🛢️ Boosted breeding delivers a step-change in crop yield
Friedberg brings Ohalo out of stealth: applying proteins that switch off the reproductive circuits which split a plant's genes lets both parents pass 100% of their DNA to the offspring, so a single cross produces a polyploid plant carrying every gene from both parents. His receipts are a 40%+ seed increase in Arabidopsis and a boosted potato yielding 682 grams against 33 and 9 grams for its two parents, versus the ~1.5% annual yield gain the corn seed industry buys with $3B a year of conventional breeding. It also creates true potato seed where none has ever existed (saving farmers ~20% of revenue and removing disease risk) and lets staple crops be adapted to drought, heat and sandy soil where they cannot be grown today. If it scales, it is deflationary for food and for crop inputs - Friedberg says fertilizer use per pound produced should fall significantly - and it undercuts the decades-long breeding programs that are legacy seed companies' moat. Ohalo is revenue-generating with >$50M invested and patents now publishing.
⚖ Why this verdict
fully deterministic — evaluate.py replays this from daily closes; nothing below is editable or hand-set
- Window: 2024-05-17 → 2025-05-17 — first mention + 12-month horizon, then the window locks.
- The call: ▼ SHORT DBA (primary play). DBA rose 21.1% over the window → direction-adjusted R = -21.1% (the call lost money).
- Benchmark: holding SPY over the same window returned +13.7%
→ α = -21.1 − (+13.7) = -34.8%
— what this call made or lost against just owning the index. This is the number the verdict uses.
Stock-selection read: -7.5% — did DBA move the predicted way relative to the market. The two only differ on a SHORT: this call was right about direction relative to the index but still cost money versus holding it.
- Rule fired:
· HIT — R ≥ +10% AND α ≥ +5· PARTIAL — R ≥ +5% OR α ≥ 0▶ MISS — everything else
- Credit: supporters of a MISS earn 0 each, opposers the inverse — this feeds the scoreboard weights. supported: Friedberg, Jason
Conviction timeline
bands: green ≥ 65 · watch ≥ 45 · ember ≥ 15
Plays vs SPY · % since first mention (2024-05-17)
Plays
| expression | symbol | kind | relevance | rationale |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ▼ SHORT | DBA | etf | PRIMARY | agricultural commodity basket - a yield step-change in staple crops is disinflationary for crop prices |
| ▼ SHORT | CTVA | stock | adjacent | legacy seed breeder whose $3B/yr conventional breeding program is the thing being obsoleted |
| ▼ SHORT | MOS | stock | adjacent | fertilizer demand per pound produced falls as biomass efficiency rises |
Mention log
“Like the yield on some of these plants goes up by 50 to 100% or more. Just to give you a sense, like in the corn seed industry, breeders that are breeding corn are spending $3 billion a year on breeding, and they're getting maybe 1.5% yield gain per year. With our system, we are seeing 50 to 100% jump in the size of these plants.”
Who built this conviction
each voice's total force on the score — supports and opposes from every mention, weighted exactly as the replay applied them · share = % of all mention-driven movement
⏳ decay drained -37.9 over the idea's life — that's time passing, attributed to no one
Score events
| episode | kind | Δ | after | note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| E179 2024-05-17 | init | +31.5 | 31.5 | E179 born by Friedberg (explicit_prediction x3) [w=0.75] |
| E179 2024-05-17 | reinforce | +12.3 | 43.8 | E179 Jason support x1 (new voice) |
| E180 2024-05-24 | decay | -1.8 | 42.1 | E180 silent |
| E181 2024-05-31 | decay | -1.7 | 40.4 | E181 silent |
| E182 2024-06-07 | decay | -1.6 | 38.8 | E182 silent |
| E183 2024-06-14 | decay | -1.6 | 37.2 | E183 silent |
| E184 2024-06-20 | decay | -1.5 | 35.7 | E184 silent |
| E185 2024-06-29 | decay | -1.4 | 34.3 | E185 silent |
| E186 2024-07-04 | decay | -1.4 | 32.9 | E186 silent |
| E187 2024-07-12 | decay | -1.3 | 31.6 | E187 silent |
| E188 2024-07-19 | decay | -1.3 | 30.4 | E188 silent |
| E189 2024-07-26 | decay | -1.2 | 29.1 | E189 silent |
| E190 2024-08-02 | decay | -1.2 | 28.0 | E190 silent |
| E191 2024-08-09 | decay | -1.1 | 26.9 | E191 silent |
| E192 2024-08-16 | decay | -1.1 | 25.8 | E192 silent |
| E193 2024-08-23 | decay | -1.0 | 24.7 | E193 silent |
| E194 2024-08-30 | decay | -1.0 | 23.8 | E194 silent |
| E195 2024-09-06 | decay | -1.0 | 22.8 | E195 silent |
| E196 2024-09-20 | decay | -0.9 | 21.9 | E196 silent |
| E197 2024-09-27 | decay | -0.9 | 21.0 | E197 silent |
| E198 2024-10-03 | decay | -0.8 | 20.2 | E198 silent |
| E199 2024-10-11 | decay | -0.8 | 19.4 | E199 silent |
| E200 2024-10-18 | decay | -0.8 | 18.6 | E200 silent |
| E201 2024-10-25 | decay | -0.7 | 17.9 | E201 silent |
| E202 2024-11-01 | decay | -0.7 | 17.1 | E202 silent |
| E203 2024-11-08 | decay | -0.7 | 16.5 | E203 silent |
| E204 2024-11-16 | decay | -0.7 | 15.8 | E204 silent |
| E205 2024-11-23 | decay | -0.6 | 15.2 | E205 silent |
| E206 2024-12-07 | decay | -0.6 | 14.6 | E206 silent |
| E207 2024-12-13 | decay | -0.6 | 14.0 | E207 silent |
| E208 2024-12-20 | decay | -0.6 | 13.4 | E208 silent |
| E209 2025-01-04 | decay | -0.5 | 12.9 | E209 silent |
| E210 2025-01-11 | decay | -0.5 | 12.4 | E210 silent |
| E211 2025-01-18 | decay | -0.5 | 11.9 | E211 silent |
| E212 2025-01-25 | decay | -0.5 | 11.4 | E212 silent |
| E213 2025-01-31 | decay | -0.5 | 10.9 | E213 silent |
| E214 2025-02-07 | decay | -0.4 | 10.5 | E214 silent |
| E215 2025-02-15 | decay | -0.4 | 10.1 | E215 silent |
| E216 2025-02-21 | decay | -0.4 | 9.7 | E216 silent |
| E217 2025-03-01 | decay | -0.4 | 9.3 | E217 silent |
| E218 2025-03-08 | decay | -0.4 | 8.9 | E218 silent |
| E219 2025-03-15 | decay | -0.4 | 8.6 | E219 silent |
| E220 2025-03-22 | decay | -0.3 | 8.2 | E220 silent |
| E221 2025-03-29 | decay | -0.3 | 7.9 | E221 silent |
| E222 2025-04-05 | decay | -0.3 | 7.6 | E222 silent |
| E223 2025-04-11 | decay | -0.3 | 7.3 | E223 silent |
| E224 2025-04-19 | decay | -0.3 | 7.0 | E224 silent |
| E225 2025-04-26 | decay | -0.3 | 6.7 | E225 silent |
| E226 2025-05-02 | decay | -0.3 | 6.4 | E226 silent |
| E227 2025-05-09 | decay | -0.3 | 6.2 | E227 silent |
| E228 2025-05-17 | decay | -0.2 | 5.9 | E228 silent |