The resolution ladder
Five rungs, read in order. The first one that speaks decides the market.
- 01Posted registry result ClinicalTrials.gov
The named primary outcome's first prespecified analysis reports a p-value under alpha, superiority, in the stated direction.
- 02Sponsor's own statement Sponsor domain
The sponsor's press, investor or regulatory release on its own domain states the primary endpoint result. URL, fetch time, sha256 and the quoted sentence go in the record.
- 03FDA action openFDA drugsfda
An original application approved (status AP) on or before the deadline.
- 04Termination for futility ClinicalTrials.gov whyStopped
The registry records the study as terminated or withdrawn for futility or lack of efficacy. Resolves NO.
- 05Void at the deadline The clock
None of the above by the deadline. Every stake is returned in full.
The rungs
The registry comes first because it is structured and needs no reading. The sponsor's statement comes second because it usually arrives months earlier. An FDA action decides regulatory questions. A termination for futility resolves NO. If nothing has spoken by the deadline, the market is VOID and every stake goes back in full: voiding is an outcome, stated in advance.
Parsing a posted result
On NCT04437511 the registry returns, for the primary outcome, pValue "<0.001", statisticalMethod "Mixed Models Analysis", nonInferiorityType "SUPERIORITY" and paramValue 2.92. "<0.001" and "0.034" both parse; ">0.05" parses as NO; a missing p-value falls through to the next rung and is never guessed.
Why a ladder
The same trial completed its primary endpoint on 2023-04-14 and posted results on 2024-05-20: thirteen months. A market that waited for the registry alone would hold money for a year after everyone knew the answer. For rung 2 the keeper checks that the quoted sentence is in the document it fetched, sends the document's sha256 as the sourceHash of the settlement, and publishes the URL and the sentence beside it.