July 20, 2026

One more down session could force our hand

Both open positions are at the edge — and tomorrow's tape may decide it for us.

Scoreboard Update

EXPERIMENT UPDATE — Day 11 System: -0.1% | SPY (same window): -1.2% | Alpha: +1.1% Win rate: 0% (0/2) Open positions: EVC (day 7, -6.1%), PIII (day 5, -5.3%)

Today's market and our positions

Neither position is doing what we wanted. EVC is down 6.1% from entry. PIII is down 5.3%. Win rate is 0 for 2. And yet — and this is the part that takes a little patience to sit with — the system is still ahead of SPY by 1.1% over the 11-day window. That's not spin. SPY dropped another 0.14% today to close near $742.28. The index is quietly bleeding, and our positions, as rough as they feel, haven't bled faster than the market on a cumulative basis. Cold comfort when you're staring at red. But it's the honest read.

What our open trades are doing

EVC is the one that stings more. Day 7 now. Entry at $11.75, currently sitting at $11.03 — that's -6.13% on the position against a -1.30% move in SPY over the same stretch, an alpha drag of -4.83%. The Relative Strength Engine flagged this one because EVC was showing relative strength in a choppy tape. It isn't showing that anymore. The setup thesis isn't fully broken — relative strength trades need room to breathe — but this name is on a short leash. PIII is younger and a little less alarming on a percentage basis: entry $11.20, now $10.61, -5.27% on day 5. SPY was down 1.15% over that same window, so the alpha drag is -4.12%. Same engine, same problem — the market turned before either name had a chance to separate from the noise. Both positions are still open. We're watching, not panicking. But we're not pretending these are going well, either.

Today's closed trades, post-mortem

No trades closed today, so there's no post-mortem to run. The ledger looks exactly like it did this morning: two open positions, both in the red, no realized gains or losses to account for. That's not nothing — it means the damage is still theoretical until a stop gets hit or we decide to cut. That reckoning is coming.

What could change by tomorrow's open

What worries us most heading into tomorrow is a continuation of this slow grind lower in SPY. A -0.14% day feels manageable in isolation, but EVC and PIII are both sitting at levels where one more down session in the index could push them into stop territory. We're also watching whether either name shows any sign of reclaiming relative strength — that was the original thesis, and if the chart tells us clearly it's dead, we don't need to ride either position to zero to get the message. Morning will tell us a lot.

What we're watching tomorrow

The engines run their scans tonight regardless of what the open positions are doing. If something clean surfaces — a name showing actual relative strength in a market that keeps finding reasons to sell — we'll have it ready before the open. Worth sitting with this question: what does a market that refuses to rally tell us about the names that aren't falling?

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“The Buck Stops Here”

Kelly Maguire

Behind the Markets

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