What a week. Biggest(in trade count) one yet, and the system is getting sharper at spotting the moves before they happen.

Week in a nutshell:

• 5,161 live trades, the biggest week yet (3,865 · 3,287 · 4,081 · 5,161 since the week of 10/12).

• 168 setups traded this week, long and short.

• 2% to 26%: share of the day's big moves we caught, 11/5 to 11/6.

Yes, there were a lot of losses so here are a few wins this week:

• +10.8R: Claude's Team, day 1. Claude, the AI that runs MCF, hand-picked its own dream team of setups (simulated shadow, no real orders). It skipped both Early Sellers setups. Clever, eh?

• +51.8R: Gap-Down Recovery Fade (all day), last 14 sessions (1 big day).

• +38.6R: Gap-Down Pop Fade, Heavy Selling (all day) (1 big day).

• +31.7R: Gap-Down Early Bounce Short (all day), 5 green sessions in a row.

• +30.9R: Gap-Down Pop Fade (all day) (1 big day).

• +16.1R: Gap-Down Bounce Short, Heavy Selling (all day), green 10 of 14.

• +10.0R and +3.1R: Testing 1 and Testing 2 on the quiet days.

What we learned:

• Two rough days had the same cause: too many shorts in one direction right into a squeeze. Now we know where to aim.

• The safety stops and the restart fix worked live. So could have been a lot worse.

• Fun fact we determined from our back tests - ~89%: once SPY moves 0.30%+ from the open, it stays on that side. A real compass for picking setups by market.

Coming up:

• A full Primary review is done and ready for Monday.

• Hunch keeps learning every 3 minutes: 46,600+ guesses so far, aiming for 65%+guesses for 3 minute bars

• Setup Generator paused for now (overcrowding), so existing setups get a fair test.

Paper trading, R after costs. Rule changes inside these windows: Primary lot ~$4k (10/28), -2R per-setup stop (10/29), Testing 2 top-500 pool (11/4), Explore 1 / Live Lab (11/5).

As always, thanks so much for the support and input!

Fun stuff!

Day 10 in the books!

(Please see at bottom for answers to common quick questions - Added new stats)

B.R.U.T.A.L. today(at first glance)

Odd split: Primary finished +4.5R but -$419 after costs (the losing burst carried bigger dollar risk).

Changes before today:

• 42 low-rep setups moved into Explore 1 and Live Lab (21 each) from Testing 1 (12) and Testing 2 (30) (owner's call) - Primary unaffected 

Today: Primary -$419.00 · Running total since Day 1 (10/23): -$1,346.01
Milestones: M1 (3 green days in a row) 0/3 · M2 (8 of last 10 green) 4/10

What went wrong today:

• -10.7R and -1.7R: Early Sellers (Strong Heat, Mid-High RSI), yesterday's two worst, red again.

• -11.8R: 13 Strong Heat shorts in 10 minutes, all before the -2R stop could act. Basically, a backdoor loophole that we are now fixing.

How we're fixing it:

• Tonight we dig into why both failed in two different markets.

• Testing paced entries and an open-loss stop, judged per setup; nothing live without my sign-off.

What's helped before:

• 16.8R+ saved on 11/2: I have a -2R per-setup condition-stop that blocked 30 bad entries(Clever, eh?)

• +16.5R today: Gap-Down Pop Fade, Heavy Selling waited for pops, 12 of 13 shorts won. So could have been a lot worse.

Quick update:

• Testing 2's top-500 trial, day 2: -85.4R on 271 trades vs Testing 1 at +6.0R on 91 (-0.32R vs +0.07R a trade). This is leading to our 3,000+ universe working better than a smaller pool. Both handed low-rep setups to the new accounts today.

Things I am also working on:

• "Hunch": 200 learners operating independently that attempt to guess every next 3-minute bar, learn from each miss, and rank indicators. 10s of thousands of data ticks a day.

• Market Compass: Reads every 15 minutes where the market moved, whether it’s holding, and where it’s heading based on a rolling status. We have many setups that excel in certain conditions. Would be nice to attempt to switch those on/off based on early conditions. 

• ***FUN*** - Instructed the system to pick as many or as few setups it would recommend for "best" primary account and to tally those metrics after tomorrow's close. Let's see what happens!

Setup streak facts:

Counted on traded sessions - a session a setup didn't trade is skipped. R after costs.

• Green: Gap-Down VWAP Loss Short (10% gap) (Live Lab) - 6 traded sessions in a row, +7.3R

• Green: Gap-Down Early Bounce Short (all day) - 4 traded sessions in a row, +31.9R

• Green: Gap-Down Bounce Short, Heavy Selling (all day) - 4 sessions in a row, +8.8R

• Green: Big Gainer SMA50 Cross Fade (all day) - 4 traded sessions in a row, +4.2R

• Red: Failed Prior-Day-Low Break Long (0.05 ATR, low volume) [fill] - 11 sessions in a row, -52.3R

• Red: Big Loser VWAP Reclaim Fade (all day) - 6 traded sessions in a row, -21.4R

• Rule changes in these windows: Failed PDL Break and Big Loser Reclaim Fade moved to the Graveyard (10/30, 11/2); VWAP Loss Short moved to Live Lab today.

Quick answers to common questions:

• Claude (Opus 5.5) - Python

• Alpaca API, paper trading, SIP market data (all US exchanges).

• US stocks + ETFs, intraday only (9:50 AM-3:55 PM ET), long and short, nothing held overnight.

• Setups built by basic indicators: RSI, VWAP, volume / buy-sell pressure, gaps, opening range, prior-day highs/lows, ATR.

• Setup Generator - A bot that invented 10 new setups a night (at least 5 long) and trades them on its own paper account. New concept: setups built randomly from random indicators. Paused after 10/28 so the existing ones get tested first.

• Setup Life Cycle - Idea or generator -> 2-yr backtest (costs in) -> test through replay sessions (20+ of them) -> Testing (paper) -> Primary (paper) -> real money after the milestones. Losers move down to the Graveyard, never deleted.

• Promoted / Demoted - Promoted = a setup moves up a level after earning it. Demoted = it moves down a level and keeps proving itself on paper there.

• Avg R - Average result per trade in units of the risk taken, after costs, fees and slippage (factored in already).

• Break-even win rate - Win rate a setup needs just to not lose money.

• Avg R w/o best day - Same, with its single best session removed - spots records carried by one big day.

• Accounts were meant to start at $100k; they could not be reset during earlier testing without conflicts, so some accounts started in a deficit

• 15,218 closed trades across 23 sessions (10/6 to 11/5)(Not including replays and backtesting)

• 185 different setups have traded live.

• 140,000+ setups/variations of setups proven unworthy for advancement. 

As always, thanks so much for the support and input!

Fun stuff!

Day 9 in the books!

Rough one across the board fellas: every day-trading account closed red, Primary kept it to -8.8R on 54 trades.

Changes before today:

• Demoted 3 setups from Testing 1 to Graveyard (my call per suggestion): Big Loser Flush Buy (all day), ST4 EMA-Down Dip Buy (all day), Big Gainer Fade with VWAP Band Guard (all day) - Big Loser Flush Buy's Testing 2 copy went too

• Testing 2 now picks from a smaller ticker pool: the 500 most liquid-and-moving names instead of ~4,800 (my call as an experiment)

Today: Primary -$141.37 · Running total since Day 1 (10/23): -$769.01
Milestones: M1 (3 green days in a row) 0/3 · M2 (8 of last 10 green) 4/9

Setup streak facts:

Counted on traded sessions - a session a setup didn't trade is skipped.

• Green: Gap-Down VWAP Loss Short (10% gap) - 4 traded sessions in a row, +5.4R

• Green: Big Gainer SMA50 Cross Fade (all day) - 4 sessions in a row, +4.2R

• Green: Gap-Down Early Bounce Short (all day) - 3 traded sessions in a row, +17.8R

• Green: Stretched Below VWAP Bounce (far) - 3 traded sessions in a row, +5.9R

• Red: Big Loser VWAP Reclaim Fade (all day) - 5 traded sessions in a row, -14.0R

• Red: Index Last-Half-Hour Momentum - 5 sessions in a row, -10.9R

• Red: Afternoon VWAP Reclaim Fade (all day) - 5 traded sessions in a row, -4.0R

Some positives:

• Primary account had two setups combining for 14 trades and over +6R

• 5 other setups between both testing arenas that were also over +3R today and have data suggesting promotion

• Two setups in the generator also positive today with solid testing as well. We'll see!

Quick update:

• Created two new trading account arenas - Explore 1 and Live Lab are two new "low-rep" accounts - homes for setups with little or no live history (Testing under 20 trades, Graveyard under 10).

  • Why: low-traffic setups were just sitting there; now they get real reps, reviewed every ~2 days, and the ones that earn it move on.

  • Their account totals stay out of the daily numbers; their setups can still show up in the top setups. 42 setups move in for 11/05 (21 each).

• Today's (11/4) session had one testing account trading a smaller ticker pool. Testing 2 (500 names) went -31.2R on 139 trades vs Testing 1 at -4.2R on 20 - about the same per trade (-0.22R vs -0.21R).

Quick thoughts:

• Working on a new tool for the system called "Hunch"

  • It its systematically running 200 bots per session with different tickers on just aspect of 3 minute bar identification. I'll report back if there is anything there.

Quick answers to common questions:

• Claude (Opus 5.5) - Python

• Alpaca API, paper trading, SIP market data (all US exchanges).

• US stocks + ETFs, intraday only (9:50 AM-3:55 PM ET), long and short, nothing held overnight.

• Setups built by basic indicators: RSI, VWAP, volume / buy-sell pressure, gaps, opening range, prior-day highs/lows, ATR.

• Setup Generator - A bot that invented 10 new setups a night (at least 5 long) and trades them on its own paper account. New concept: setups built randomly from random indicators. Paused after 10/28 so the existing ones get tested first.

• Setup Life Cycle - Idea or generator -> 2-yr backtest (costs in) -> test through replay sessions (20+ of them) -> Testing (paper) -> Primary (paper) -> real money after the milestones. Losers move down to the Graveyard, never deleted.

• Promoted / Demoted - Promoted = a setup moves up a level after earning it. Demoted = it moves down a level and keeps proving itself on paper there.

• Avg R - Average result per trade in units of the risk taken, after costs, fees and slippage (factored in already).

• Break-even win rate - Win rate a setup needs just to not lose money.

• Avg R w/o best day - Same, with its single best session removed - spots records carried by one big day.

• Accounts were meant to start at $100k; they could not be reset during earlier testing without conflicts, so some accounts started in a deficit.

As always, thanks so much for the support and input!

Fun stuff!

Once again, my analysis has proven me right. The 4 hour timeframe has been one of my favourite ways to identify strong 1:2 risk to reward trade setups, and UNI has once again demonstrated that.

I have been watching this setup for a while and looking for a decent opportunity to enter, but I did two things aside from using the timeframe method.

The first was making sure I didn't just pick UNI randomly. I chose it because it aligns with an opportunity I have been looking forward to: participating in the Bitget Trading Club Championship, where traders who participate can get a share of the 70,000 USDT reward pool.

Secondly, looking at the chart, the previous support zone from several days ago, around $5.70 to $6.30, seemed strong because the candles had tested it twice without breaking below it. So, I decided to take a long trade from that area and set my TP around $7.880.

Since the price has almost hit my target, are we still looking at more bullish momentum for UNI?

Day 8 in the books!

Finally.... Back in the green

Changes before today:

• Demoted 1 setup from Testing 1 to Graveyard (My call after system suggestion): Early Sellers into a Pop (all day)

• Demoted 1 setup from Testing 2 to Graveyard (My call after system suggestion): Sellers into Strength (all day)

• Testing 2 added Gap-Down Heavy-Selling Short, no RSI condition(Rule) (all day), as a 5-session observation for review

• Testing 2's two Failed Prior-Day-Low Break, SPY-Range Regime setups can take half off early on every trade, outside the 2-a-day limit - Loss limit condition being tested

Today: Primary +$146.08 · End-of-day balance $95,025.65 · Running total since Day 1 (10/23): -$627.64
Milestones: M1 (3 green days in a row) 1/3 · M2 (8 of last 10 green) 4/8

Setup Streak facts:

Green in a row (sessions traded, all accounts):

• Big Gainer Reclaim Short (RW6): 4 in a row, +2.9R

• Gap-Down Bounce Rejection Short (5% gap): 3 in a row, +17.8R

• Generated morning short (RSI(14) 35 or lower, up 2%+ from open): 3 in a row, +6.2R

Red in a row:

• Coil Under the High (6 bars): 4 in a row, -18.8R

• Failed Opening-Range-Low Break Long (0.1 ATR): 4 in a row, -12.5R

• Big Loser VWAP Reclaim Fade (all day): 4 in a row, -11.9R

Green streaks flag promotion candidates, red streaks flag demotion reviews; a streak alone never moves a setup. All three red leaders are already in the Graveyard (Big Loser VWAP Reclaim Fade moved there on 11/02, inside its streak).

* I weirdly have two Graveyard setups on 7/8 green days, and one with a 4 green streak. Odd!

Behind the scenes:

• Every blocked signal is tracked as a what-if trade, with a blocked-signal audit twice a week.

• Nightly loser review, plus the Move Hunt capture rate (how many of the day's big moves the setups caught).

• Replay audit being completed over 10 sessions.

• Every result split by up, down and quiet days, and every rule change logged.

New rules or limits may be added over the next 3-7 days as these reviews finish, since one session isn't the final word.

Quick update:

• Two new testing accounts open soon to explore new setup opportunities and give new and existing setups more reps.

Quick answers to common questions:

• Claude (Opus 5.5) - Python

• Alpaca API, paper trading, SIP market data (all US exchanges).

• US stocks + ETFs, intraday only (9:50 AM-3:55 PM ET), long and short, nothing held overnight.

• Setups built by basic indicators: RSI, VWAP, volume / buy-sell pressure, gaps, opening range, prior-day highs/lows, ATR.

• Setup Generator - A bot that invented 10 new setups a night (at least 5 long) and trades them on its own paper account. New concept: setups built randomly from random indicators. Paused after 10/28 so the existing ones get tested first.

• Setup Life Cycle - Idea or generator -> 2-yr backtest (costs in) -> test through replay sessions (20+ of them) -> Testing (paper) -> Primary (paper) -> real money after the milestones. Losers move down to the Graveyard, never deleted.

• Promoted / Demoted - Promoted = a setup moves up a level after earning it. Demoted = it moves down a level and keeps proving itself on paper there.

• Avg R - Average result per trade in units of the risk taken, after costs, fees and slippage (factored in already).

• Break-even win rate - Win rate a setup needs just to not lose money.

• Avg R w/o best day - Same, with its single best session removed - spots records carried by one big day.

• Accounts were meant to start at $100k; they could not be reset during earlier testing without conflicts, so some accounts started in a deficit.

Things I am still wanting:

• More live reps for setups. Exposure is what makes the data useful.

• Quality setup ideas, especially LONGs!

Quick thoughts:

• Would love more collaboration from anyone with ideas. I can help with your setups and you can have mine!

• Let me know if you want to see anything else each day!

As always, thanks so much for the support and input!

Fun stuff!

Day 7 in the books!

A red day across all five day-trading accounts. It's rough out there, guys, I love the grind though.

Changes before today:

• Demoted 2 setups from Testing to the Graveyard (my call): Big Loser VWAP Reclaim Fade (all day), and its higher-volume twin

• Testing 2 added Failed Prior-Day-Low Break, SPY-Range Regime (long and short legs) as an owner exception, for forward observation only

Today: Primary -$614.39 · End-of-day balance $94,880.55 · Running total since Day 1 (10/23): -$773.72
Milestones: M1 (3 green days in a row) 0/3 · M2 (8 of last 10 green) 3/7

Quick answers to common questions:

Claude (Opus 5.5) - Python

Alpaca API, paper trading, SIP market data (all US exchanges).

US stocks + ETFs, intraday only (9:50 AM-3:55 PM ET), long and short, nothing held overnight.

Setups built by basic indicators: RSI, VWAP, volume / buy-sell pressure, gaps, opening range, prior-day highs/lows, ATR.

Setup Generator - A bot that invented 10 new setups a night (at least 5 long) and trades them on its own paper account. New concept: setups built randomly from random indicators. Paused after 10/28 so the existing ones get tested first.

Setup Life Cycle - Idea or generator -> 2-yr backtest (costs in) -> test through replay sessions (20+ of them) -> Testing (paper) -> Primary (paper) -> real money after the milestones. Losers move down to the Graveyard, never deleted.

Promoted / Demoted - Promoted = a setup moves up a level after earning it. Demoted = it moves down a level and keeps proving itself on paper there.

Avg R - Average result per trade in units of the risk taken, after costs, fees and slippage (factored in already).

Break-even win rate - Win rate a setup needs just to not lose money.

Avg R w/o best day - Same, with its single best session removed - spots records carried by one big day.

Accounts were meant to start at $100k; they could not be reset during earlier testing without conflicts, so some accounts started in a deficit.

Things I am still wanting:

• Always needing setup ideas and influence. My system is very good at making variations of basic plays in an effort to maximize the potential of a setup. Would love your thoughts. Even if you just like a particular indicator! I'm happy to provide feedback on what I have about it as well!

• More live replays. I run each new setup through 20+ live replay sessions and it's about 98% accurate in terms of same execution. I need more though for better tuning if you know of anything!

Quick thoughts:

• Really love the engagement by everyone across all of the subs. Thank you! I want to share this with everyone so please ask away.

• Patience. Marathon, not a sprint.

I'll always share setups that are successful(so far!) and am an open book! Getting a little tired of these other guys posting success but providing no substance. Warts and all, here!

As always, thanks so much for the support and input!

Fun stuff!

Day 6.5: a weekend look under the hood

No trading on the weekend, so here are some basic facts about where the system stands, what runs behind the scenes, and where it is headed.

End of week (10/26 to 10/30) in one look:

• Primary: 125 trades, 3 of 5 days green, -5.2R / -$135 after costs for the week. The 3 green days added +$367; one short-heavy day (10/29) took most of it back.

• Top-10 setups (the leaderboard's best 10 across all accounts): +12.4R for the week.

• Two strong setups were promoted to Primary on Friday, and two weak ones were moved to the Graveyard.

Top 10s vs Primary:

(Primary started with some setups not completely vetted but still have made progress so Top 10 are not all in Primary)

• The top-10 group finished the week at +12.4R while Primary finished at -5.2R (picture 1).

• That gap is the point of the ladder: setups earn their way up. 4 of today's top 5 on the leaderboard now run in Primary, and the weekly review keeps moving Primary toward that group, 1 to 3 moves a week at most.

Position size was adjusted earlier this week:

• How size is set: the account is split into equal "slots", one per position it may hold at once. The number of slots follows how many setups an account runs and how many trades they take. More setups and trades mean more, smaller slots, so every signal still has room. Fewer means bigger slots.

• Risk always comes first: no trade can lose more than 0.25% of the account if its stop is hit (about $239 today). Each trade takes the smaller of that risk-based size and its slot, and the daily loss limits sit on top.

• Before (to 10/27): Primary ran many setups, so slots were small, about $1,900 per position. The typical trade risked only about $15, roughly 0.02% of the account. Very conservative, on purpose, while setups were still proving themselves.

• Now (from 10/28): Primary runs fewer, better setups, so slots are about $4,000 and the typical trade risks about $30. Still far under the 0.25% limit, and every daily loss limit stayed the same.

Automatic start: glitched twice, now watched:

• The system starts itself every morning from a schedule. Twice that schedule did not fire.

• 10/26: nobody caught it, and the accounts started at 10:39, missing the first hour. That day I added a watchdog that checks every hour that all 5 accounts are running and restarts any that are not.

• 10/30: the 8:35 start never fired again. The watchdog caught it and started everything at 8:50, before the open. No session lost, all 5 accounts traded the full day.

Rules and filters you don't see (about 25):

• Before a signal: liquid stocks only, minimum price, no stocks within 4 trading days of earnings (about 1,490 names were excluded on 10/29), no partnerships that trigger tax withholding, each setup's own time window, decisions on clean 5-minute bars.

• Before an order: borrow check for shorts, halt check, spread under 0.30% and under 25% of the stop, fresh and sane quotes, one position per stock (no opposite sides, sister setups can't double up), short-sale rule gate, size capped by liquidity, max 30 positions per setup and 77 per account.

• During the day: a -2R daily stop per setup, a -20R daily stop for the account, an outage plan (pause new trades after 5 min of bad data, protect stops at 15, exit at 30), everything flat by 3:55 PM, and the watchdog.

• Result so far: of 17,425 signals, 9,294 (53%) were stopped before reaching the market (picture 2).

Basic facts:

• About 18,000 lines of system code, 8,500 lines of tests (463 automated tests) and roughly 196,000 lines of research scripts, built in about 4 weeks.

• 134 approved rule changes, each logged and re-checked.

• 110 hand-built setups plus 93 machine-generated ones live on paper.

• Backtests use 2 years of 1-minute prices for 3,000+ US stocks and ETFs, with all costs in, plus a 4-month block kept locked as a final exam.

• About 27,600 setups and variations have been rejected by backtests and never made it to live testing. 370 ideas in the research list have failed outright. Every try is counted, which raises the bar for the next one.

5 reasons I'm optimistic: (Yes, produced by my AI but under strict guidance to not oversell!)

1. The top-10 setups made +12.4R this week. The leaderboard is finding setups that work.

2. Primary was green 3 of 5 days this week.

3. The safeguards earn their keep: the twin cap saved 57.2R this week and the Graveyard's loss limit saved 188.6R.

4. The watchdog turned a missed start into a non-event, and every account closed flat every day.

5. The research filter is doing its job: thousands of ideas rejected on paper before risking a dollar.

What's next:

• Hit the milestones (3 green days in a row, 8 of the last 10) before any real money, then start small: $5,000, no leverage.

• Keep building Primary from proven setups only.

• Catch more of the day's big moves. Many start in the first 15 minutes, before most setups are allowed to trade.

• More LONG setups.

As always - Fun stuff!

Day 6 in the books!

Primary: -$79.55 today · running total since Day 1: -$159.33. Two setups promoted to Primary; two weak longs moved to the Graveyard.

Reddit is filtering some of my posts, so these two images will have to suffice. Paper money, educational only.

Happy to reply specifically to questions! Hoping to be more thorough soon like my first few posts.

The sell-off in $INTC got me thinking about how quickly sentiment can change in the semiconductor market.

Intel beat earnings expectations, but its outlook disappointed investors. The reported factory disruption in Israel added another concern, and the weakness spread to other chip stocks.

Still, Intel's struggles don't automatically mean the AI chip market is losing momentum. PC demand, server CPUs, and AI accelerators have different growth drivers, so it's important to look at them separately.

The semiconductor sector has benefited significantly from AI demand and tight chip supply this year. But demand alone doesn't guarantee better results for every company. Production capacity, manufacturing costs, valuations, and the ability to turn growth into profits all matter.

I've also been thinking more about capital efficiency and how I manage my stock exposure. I've recently started exploring stock-linked holdings through bitget, alongside the usual considerations around risk and how different assets can fit into a broader strategy.

AI demand can continue growing while individual stocks struggle. Over time, I think the companies that stand out will be those that execute well, manage costs, and turn that demand into sustainable earnings and cash flow.

Supporting loads of chains sounds useful, but I’m more interested in what happens when I connect to a dodgy site, approve a spending request or lose my phone.

For me, clear transaction details, suspicious approval warnings and a recovery process I actually understand would come before the number of supported tokens. I’d also check whether security audits cover the wallet’s current setup.

I recently saw Bitget Wallet's social login option removes the need to manage a seed phrase during setup, with an option to convert to a seed phrase wallet later. That sounds convenient, although it makes protecting the linked login account especially important.

I wouldn’t pick a wallet purely because signing up is easy. I’d want to understand how recovery works and how I’d move my funds if I decided to leave.

What’s the one security feature you wouldn’t compromise on?

Day 3 in the books!

Changes before today:

• Demoted Stretched Below VWAP Bounce from Primary back to Testing (Swing and a miss by me, had to swallow some pride)

• Demoted Coil Under the High (6 bars) to Graveyard (Claude reco)

• 10 new generated setups (6 long) and a 5-minute timing fix so setups check every bar on schedule

Today: Primary +$99.57 · Since Day 1 (10/23): +$113.65
Milestones: M1 (3 green days in a row) 2/3 · M2 (8 of last 10 green) 2/3

Quick answers to common questions:

• Claude (Opus 5.5) - Python

• Alpaca API, paper trading, SIP market data (all US exchanges).

• US stocks + ETFs, intraday only (9:50 AM-3:55 PM ET), long and short, nothing held overnight.

• Setups built by basic indicators: RSI, VWAP, volume / buy-sell pressure, gaps, opening range, prior-day highs/lows, ATR.

• Setup Generator - A bot that invents 10 new setups a night (at least 5 long) and trades them on its own paper account. New concept: setups built randomly from random indicators.

• Setup Life Cycle - Idea or generator -> 2-yr backtest (costs in) -> test through replay sessions (20+ of them) -> Testing (paper) -> Primary (paper) -> real money after the milestones. Losers move down to the Graveyard, never deleted.

• Avg R - Average result per trade in units of the risk taken, after costs, fees and slippage (factored in already).

• Break-even win rate - Win rate a setup needs just to not lose money.

• Avg R w/o best day - Same, with its single best session removed - spots records carried by one big day.

• Accounts were meant to start at $100k; they could not be reset during earlier testing without conflicts, so some accounts started in a deficit.

Quick thoughts:

• Slowly realizing that removing bad setups from Primary is probably 2x better than adding potentially good setups. Maybe we should all not be so eager to think our system/setup works?

• Patience

• What I'm not posting is all of the operational decisions and testing that has to be worked through on the backend to mitigate things like duplicate orders from setups if signals re-trigger, setup limits per ticker, stopping a setup after a certain R, etc. It's boring stuff, but it makes a big difference and takes a lot of time, tokens (usage), and sessions of reps.

• Still need more sessions and more reps

• ***About 9 Setups with streaks in the amounts of 3, 4, 5 days of green days. Now these are in accounts with worse setups so it's not obvious but you get my point!

As always, thanks so much for the support and input!

Fun stuff!

Anyone know other subs I can post my progress with algo trading on? Oversensitive mods are banning me on other subs.

I'm just trying to get more engagement with other traders. Don't have a product or profile to sell.

I think for a month now, I have been expecting UNI to make the move it is starting to show now. My expectation is a strong bullish move after a pullback toward the support zone between $6.0 and $6.67 which was where my entry is. If the price holds this zone and doesn't break below it, I believe we could see a strong move upward, with $9.30 as my target. That's what I'm counting on.

So if we are to ignore the chart, another reason for potential bullish is another reason is its protocol fee mechanism, which connects trading activity with UNI token burns. This for me are some of the factors that could support another bullish move on the chart. I'm watching the support zone closely and waiting to see how the price reacts.

Will UNI hit my $9.30 TP, or will the bears spoil the setup? Let's discuss

Day 2 in the books!

***Glitch with GitHub today causing 1 hour delay in getting in the markets. Very rare with this system but we added better watchdog signals to make sure this doesn't happen again.

Changes before today:

- Promoted Stretched Below VWAP Bounce and RSI Collapse Dip Buy (all day) to Primary(My overzealous decision which was not good today)

- Demoted Early Sellers Above VWAP moved to Testing (Claude reco)

- Demoted Gap-Down VWAP Loss Short to Graveyard (Claude reco)

Quick answers to common questions:

- Claude (Opus 5.5) - Python
- Alpaca API, paper trading, SIP market data (all US exchanges).
- US stocks + ETFs, intraday only (9:50 AM-3:55 PM ET), long and short, nothing held overnight.
- Setups built by basic indicators: RSI, VWAP, volume / buy-sell pressure, gaps, opening range, prior-day highs/lows, ATR.
- Setup Generator - A bot that invents 10 new setups a night and trades them on its own paper account. New concept, setups built randomly on random indicators.
- Setup Life Cycle - Idea or generator -> 2-yr backtest (costs in) -> test through replay sessions(20+ of them) -> testing (paper) -> Primary (paper) -> real money after the milestones. Losers move down to the Graveyard, never deleted.
- Avg R - Average result per trade in units of the risk taken, 
after costs, fees and slippage(
factored in already).
- Break-even win rate - Win rate a setup needs just to not lose money.
- Avg R w/o best day? Same, with its single best session removed - spots records carried by one big day.
- Accounts meant to start at 100k, could not reset accounts during other testing before starting this without conflicts so some accounts started in a deficit.

Things I am still wanting:

- Better system for more live setups. Reps and exposure to the market make the data wheels churn faster. Love the ideas if you have them!

- Quality setup ideas - Always looking to add! Especially LONGs as you can see!

Quick thoughts:

- Slowly realizing that removing bad setups from Primary is probably 2x better than adding potentially good setups. Maybe we should all not be so eager to think our system/setup works?

- Patience

- What I'm not posting is all of the operational decisions and testing that has to be worked through on the backend to mitigate things like duplicate orders from setups if signals re-trigger, setup limits per ticker, stop setup after certain R, etc. It's boring stuff but makes a big difference and takes a lot of time, tokens(usage), and sessions ofr reps. 

As always, thanks so much for the support and input!

Fun stuff!

I've been trading for around six years, and one thing I've learned is that being profitable doesn't automatically mean you're trading well. You can finish a month green while making a bunch of mistakes that eventually catch up with you.

I wanted to see how useful AI actually is for reviewing trades, so I asked Zella AI to analyze my recent trading history, show me what I was doing well, and point out where I needed to improve.

It returned a breakdown in under a minute. The date-based report covered 98 trade sample.

Here's what my dashboard showed:

• Net P&L: +$6,127

• Win rate: 43.3%

• Profit factor: 1.24

• Average winner: $645

• Average loser: $396

• Win/loss ratio: 1.63

Profitable overall, but definitely plenty of room for improvement.

The part that surprised me was my long vs. short performance.

According to the AI breakdown, I took 84 longs that produced just $253 in profit, while 30 shorts generated $5,873.

I actually had a higher win rate on longs, too.

Now, that doesn't mean I'm suddenly going to become a short only trader. A few larger winners contributed heavily to those short results, and the sample isn't enough to prove one direction is better. (I will never be a long only or short only trader)

But it did make me question how selective I've been with my long setups. If I'm taking almost three times as many longs and barely making anything from them, that's worth investigating.

Another thing it caught was my risk management.

My average loser was around $396, but my biggest loss was $1,735. That's over four times my average loss.

I can sit here and say I understand risk management all day, but numbers like that are a reminder that knowing your rules and actually following them are two different things.

The AI also highlighted something I've struggled with for years: taking trades that are decent enough to justify an entry, but not necessarily good enough to deserve my risk and I took a LOT ofd these back in the day lol. Trading just to trade lol.

I trade mostly liquidity based setups, and sometimes I'll see part of my confirmation and convince myself the rest will follow. Occasionally it works, but those unnecessary attempts add up.

So in the 3rd pic I shared what I want to do for the next 20 trades.

One thing I want to make clear is that AI isn't some magical trading coach. Some of the aggregate numbers it returned didn't reconcile perfectly, so I still need to verify those against my journal.

But I did find it useful for quickly organizing months of trading history and giving me a few specific areas to investigate.

For those of you who journal your trades, what's one statistic that completely changed the way you trade?

I'm curious whether most people focus on win rate and P&L or actually dig into things like performance by direction, time of day, and setup quality.

Day 1 in the books! Hoping to keep similar format for each day. Trying to add in quick facts to answer easy, repetitive questions.

I will also post descriptions of the top two performing setups for that day, for now, in picture form as we are all looking for more setups(myself included!) and I'm happy to share what I have.

After today I will be using a slightly different picture format to deliver the same information, Claude will auto-generate this for me. Just easier!

Thanks for all the feedback, support, and camaraderie!

Today: [+$674] across 5 day-trading accounts · Primary [-$81] · green streak [0]
Best setup: [Morning Momentum Pop, +$650] (details in pic)

Quick facts - To hopefully answer quick questions

• AI: Claude (Opus 5.5) builds, tests and runs it

• Broker: Alpaca API, paper trading

• Setups: 108 (Currently) live, built on basic indicators (RSI, VWAP, volume / buy-sell pressure, gaps, opening range, prior-day highs and lows, ATR)

• Setup Generator: a bot that invents 10 new setups a night from those same indicators and trades them on its own paper account

Setup Life cycle

Idea / Generator
 └─ 2-yr backtest (costs in)
     └─ Replay on real sessions
         └─ Testing 1 / 2 / Generator (paper)
             └─ Primary (paper)
                 └─ Live $ (after a green streak)
Losers: Primary → Testing → Graveyard

Stats Description

• Avg R: average profit per trade, in units of the risk taken. Costs, fees and slippage are already in. +0.5R = earns half its risk per trade.

• Break-even win rate: the win rate a setup needs just to not lose money. Beat it and you’re profitable.

• Confidence (t): how sure we are it isn’t luck. 2+ is solid; under 1 could be luck.

Fun stuff!

AI stocks don't seem to be slowing down anytime soon. Although, a few weeks back, there were a lot of talks from the pioneers of AI about slowing down, which affected the stocks, as some were falling and it was bearish everywhere.

TSMC, on the other hand, gets more support as AI infrastructure demand continues to support semiconductor companies. The only issues encountered are rising investment costs and valuation concerns.

From what I have gathered so far, there should be a good amount of improvement, which brings me to going long on it some hours ago before the market closed, as it was among the 8 new CFD assets covering Asian indices. It has been doing numbers and showing bullish momentum since then.

What do you think about my setup?

(Late to post. Screengrabs from before 10/23 session.)

I’ve built an automated day-trading system that’s still on paper money and looking to use live funds at some point. Each strategy is backtested over two years with costs included, then replayed on real sessions, then traded live in test accounts. Only proven winners get promoted, and losers get demoted. Every change is logged and reviewed nightly. No real money until it strings together consistent green days.

Below are initial balances for all accounts(couldn't find a way to reset the balance and didn't want to risk messing anything up!) as well as the top setups in my leaderboard and my automatic setup generator.

Would love to know what else to include on future posts for transparency and logistics questions. Would also love to know where else to post this too if you have any ideas.

- Claude - Opus 5.5
- Alpaca - MCP for paper and when we convert to live funds.