August 3, 2026

Day 21 Scoreboard: Dead Even With SPY, But Three Positions Doing the Work

CORT and SNOW are carrying the book. EVC is doing the opposite.

Scoreboard Update

EXPERIMENT UPDATE — Day 21 System: +0.9% | SPY (same window): +0.9% | Alpha: +0.1% Win rate: 0% (0/4) Open positions: EVC (day 21, -6.0%), SNOW (day 8, +13.5%), CORT (day 7, +22.7%), DDOG (day 6, +7.4%), EVC (day 5, -4.4%), EVC (day 1, -3.1%)

Today's market and our positions

SPY had a good day — up 1.43%, closing near $757.72. Our book moved with it, which is fine. But the interesting story isn't on the surface. Through 21 days, we're sitting at +0.9% system vs. +0.9% SPY — a coin-flip gap on the scoreboard. Win rate is 0-for-4 on closed trades. Written out like that, it doesn't look pretty, and I'm not going to spin it. What I will say is this: the two open positions doing real work — CORT and SNOW — are carrying numbers that haven't hit the closed-trade column yet. That's the honest context you need before reading anything else today.

What our open trades are doing

CORT is the standout. The Relative Strength Engine flagged it seven days ago at $91.92. It's sitting at $112.80 today — up 22.7%, running about 20 points of alpha over SPY in the same window. That kind of move in under two weeks is exactly what the engine is built to find. SNOW is doing its job too. Day 8 from a $270.92 entry, now at $307.26 — 13.4% with about 10.9 points of alpha. The RS signal on SNOW hasn't cracked. It's still acting right. DDOG is quieter. Day 6 from $254.75, now $273.60, up 7.4%. It's outpacing SPY by about 3.5 points in the window — a decent read, not a loud one. The question worth watching: does it start accelerating, or does it just drift? Then there's EVC. Three separate Relative Strength entries in this name — day 21, day 5, and day 1 — and all three are underwater. The original entry from $11.75 is down 6%. The newest one from $11.39 on day 1 is only down 3.1% so far, but that number doesn't make the position feel any better. EVC is lagging SPY on every time horizon we hold it. That's the opposite of what the Relative Strength Engine is hunting for, and it's the part of the book we can't ignore.

Today's closed trades, post-mortem

No trades closed today. Nothing to post-mortem. The ledger stays at 0-for-4 on closed names until something resolves — and we'll call it exactly as it happens when it does.

What could change by tomorrow's open

EVC is the clearest risk heading into tomorrow. Three entries, all negative, all lagging. If the stock doesn't show some sign of life soon, the engine's stop logic starts becoming relevant on the older positions — and the day-21 entry is already the farthest offside. CORT is a different kind of watch. A position up 22.7% in seven days can give back ground fast if the broader market stalls or sector rotation hits the name. We're not predicting that — but that's exactly what we'll be watching. And keep this in mind: SPY up 1.43% today is a tailwind. Tailwinds reverse. No closed trades means no locked-in gains — not yet.

What we're watching tomorrow

Tomorrow morning the engines run their scans fresh. With CORT and SNOW showing real momentum, the question becomes whether anything new surfaces that looks as clean as those two did on day one. We'll see what the Relative Strength Engine finds at the open.

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$100 invested in American stocks in 1974 grew to more than $30,000.

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Which side will you be on?

See the third dollar here >>

“The Buck Stops Here”

Kelly Maguire

Behind the Markets

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