Every study below is built from public data (SEC filings, the Federal Reserve, Freddie Mac, BLS, DefiLlama, Polymarket and others), measured against a control group, and published with its methodology and a downloadable CSV. Figures, charts and data are free to cite with attribution to BullpenBrief.
Newest first. Each entry shows one headline finding; the full study explains the sample, the caveats and what the result does not mean.
Only 12% of Stocks That Halve Get Back to Their High Within a Year. We Checked 2,691 Cases.
Of 2,576 cases since 1996 in which a stock now in the S&P 1500 closed at half its previous high, 11.5% were back at that high within one year (95% interval 4.8% to 20.8%), 36.6% within three years and 55.2% within five years (2,134 cases; Yahoo Finance prices, split-adjusted, without dividends).
87% of Depegged Stablecoins Got Back to $1. After 90 Days Off the Peg, None Did
Of 74 resolved depegs of US dollar stablecoins with at least $10 million in circulation from December 2020 to October 2026 (daily price under $0.97), 86.5% ended back at $1 (95% interval 78.1% to 93.7%), with a median recovery time of three days (DefiLlama stablecoins API, 48 stablecoins).
79% of the 2020-2022 IPO Class Now Trades Below Its Offer Price
Of 694 operating companies that went public on US exchanges from 2020 to 2022, 79.0% traded below their split-adjusted IPO offer price on October 15, 2026 (95% interval 75.8% to 82.0%), against 33.7% of current S&P 1500 stocks bought on the same days (stockanalysis.com IPO lists, Yahoo Finance; SPACs and direct listings excluded).
A First Dividend Cut Is Often Not the Last: 29% of Companies Cut Again Within Two Years
Of 349 first dividend cuts by companies now in the S&P 1500, from 2000 to 2024, 29.2% were followed by another cut or a suspension within two years (95% interval 24.6% to 34.1%), against 9.5% for ordinary dividend payers over any two-year stretch (Yahoo Finance dividend history).
Only 28% of Polymarket Wallets Are in Profit. The Top 1% Hold 90% of the Winnings.
27.7% of the 3.2 million wallets ranked on Polymarket's all-time profit leaderboard were in profit on October 12, 2026 (bounds 27.4% to 27.9%); the median wallet was down $4.76.
Car Insurance Has Outpaced Inflation in 41 of 57 Years. Now It Is Getting Cheaper.
US car insurance prices rose faster than overall inflation in 41 of 57 years from 1969 to 2025, by 2.0 percentage points a year on average (95% interval 0.3 to 3.1), according to BLS consumer price data.
Stocks Kicked Out of the S&P 500 Trail It by 46 Points Before They Leave. After That, It Is a Coin Flip.
Stocks removed from the S&P 500 for size trailed the index by a median of 46.3 percentage points in the 12 months before removal, and 93% of them trailed it (89 removals from 2008 to 2026, Yahoo Finance prices).
Mortgage Rates Fall Before the Fed Cuts, Not After. We Checked 58 Cuts Since 1990.
In 48 of 58 Fed rate cuts from July 1990 to December 2025, the 30-year mortgage rate had already fallen over the 13 weeks before the decision, by 0.29 percentage points on average, against +0.01 in ordinary 13-week stretches (Freddie Mac PMMS, Federal Reserve data).
We Tracked 34,652 Insider Stock Purchases. The Edge Is Mostly Timing.
In 58% of 34,652 open-market purchases of at least $25,000 by US company directors and officers (SEC Form 4, January 2016 to June 2026), the stock trailed the S&P 500 over the next six months; the median one lagged by 5.6 percentage points.
Q4 2026 Token Unlocks: Monad Is Half the Quarter. History Says Watch the Month Before.
54 scheduled cliff token unlocks of more than 2% of circulating supply fall between 1 October and 31 December 2026, worth about $0.88 billion at prices of 29 September 2026 (DefiLlama emissions data).
44% of DeFi Protocols Holding Your Money Have Not Shipped Code in 90 Days.
44.2% of 217 DeFi protocols holding at least $1 million had not pushed a public GitHub commit in 90 days, and 25.3% had been silent for more than a year (DefiLlama and GitHub API data, 21 September 2026).
A 20% DeFi Yield Lasts Nine Days. We Measured 2,353 Of Them.
The median DeFi pool yield above 20% lasted 9 days (2,353 episodes in 580 pools holding at least $1 million, February 2022 to September 2026, DefiLlama yields data).
We Tested 5,664 Token Unlocks. The Dump Is Mostly a Myth.
Across 5,664 cliff token unlocks by 186 projects (February 2018 to July 2026, DefiLlama data), the median token fell 9.5% against bitcoin in the 30 days after an unlock, versus 7.5% in 4,678 random 30-day windows on the same tokens: the unlock itself accounts for about 2 percentage points.
$20.65B Stolen in Crypto Hacks. Only 2% Ever Saw a Refund.
Of $20.65 billion stolen in 1,215 crypto hacks with a recorded loss (DefiLlama hacks database, retrieved 11 September 2026), $2.36 billion or 11.4% was returned, but only 24 incidents, 2%, saw any money come back.
456 SEC Filings Mention Bitcoin. Only 48 Companies Actually Hold It.
456 annual reports (form 10-K) filed with the SEC between January and September 2026 mention bitcoin, from 284 filers, but only 48 operating companies report crypto assets at fair value on their balance sheet (XBRL tag us-gaap:CryptoAssetFairValue, period CY2025Q4).
DeFi Yield Reality Check: The Median Pool Pays Just 1.9%
The median DeFi pool pays 1.9% APY across 7,894 pools with at least $100,000 in deposits ($196 billion combined, DefiLlama yields API snapshot, August 2026); half pay under 2% and two thirds under 5%.
How Often Do Polymarket Markets End in Dispute? We Analyzed 143,000
Of 143,286 Polymarket markets resolved from March 2025 to August 2026 (Polymarket gamma API, UMA oracle status), 545 or 0.38%, about 1 in 263, ended in a formal resolution dispute.
Market Breadth Is Back: The Average Stock Is Beating the Magnificent 7 in 2026
From the first trading day of 2026 to 6 August 2026, the Magnificent 7 rose an average 4.9%, trailing the S&P 500's 12.4% by about 7.5 points (Yahoo Finance daily closes, unweighted average of seven stocks).
Stablecoins Hit $307B in 2026, and Two Companies Control 83% of It
Total stablecoin supply was about $307 billion on 1 August 2026, near its all-time high and up from $206 billion at the end of 2024 (DefiLlama stablecoin data).