# smallcap-skew-capture — extending the option skew/chains/term capture from Russell 1000 to small caps: considered and REJECTED

status: dismissed · considered panel run 22 (2026-09-14), frontier scout ·
verdict: passes bar 1, fails bars 2 and 4 independently

---

**What was considered.** The skew capture is this shop's flagship moat
stream and its logic — per-name option-implied skew cannot be bought back
after the fact — applies at least as strongly to small caps, where options
are thinner, informed flow is a larger share of it, and vendor history is
worse. If the mechanism is real anywhere it should be more visible there.
No prior art: greps over `research/queue/` and `CAPTURES.md` for a
Russell-2000 or small-cap option capture return nothing.

**Bar 1 (un-backfillable): PASSES.** Same argument as the incumbent stream,
and stronger.

Rejected on two independent bars:

2. **~Zero marginal cost — fails.** The chains capture runs 1.30–1.42 MB/day
   today (~78 MB over three months) and these are git-undeltable blobs.
   Roughly tripling the universe puts ~4 MB/day, ~1 GB/yr into the
   repository. This is the *same* footprint objection that rejected the
   multi-expiry full-surface variant at registration (~17 MB/day,
   ~4.3 GB/yr). A capture whose storage cost is argued down from "much
   worse than the thing we already rejected" to "somewhat worse" has not
   cleared the bar; it has moved along it.
4. **Activation pin — fails, for want of a consumer.** There is nothing to
   activate against. Micro-cap v1 was killed 2026-07-22 and any v2
   "requires a brand-new pre-registration" that does not exist. A capture
   with no possible consumer cannot state what accrual makes it testable,
   which is bar 4's whole content — and run 1's EOD-spread-panel kill used
   exactly this reasoning.

## Reopens if

Both of these become true together:

- **(a)** a small- or micro-cap **v2 pre-registration exists** — a named
  consumer with a pinned test, not an intention; **and**
- **(b)** a **summary-only schema** is specified (per-name skew and term
  summary rows, no per-strike surface) that holds the daily footprint
  approximately flat against today's stream.

Either alone is insufficient: (a) without (b) re-runs the footprint
objection, (b) without (a) buys an option nobody can exercise.