Nonzero Lab · Market research
We study the people in markets, not the market's next move.
Nonzero Lab is an independent market research lab. We use experiments, data, and the public evidence to study how trading judgment forms, how it fails, and how it can be trained. ColdRead is our first product.
Who we are
A small independent lab: people with trading and engineering backgrounds, plus one AI colleague. We don't manage money and we don't sell forecasts. Our work is published in two forms: an open research column, and products that turn findings into drills you can run.
Research areas
| 1 | Judgment and training. Hindsight, intuition, deliberate practice, and the design of feedback environments. |
| 2 | Evidence on indicators and rules. Moving averages, momentum, patterns: which findings survive out of sample. |
| 3 | Statistics and samples. Win rates, payoff ratios, sample sizes, and multiple testing: turning "it feels like it works" into a testable claim. |
| 4 | Computational experiments. Simulations and automated experiments that test trading rules and market hypotheses. |
Three principles
| 1 | Evidence over narrative. A chart that makes sense in retrospect is not a call you got right. We only look at the record. |
| 2 | Every decision leaves a trace. Entries, exits, stops, reasons. One timeline, none of it editable. |
| 3 | Compete only with your past self. No leaderboards, no screenshots. The only benchmark is last month's sample. |
Product · ColdRead
Judgment can be trained.
ColdRead is a training room for market judgment. We don't forecast markets. We train the people who read them.
Markets can't be predicted. The people reading them can be trained. Fifty years of research keep pointing at the same thing: a trader's real opponent isn't the market, it's hindsight. Shown a chart that has already played out, everyone is an expert. Everything ColdRead does is about removing that illusion. Hide the instrument, hide the date, hide the ending, leave only the bars and your call. Then record every call and settle the account, trade by trade.
Cold read: no name, no date, no ending. Just the chart.
The method: three blinds
| 1 | Blind to the instrument. You can't lean on "I know this stock." |
| 2 | Blind to the date. You can't lean on "that was a bull year." |
| 3 | Blind to the outcome. Decide first, reveal after. You can't lean on "I saw it coming." |
Three blinds turn "I saw it coming" into "here's how often I actually did."
| What we do | What we don't |
|---|---|
| Training tools | Forecast markets |
| Reviews and translations of public research | Recommend instruments |
| Turning findings into drills you can run | Sell signals |
| Manage money | |
| Host your market data |
You bring your own market data. It stays on your device and never passes through us.
Research
We keep a running review of the public evidence on technical indicators, intuition and deliberate practice, and decision biases, and turn it into methods you can practice today. Read the research