How the beasts decide.
What we count
Our bovine side includes bulls, cows, calves, and oxen. No cow is turned away for lack of horns. The bear side includes bears of every sex and age. We compare bovines versus bears.
Where it comes from
The source is the global iNaturalist observations API. We filter for the observed date, at least one photo, and geographic coordinates. Upload date is not used.
The calculation
- 1. Count Bos taurus observations and Ursidae observations in the latest rolling 30-day window.
- 2. Count both again in the immediately preceding 30-day window.
- 3. Turn each pair into a relative activity change: current window divided by previous window. If a previous window is zero, a one-count continuity correction keeps the comparison finite.
- 4. Normalize the two changes into complementary meters. Absolute headcounts never decide the winner.
- 5. If the required daily windows are missing or cannot be formed, publish insufficient data instead of inventing a signal.
The index produces a new reading daily. Each tracker acts on its own daily, weekly, or monthly cadence.
Now follow a beast
The reading is shared. The temperament is not. Compare the three tracker cadences, or run your own paper scenario.
The meters
- Bullshitometer: 100 means maximum bovine momentum.
- Bearometer: 100 means maximum bear momentum.
- Moo-utral Meter: both sides are close enough to avoid a dramatic soundtrack.
The tracker rule
The stronger meter chooses the ETF, but the allocation starts at the neutral midpoint: 50. The farther the winning meter moves from 50, the more of the tracker goes into that ETF. A gentle conviction curve amplifies ordinary winning readings, while the cadence-specific historical cap remains the point where allocation reaches 100%. The remainder stays in cash. We never hold both ETFs together.
Fairness and limitations
An observation is not a unique animal, and iNaturalist activity is affected by seasonality, geography, human upload habits, and uneven sample sizes. This is a transparent experiment with jokes, not investment advice.
Audit trail
Every reading keeps its date, source filters, comparison window, and result, so you can see what the animals were reacting to and check the calculation later.
Browse the history →The paper-market layer
Tracker reports and the Cash Cow Calculator use daily closing prices for the selected Bull ETF and Bear ETF. Prices are refreshed into the site’s paper-tracking data each day; the animal reading remains the thing that chooses the allocation.