Before you write off this losing streak, look at what's still open

Today's market and our positions

The market leaned on everyone today. SPY closed down another 1.11%, settling near $539.13 — and in a tape like that, 'not down as much' counts as a win. We didn't get many of those. Day 14 of this live run puts the system at -1.7% total, SPY at -1.7% over the same window, and alpha sitting exactly at zero. That's not where we want to be, but it's honest. Zero alpha means we're keeping pace with the index — not beating it, not getting crushed relative to it. Three closed trades, zero wins. We're not going to sugarcoat that number.

What our open trades are doing

EVC (Relative Strength Engine, day 10) is the one that stings. We're in at $11.75, it's sitting at $10.53 — a 10.38% drawdown against a 1.82% drop in SPY. That's -8.57% in alpha, and there's no spin on it. The original thesis was relative strength. This position has undercut that thesis pretty clearly. The engine keeps it open for now, and we're watching it closely. If the thesis is broken, the stop does the work. SLS (Relative Strength Engine, day 3) is actually doing something worth noting. We're in at $12.57, it's at $12.55 — basically flat, while SPY dropped 1.35% today. That's +1.16% in alpha on a down day, which is exactly what the Relative Strength Engine is built to find. Three days in, one data point — but it's behaving the right way.

Today's closed trades, post-mortem

PIII closed today. Eight-day hold, entered at $11.20, exited at $9.03. That's a -19.38% loss on the position against a -1.67% move in SPY over the same window — -17.70% in alpha. Exit reason: stop hit. No override, no hesitation. The stop exists precisely for moments like this, and it did its job. The painful part isn't the loss itself — it's that the Relative Strength Engine has now picked three names in a row that haven't worked. PIII, EVC, SLS — one is still fighting, one is bleeding, and one is gone. That's the run we're on right now. Documenting it is the only useful thing to do with it.

What could change by tomorrow's open

Two open positions head into tomorrow. EVC is carrying the real weight — already down 10.4% from entry and underperforming the market by a wide margin. A continued weak tape could push it to its stop. SLS has more cushion relative to where the market closed, but it's only three days old and hasn't been tested by a sharper down move yet. If SPY opens lower tomorrow, EVC is the first name we'll be watching. There's also nothing new in the signal queue right now, so the morning engines run their scan fresh — no carryover, no shortcuts.

What we're watching tomorrow

Tomorrow morning the engines run the full scan again. After a stretch like this — 0 for 3 on closed trades, one position limping — what we're most interested in is whether the system surfaces anything at all, or whether the market just doesn't hand it a clean setup to flag. Sometimes the right move is nothing. We'll see what the scan says.