Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Michael Krowicki, a sole proprietorship doing business as Macroeconomic State Forecast ("MSF," "we," "us," or "our"), operates the website at msforecast.com (the "Service"). This Privacy Policy explains what information the Service collects, how we use and protect it, who we share it with, and the choices you have. By using the Service, you acknowledge that you have read this policy. If you do not agree with it, do not use the Service.

2. Information we collect

Account information from Google sign-in

You sign in with your Google account. We receive your name, email address and profile photo URL from Google. We do not receive your Google password. We record the time of your last sign-in.

Sign-in attempts from addresses that are not on the access list

Access is by invitation. If someone signs in with a Google account that is not on the list, we record that account's email address, name, profile photo URL, the number of attempts and the time of the last attempt, so the owner can see it and add the person if they were meant to have access. The owner can dismiss these records, and we clear a record when the address is added.

Content you enter

The Service stores what you choose to put in it, including:

• Portfolio: account names you create, categories, subtypes, whether an account is a debt, monthly balances, a net worth goal and target allocations. This is financial information you type in. We do not connect to your banks or brokerages and we never ask for account credentials or account numbers.
• Real estate: deals and properties you create, which can include a name, an address, purchase and loan terms, rent, expenses, notes and cash reserve settings.
• Saved strategies, the baskets and settings inside them, and the watchlist of tickers you follow.
• Your settings and email preferences, described below.

Please do not enter government identification numbers, full account numbers, passwords or similar sensitive details into any name, address or notes field.

Ask MSF activity

For each Ask MSF question we record who asked, which page it was asked on, which preset question was used (if any), the model used, token counts, estimated cost and time. We do not store the text of your question or the answer. See Section 4.

Email records

We keep your email preferences (which alerts you turned on, the day and time zone you chose for portfolio emails, smoothing settings), a record of which emails were sent to you so no email is sent twice, and the delivery provider's message identifier. If a send fails, we keep a record of the failure so it can be retried.

Technical information

Our servers and hosting providers automatically record technical information such as IP address, browser type, operating system, pages requested and timestamps. We use it for security, diagnosing problems and keeping the Service reliable. We do not use it to build advertising profiles.

3. How we use information

• To run the Service: sign you in, check that you are on the access list, and show you your own data.
• To send the emails and alerts you turn on, and account emails such as the welcome email.
• To answer your Ask MSF questions and to keep its cost and usage within limits.
• To keep your settings between visits.
• To secure the Service, find and fix errors, and prevent abuse.
• To comply with the law and enforce our Terms of Use.

We do not sell, rent or trade your personal information. We do not use it for advertising.

4. Ask MSF (AI features)

Ask MSF is an optional feature on the Portfolio, Real Estate and Macro pages. It uses an AI model from Anthropic, PBC to write answers. How it works with your information:

• When you ask a question, our server builds a summary of the data on that page and sends it to Anthropic together with your question. On the Real Estate page, your browser first sends the figures shown on screen to our server, which passes them on. Your browser never contacts Anthropic directly.
• Macro questions send the economic readings and release schedule shown on the page, the current regime, and your question.
• Portfolio questions send your category totals, monthly history by category, targets, goal, growth figures and the current regime, together with your question. Account names, notes and your email address are not sent. Before your first Portfolio question we show a notice and ask you to agree.
• Real Estate questions send the figures for the properties or deals you are looking at: the names you gave them, purchase and loan terms, rent and expense figures, reserves, and calculated results such as cash flow, equity and projections. Street addresses and notes are not sent. Before your first Real Estate question we show a notice and ask you to agree.
• Anything you type into the question box is sent to Anthropic. Please do not type information you do not want shared.
• We do not store the text of your questions or the answers. Some answers to common Macro questions are kept in the server's memory for a few hours so they can be shared, and are not linked to you.
• Anthropic's handling of that data is governed by its commercial terms and privacy policy. As of this update, Anthropic states that it does not use inputs and outputs from its commercial products to train its models by default, and that it deletes API inputs and outputs from its systems within 30 days, with exceptions such as content flagged by its safety systems or where the law requires longer retention.
• The owner can limit how many questions each person can ask per day, turn Ask MSF off for any person, and see counts of questions and estimated cost per person. The owner cannot see what you asked.
• AI answers can be wrong. See the Terms of Use.

5. Email

The Service can send these emails, from alerts@msforecast.com:

• Regime alerts, if you turn them on. You choose the model and the type of alert. At most one alert email per model per trading day.
• Portfolio emails, if you turn them on: a monthly reminder to update your portfolio on the day and time zone you choose, and a recap a day later. The reminder has no dollar amounts. The recap includes figures from your own portfolio, such as net worth and changes by category.
• A welcome email when the owner adds you to the access list, and a test email when you press a test button.

Emails go to the email address on your Google login. You can turn off alerts and portfolio emails at any time on your Profile page, and every alert and portfolio email links to it. The owner can also unsubscribe you or turn an email type off for your account, for example if it is not being delivered. Turning off emails does not affect your access. Emails are delivered by our email provider, Resend, which processes your email address and the message contents for this purpose.

6. Who we share information with

We share information only with the companies that help us run the Service, and only as needed for the purpose listed:

• Google. Sign-in, and the email service for our domain.
• Vercel. Hosts the website you see and processes requests to it.
• Fly.io. Runs our servers and the scheduled jobs that calculate models and send emails.
• Neon. Hosts our database, which holds your account and the content you enter.
• Resend. Delivers our emails.
• Anthropic. Writes Ask MSF answers, as described in Section 4.
• Squarespace. Manages our domain name.

These providers act on our behalf and have their own privacy policies. We may also disclose information if required by law or a valid legal request, or where needed to investigate fraud, abuse or a threat to anyone's safety. If MSF is ever sold or transferred, user information may be transferred with it, and we would tell you first.

7. What we do not do

• We do not sell or rent your personal information, and we do not share it for advertising.
• We do not use advertising cookies or third-party analytics or tracking scripts.
• We do not connect to your bank, brokerage or credit accounts.
• We do not show your data to other users.
• We do not use your portfolio or real estate data to train AI models.

8. Cookies and browser storage

We use one session cookie that keeps you signed in. It is encrypted and expires after one hour of sign-in, after which you sign in again. We also store a few settings in your browser's local storage so the site remembers them on that device:

• Your selected model, and your light or dark theme.
• Whether Hide numbers is on in the Portfolio tile.
• Strategy backtester inputs and the order of your saved strategies.

This information stays in your browser. You can clear it in your browser settings. Clearing it resets those preferences but does not delete your account data.

9. Who can see your data

• You. Your portfolio, real estate items, strategies, watchlist and settings are tied to your account and are not visible to other people who sign in.
• The site owner. The owner runs the Service and has technical access to the database. The owner uses that access to operate, secure and fix the Service, to respond to your requests, and where the law requires it. We do not review individual portfolios for any other purpose.
• Admin tools. The owner can see who is on the access list, when they last signed in, which email types they have on, and how many Ask MSF questions they have asked. The owner can remove access, turn email types off, and set Ask MSF limits for any person.
• Providers. The companies in Section 6, as described there.

10. Retention and deletion

• We keep your information while your account is active and as needed to run the Service.
• If the owner removes your access, we keep your saved data so access can be restored, unless you ask us to delete it.
• You can ask us to delete your account and the data in it at any time. We will do so within 30 days of confirming it is you, except for records we must keep by law. This removes your portfolio, real estate items, strategies, watchlist, preferences and Ask MSF usage records.
• Records of sign-in attempts from addresses that are not on the access list are kept until the owner dismisses them or adds the address.
• Our hosting and database providers may keep backups for a limited time after data is deleted. Deleted data ages out of those backups on the provider's schedule.
• Anthropic retains Ask MSF inputs and outputs for the period described in Section 4.
• Aggregate data that cannot identify you may be kept indefinitely.

11. Security

We use reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect your information. Data between your browser and our servers is encrypted with HTTPS. Every request for your data is checked against your sign-in and limited to your own account. Secrets and keys are stored as protected configuration, not in public code. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security. If we learn of a breach that affects your information, we will notify you as the law requires.

12. Your choices and rights

You can:

• Turn email alerts and portfolio emails on or off on your Profile page.
• Choose not to use Ask MSF. Nothing else in the Service depends on it.
• Edit or delete your portfolio, real estate items, strategies and watchlist yourself in the Service.
• Ask us for a copy of your information, to correct it, or to delete it, by emailing us below.

If you live in California or another place with data protection laws, you may have additional rights, such as knowing what we collect, correcting it, deleting it, and not being discriminated against for using these rights. We do not sell or share personal information as those laws define the terms. Contact us to make a request. We do not respond to browser "Do Not Track" signals because we do not track you across other sites.

13. Where data is processed

The Service is operated from the United States, and our providers process data in the United States. If you use the Service from another country, your information will be transferred to and processed in the United States.

14. Children's privacy

The Service is not directed at anyone under 18 and we do not knowingly collect information from children. If we learn that a person under 18 has given us personal information, we will delete it.

15. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the Service changes. We will change the date at the top and, for material changes, tell you by email or in the Service. Using the Service after a change means you accept the updated policy. See also our Terms of Use.

16. Contact

MSF is operated by Michael Krowicki, a sole proprietorship, based in San Jose, California. For questions, requests or to delete your data, email michael@msforecast.com.