Wave-9 amendment — zero-proceeds terminal events

Date: 2026-09-04 Status: RATIFIED 2026-09-05 — owner ruling 2026-09-04 (Sam Mathews: typed write-off at zero proceeds); implemented by PR #402 (W9-ZP-1); Wave-9 ledger anchors re-registered at trial 60

What this amends

DECLARATION-2026-08-31.md sealed the Wave-9 terminal-close convention: a ticker whose Sharadar ACTIONS row ends its listing is exited at its documented proceeds, or at its last available closeadj when no proceeds are documented.

On 2026-09-02 an interim rule was added, in code only, for the case the convention could not express: a documented terminal event whose proceeds are exactly zero — a bankruptcy liquidation returning nothing to shareholders, for example GWOW on 2001-11-29. Because the sealed kernel refuses any price at or below zero, the runner refused the whole specification rather than substitute a value. That interim rule is fail-closed but is not a semantics: every broad-universe specification that holds such a ticker refuses, so no broad row is producible.

The amended rule (owner ruling, Sam Mathews, 2026-09-04)

"Typed write-off at zero proceeds. Position closes with a typed terminal write-off event, proceeds 0, loss realised. Keeps the universe intact; needs a small kernel change plus independent review and a byte-golden update."

Recorded as an executable rule:

1. A documented terminal event with proceeds of exactly zero is materialised as a typed total-loss write-off { ticker, effectiveDate, timestamp, proceeds: 0 }, never as a price.
2. If the kernel holds the ticker, every open position in it is closed on the terminal effective session at zero proceeds. The realised gross return on that position is exactly −100%; the cash proceeds are zero.
3. Nothing is sold, so no commission or slippage is charged and no turnover is recorded; the loss is realised in NAV, not in the cost model.
4. If the kernel does not hold the ticker, nothing changes: the ticker leaves the universe on its effective session exactly as before.
5. No price observation of 0 (or adjusted price of 0) ever enters the kernel's price map, and no value is ever substituted for the missing price.
6. Look-ahead is unchanged: the write-off is applied at the close of the first sealed session on or after the ACTIONS date and at or before the research cutoff; the decision taken on the prior session cannot see it.
7. Everything else stays fail-closed, with its existing message: negative or non-finite proceeds, two conflicting documented values for one effective session, a terminal date with no sealed session at or before the cutoff, and an effective session absent from the sealed calendar.
8. Each sealed row records the write-offs its run applied — ticker, effective session, proceeds 0 — in the scenario evidence, so a reviewer can see exactly which losses were realised. A run that applied none carries no such field and keeps its exact sealed bytes.

Effect on identity

Changing the runner and kernel moves runtimeHash and codeCommit, and therefore the codeCommit-derived seals of every re-run row (resultSeal, and per scenario candidateKernelRunSeal, kernelRunSeal, scenarioSeal). No dataBinding, dataBindingHash, benchmarkKernelRunSeal, returnSeriesHash, statistics, costProof, window or specHash moves for a specification that encounters no zero-proceeds event.

Ratification

Sam Mathews ratified the typed zero-proceeds write-off on 2026-09-05 under the owner ruling of 2026-09-04; PR #402 (W9-ZP-1) implements it. Wave-9 ledger anchors were re-registered at trial 60 under these terminal-close semantics.