Refining the Structure
How Accountability Will Work Going Forward
A Note on Structure, Accountability, and What Comes Next
Ridire Research is not shutting down, slowing down, or changing direction.
The work continues. The funnel continues. The themes, frameworks, and cadence all remain the same. If anything, the research is becoming more focused and easier to evaluate.
What is changing is how accountability is expressed, and the reason is straightforward:
Beginning in January, I’ll be operating in a new professional role, one where the optics around aggregation, presentation, and interpretation of research outputs can reasonably be scrutinized more closely, even when those outputs are hypothetical and educational in nature. As responsibilities evolve, it makes sense to tighten structure before anything becomes ambiguous. This is a deliberate, preemptive refinement, not a reaction.
Retiring the RidIndex (and Only the RidIndex)
The RidIndex was created to make research more concrete, to express published ideas in a single, simplified construct so readers could see how narratives, valuation, and risk evolved together over time, including when things didn’t work.
It served that purpose well.
The idea itself wasn’t novel. Like many independent researchers, I borrowed a familiar presentation device used by some of the most successful finance publications: expressing ideas through a consolidated, hypothetical construct to enforce discipline and visibility.
Ironically, that same construct is also one of the most common points of criticism those publications receive. Aggregation can blur reasoning, overweight optics, and invite interpretation that goes beyond what research is meant to provide.
After running the RidIndex in practice, and watching how similar constructs are received elsewhere, it’s clear that the costs now outweigh the benefits.
As the publication has grown, maintaining a rolling, aggregated construct introduces diminishing returns. It can obscure why individual ideas worked or failed, and it can unintentionally suggest continuity or cohesion beyond what a research publication is designed to offer.
For that reason, the index will be formally retired. Nothing else changes. This is simply a tightening of structure to ensure clarity, for readers today and for how the work is interpreted over time.
What Replaces It: Per-Article Accountability
Going forward, accountability will be handled at the article level, not through an aggregate construct.
Each idea or theme will stand on its own, anchored to the date it was published. Follow-ups will focus on:
What happened after publication
What drove the outcome
Which assumptions mattered
Where the thesis held up, or didn’t
This avoids aggregation distortion and reflects how most readers actually engage with the work: one idea at a time. Research should be falsifiable. Per-article tracking does that more cleanly than a rolling composite ever could.
Introducing the Per-Article Tracking Spreadsheet
To support this shift, I’ll be publishing a simple, transparent Excel tracker that holds ideas accountable on a per-article basis.
This tracker will:
List each article and its publication date
Track hypothetical, point-to-point price changes from the time of publication to later review dates
Avoid weights, aggregation, or portfolio construction
Assume no interim rebalancing, trimming, exits, or optimization
Each row stands alone. There is no cumulative performance, no rolling construct, and no implied strategy. The purpose of the tracker is not to present a record or a system. It’s to answer a straightforward question in the cleanest possible way:
What happened after the idea was published?
This format keeps accountability explicit without implying continuity where none exists. You can download the latest copy here:
The Philosophy Remains the Same
Ridire Research exists to make thinking visible. That means:
frameworks over forecasts
clarity over complexity
accountability over certainty
Retiring the RidIndex will actually increase transparency for most readers. Shifting to per-article tracking tightens evaluation without changing the substance of the work. The research remains public, iterative, and open to challenge. More soon.
Disclaimer:
This publication is for educational purposes only. Any performance shown is illustrative and tracked per article, not as part of a model portfolio or investment program. Nothing herein constitutes investment advice or a solicitation. → Ridire Research Substack Disclaimer
Alternatively I understand some people don’t want to download files from strangers so here is a google sheet copy as well: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OXbYkUCZ70d3xKcScQji1ZZU9NgLa2fBflpFTQ7i_u0/edit?gid=0#gid=0