Lab

Every strategy we test gets a pre-registered gate before it runs. If it passes, it moves toward live signals. If it fails, the postmortem stays public — and the gate is frozen, so we cannot quietly rewrite the rules.

This page is the full record: every cut, every survivor, every contributor.

ONGOING · EXPLORATION Stock cross-sectional momentum — free research in progress (heatmaps & long/short visuals). Not a frozen test → ONGOING · FORWARD PAPER Market-neutral residual momentum — forward paper, net of borrow, tracking only. Not a live signal, not on the grid → ONGOING · FORWARD PAPER Reversion + momentum (S-038) — combined market-neutral book, confirmed on the sealed holdout, now forward paper. Not live →
All36Ideas7Failed21Walk-forward2Trade sim6Live0
S036 Failed 2026-07-04
S036 — Johansen cointegrated ETF baskets (curve butterfly + credit) v1
pairs-johansen-basket-v1 · Both baskets are strongly cointegrated on the *full sample* (Johansen trace 58.6 / 40.3 vs 29.8 crit) — but under the honest per-fold walk-forward test the cointegration is intermittent (present in only 19% and 48% of folds, both below the 50% admission gate), and even in the folds where it *does* hold, the reverted spread loses money net of the triple-leg cost stack (negative Sharpe and negative expectancy). Full-sample cointegration is a long-horizon property that does not survive as a tradeable, per-fold signal.
Failed at Stage 1 (Quick-screen)
S035 Failed 2026-07-04
Cross-Sectional ETF Momentum Rotation (12-1 / 1M)
etf-momentum-rotation-12-1-v1 · Under honest methodology — survivorship-free universe, real friction, dividends, a point-in-time liquidity filter, and significance testing — the 12-1 ETF momentum rotation loses to simply holding SPY by ~5%/yr, with a worse drawdown. The cross-sectional signal has the right sign but is not significant. The edge the source study reported was an artifact of the defects this spec set out to correct.
Failed at Stage 1 (Quick-screen)
S034 Failed 2026-07-03
S034 — Pairs / stat-arb on cointegrated ETF spreads (Tasty presets), v1
pairs-cointegration-etf-v1 · None of the seven economically-tethered ETF pairs is cointegrated over 2010–2026 — not with the fixed β=1 log-ratio, and not with a fitted hedge ratio either. The spreads *trend* rather than mean-revert, so the cointegration gate correctly refuses to trade almost every window; what little does trade earns no risk-adjusted edge. The discipline works exactly as designed — it just finds nothing here.
Failed at Stage 1 (Quick-screen)
S033 Walk-forward 2026-07-02
S033 — Rolling-income covered call on a held ETF, DIA/QQQ × delta (buy-write pillar)
roll-income-covered-call-etf-v1
PASSED Stage 1 (modeled screen — forward-pending)
S032 Trade sim 2026-07-01
S032 — ETF buy-write on RSI-2 pullbacks, DIA/QQQ × delta matrix (buy-write pillar)
buy-write-rsi2-etf-v1
PASSED Stage 1 (modeled screen — forward-pending)
S031 Failed 2026-07-01
S031 — Cross-asset relative-strength rotation (multi-sleeve ETF momentum)
cross-asset-rs-rotation-v1 · The rotation adds drawdown and volatility without adding return. No lookback beats the equal-weight sleeve baseline on a risk-adjusted basis; the best (12-month) beats it only on raw CAGR while running a *deeper* drawdown (30% vs 20%), a lower Sharpe (0.59 vs 0.78), and an insignificant excess (Bonferroni p = 1.0). And the whole cross-asset premise loses to simply owning SPY. The "less correlated" thesis does not survive honest costs and a tail-aware gate.
Failed at unknown stage
S030 Failed 2026-07-01
S030 — Trend-continuation buyable-pullback (Trend-Template + 21-EMA reclaim), equity + sector
trend-continuation-pullback-v1 · The pullback entry improves per-trade expectancy over the S029 breakout (+0.36% vs +0.26%, nearly closing the gap to the eligible-leader baseline) — confirming the breakout timing was the leak — but the momentum-crash drawdown (43%) is unchanged, and CVaR-95 (−10.8%) still fails. The drawdown is a property of *holding* correlated leaders, not of the entry; no entry rule touches it.
Failed at unknown stage
S029 Failed 2026-07-01
S029 — Trend-continuation breakout (Trend-Template + pivot breakout), equity + sector
trend-continuation-breakout-v1 · The mechanical breakout has the right shape (26% win rate, 3.1× payoff) but fails the tail: portfolio max drawdown 41% (gate 25%), CVaR-95 −11.9% (gate −8%, gap-throughs), worst −63%; and the entry is not additive — it does not beat random entry into the same Trend-Template leaders. The binding failure is the momentum-crash drawdown — exactly the S004 lesson, and the forecast (§8).
Failed at unknown stage
S028 Failed 2026-06-30
S028 — Short-term reversion + protective price-stop A/B (equity + sector)
short-term-reversion-rsi2-stop-v1 · The protective stop caps the *intraday* tail (CVaR-95 −13.2% → −8.5%) but cannot catch the overnight-gap killers (worst trade still −68.7%, gate −15%), worsens the portfolio drawdown (71% → 79%), and erases the thin edge (mean +0.058% → −0.107%, not significant). Fails both halves of the gate at every K tested. Exactly the pre-registered forecast.
Failed at unknown stage
S027 Failed 2026-06-29
S027 — Short-term reversion (RSI-2, uptrend-filtered), equity + sector v1
short-term-reversion-rsi2-v1 · Fat left tail breaches the tail co-gates — CVaR-95 −13.2% (gate −8%), worst trade −80%, portfolio drawdown 71% (gate 25%) — and the raw edge is too thin to clearly beat random entry (+0.14%/trade vs the +0.15% gate; bootstrap p = 0.058). A tail-co-gate breach is a cut regardless of the mean.
Failed at unknown stage
S026 Trade sim 2026-06-14
S026 — 0DTE SPX iron condor, forward-paper, tracking matrix v1
spx-0dte-iron-condor-forward-v1
forward-paper active (first session 2026-06-15; original 6+1 matrix frozen). Extended 2026-06-16 with two additional hold-to-settle baselines (tracked forward from that date
S025 Failed 2026-06-13
Setup: Net share issuance
net-share-issuance-v1 · magnitude
Failed at Stage 1 (Quick-screen)
S024 Trade sim 2026-06-13
S024 — Naked-straddle overpricing in mid-caps
earnings-straddle-naked-midcap-v1
blocked (data)
S023 Ideas 2026-06-08
Setup: Overnight-only return capture
overnight-only-capture-v1
open
S022 Ideas 2026-06-08
Setup: Short-squeeze pressure
short-squeeze-pressure-v1
blocked (data)
S021 Ideas 2026-06-08
Setup: Attention-spike fade
attention-spike-fade-v1
blocked (double data)
S020 Ideas 2026-06-08
Setup: Buyback-announcement drift
buyback-announcement-drift-v1
open (data scraper required)
S019 Ideas 2026-06-08
Setup: Insider cluster buys
insider-cluster-buys-v1
open (data scraper required)
S018 Ideas 2026-06-08
Setup: Tax-loss rebound in microcaps
tax-loss-rebound-microcap-v1
open
S017 Failed 2026-06-13
Setup: Russell reconstitution drift
russell-reconstitution-drift-v1 · magnitude
Failed at Stage 1 (Quick-screen)
S016 Ideas 2026-06-08
Setup: Single-name expiration pinning
opex-pinning-single-name-v1 · 2026-06-13 — low conviction: the single-name mid-cap pinning effect is expected to be too noisy to extract net of friction. Dropped at the idea stage by judgment, before any test; no gate was run. Kept on the public record rather than deleted.
dropped (2026-06-13)
S015 Trade sim 2026-06-08
S015 — Earnings-straddle overpricing in mid-caps
earnings-straddle-overpricing-midcap-v1
Stage 0 — Pre-registered
S014 Failed 2026-05-31
Setup: Put-selling on capitulation — combined filter + sizing + stop, with corrected gate arithmetic
put-selling-capitulation-combined-v2 · magnitude
Failed at Stage 1 (Quick-screen) — 7 of 8 gates passed; CAGR is the binding constraint
S013 Failed 2026-05-31
Setup: Put-selling on capitulation — combined filter + risk-weighted sizing + max-loss stop
put-selling-capitulation-combined-v1 · magnitude
Failed at Stage 1 (Quick-screen) — 6 of 8 gates passed; 2 specific failures
S012 Trade sim 2026-06-01
Setup: Put-selling on capitulation with a tightened market-vol-regime filter
put-selling-capitulation-volregime-filter-v2
PASSED 2 (walk-forward validation)
S011 Trade sim 2026-05-31
Setup: Put-selling on capitulation with risk-weighted position sizing
put-selling-capitulation-risk-weighted-v1
PASSED 2 (walk-forward validation)
S010 Failed 2026-05-31
Setup: Put-selling on capitulation with a market-vol-regime filter
put-selling-capitulation-volregime-filter-v1 · robustness
Failed at Stage 1 (Quick-screen) — near-miss, 6 of 7 gates passed
S009 Failed 2026-05-31
Setup: Put credit spread on capitulation in an uptrend
put-credit-spread-capitulation-uptrend-v1 · magnitude
Failed at Stage 1 (Quick-screen)
S008 Failed 2026-05-30
Setup: Put-selling on capitulation in an uptrend
put-selling-capitulation-uptrend-v1 · magnitude
Failed at Stage 1 (Quick-screen)
S007 Failed 2026-05-29
Setup: 30-minute opening drift on speculative small caps (Coen)
coen-opening-drift-speccap-v1 · magnitude
Failed at Stage 1 (Quick-screen)
S006 Failed 2026-05-29
Setup: Overnight gap fade in low-vol regime
overnight-gap-fade-lowvol-v1 · magnitude
Failed at Stage 1 (Quick-screen)
S005 Failed 2026-05-29
Setup: Volume-spike with no follow-through (anti-signal)
volume-spike-no-followthrough-v1 · magnitude
Failed at Stage 1 (Quick-screen)
S004 Walk-forward 2026-05-30
Setup: Relative strength leadership with universe filter
rs-leadership-rotation-v1 · robustness
Failed at Stage 2 (Walk-forward validation)
S003 Failed 2026-05-29
Setup: Volatility contraction → expansion (NR7 variant)
vol-contraction-expansion-v1 · magnitude
Failed at Stage 1 (Quick-screen)
S002 Failed 2026-05-29
Setup: Vol-of-vol filter on classic breakout signals
vol-of-vol-filter-v1 · magnitude
Failed at Stage 1 (Quick-screen)
S001 Failed 2026-05-29
Setup: 52-week-high breakout with volume confirmation
52w-high-volume-confirm-v1 · magnitude
Failed at Stage 1 (Quick-screen)

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07 Jul 2026, 07:05