editor first.
- Each conjecture gets one entry a day (its status, distance, latest reading and the rule's fingerprint), written once and never changed.
- Hit or Missed is written once, after the deadline, and only when that period is in the data. Yearly series can take months to print.
- A claim that was already true when it was made tests nothing, so it is not tracked.
Beside the source
Palanor grades itself on the same question. When a conjecture is confirmed, Numen (the model with the lattice's evidence) and the plain model (the same model with only the numbers) each put a probability on a Hit. Both calls are shown beside the source and scored when it settles.
Yours
- Follow a conjecture to hear when its status changes or it settles.
- Attach it to your own scenario, Futures Frame or Study as a reference. It never enters the lattice math.
- Your call: put your own probability on a Hit. It is scored privately (a Brier score) when the conjecture settles. Only you see your calls and your record. There is no leaderboard and no public score for any person.
Sources and corrections
Sources come from across the field. Forecasts by elected officials, candidates or parties are not included. If a quote, a date or our reading looks off, use Send a correction on the public page; an editor reads every one.
Related: [Charts](/help/modules/charts) · [Scenarios](/help/modules/scenarios) · [Numen](/help/numen/meet-numen)