A public, pre-registered experiment
The Honest Bot Experiment
Five trading bots, rules frozen in advance, results published win or lose.
Scoreboard
Trendline
LONG$102,540
+2.54%
vs Benchmark: 0.00 pp
Benchmark
LONGThe bar to clear
$102,540
+2.54%
Coinflip
LONG$101,451
+1.45%
vs Benchmark: -1.09 pp
Snapback
CASH$101,177
+1.18%
vs Benchmark: -1.36 pp
Oracle
CASH$100,227
+0.23%
vs Benchmark: -2.31 pp
Equity curves
All five sleeves start from $100,000 in simulated cash. Fills are at official opening prices with a 0.01% cost per trade.
The numbers
| Bot | Total return | Sharpe (ann.) | Max drawdown | Trades |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trendline | +2.54% | 1.47 | 3.38% | 1 |
| Snapback | +1.18% | 3.27 | 0.23% | 4 |
| Oracle | +0.23% | 0.88 | 0.58% | 4 |
| Benchmark | +2.54% | 1.47 | 3.38% | 1 |
| Coinflip | +1.45% | 1.07 | 3.42% | 25 |
Backtest, for the record (Jan 2000 to Jun 2026, QuantConnect)
Trendline: 413.67% · Sharpe 0.263 · maxDD 24.2% · 173 orders
Snapback: 287.87% · Sharpe 0.183 · maxDD 34.5% · 605 orders
The forward test exists to measure the gap from these numbers. Oracle has no backtest, by design.
Oracle's corner
What Oracle read on August 31, 2026 · cnbc-markets
- 1.India’s economy expands 7.8% in fiscal first quarter, beating estimates (Mon, 31 Aug 2026 11:23:42 GMT)
- 2.Bank of England chief warns new AI models threaten global financial stability (Mon, 31 Aug 2026 10:18:59 GMT)
- 3.China's factory activity shrinks for second straight month, contracting less than expected (Mon, 31 Aug 2026 03:15:01 GMT)
- 4.Singapore tackles finances and culture to avert a demographic crisis (Sun, 30 Aug 2026 23:31:15 GMT)
- 5.K, C or E? Why economists can’t agree on the shape of today’s economy (Sat, 29 Aug 2026 20:22:12 GMT)
- 6.Fed Chairman Warsh expresses concern about inflation, advocates for 'quieter' central bank (Fri, 28 Aug 2026 16:11:51 GMT)
- 7.Fed's Hammack says 'now is the time to act' on raising interest rates (Thu, 27 Aug 2026 17:31:09 GMT)
- 8.Fed’s preferred inflation gauge shows core prices rose 3.3% annually in July (Wed, 26 Aug 2026 13:35:50 GMT)
- 9.Stanley Druckenmiller leads doubters who think Bessent's bond ploys will fail (Tue, 25 Aug 2026 17:15:50 GMT)
- 10.China needs U.S. dollars but is building a hedge against Washington’s sanctions (Tue, 25 Aug 2026 16:00:40 GMT)
Its answer, verbatim
"CASH"
The frozen prompt
You are deciding a one-day position in SPY (the S&P 500 ETF) based solely on this morning's headlines. Below are the ten most recent headlines from a major financial news feed, fetched at 9:00 AM Eastern on {DATE}.
{HEADLINES}
Based only on these headlines, decide whether to be LONG SPY for today's session or to hold CASH. Reply with exactly one word: LONG or CASH.
Daily log
Most recent: August 31, 2026
- close
- 769.35
- sma200
- 709.8463
- rsi2
- 59.5148
- source
- cnbc-markets
- headline_count
- 10
always LONG
- draw
- 1571811185
| Date | Signals | Activity |
|---|---|---|
| Aug 31 | TLSCOCBLCC | · |
| Aug 28 | TLSCOCBLCL | Coinflip BUY @ 771.76 |
| Aug 27 | TLSCOCBLCC | Coinflip SELL @ 768.50 |
| Aug 26 | TLSCOCBLCL | · |
| Aug 25 | TLSCOCBLCL | Coinflip BUY @ 766.16 |
| Aug 24 | TLSCOCBLCC | · |
| Aug 21 | TLSCOCBLCC | Coinflip SELL @ 766.05 |
| Aug 20 | TLSCOCBLCL | Coinflip BUY @ 765.96 |
| Aug 19 | TLSCOCBLCC | Coinflip SELL @ 770.36 |
| Aug 18 | TLSCOCBLCL | · |
| Aug 17 | TLSCOCBLCL | Coinflip BUY @ 776.18 |
| Aug 14 | TLSCOCBLCC | Coinflip SELL @ 778.54 |
| Aug 13 | TLSCOCBLCL | Oracle SELL @ 774.87 |
| Aug 12 | TLSCOLBLCL | Coinflip BUY @ 774.71Oracle BUY @ 774.71 |
| Aug 11 | TLSCOCBLCC | Coinflip SELL @ 774.53 |
| Aug 10 | TLSCOCBLCL | · |
| Aug 7 | TLSCOCBLCL | Coinflip BUY @ 771.02 |
| Aug 6 | TLSCOCBLCC | · |
| Aug 5 | TLSCOCBLCC | Coinflip SELL @ 775.85 |
| Aug 4 | TLSCOCBLCL | · |
Each chip: bot letter, then stance (L long, C cash). Bots: T Trendline · S Snapback · O Oracle · B Benchmark · C Coinflip
Changelog
July 6, 2026
Pre-launch reset. Cleared all provisional data generated during build and testing: trades, daily equity, signals, headlines, and run logs. Kept the SPY price history and the five strategy definitions. All public counters begin at zero for the launch window opening 2026-07-06.
84 pipeline runs, 0 errors. All public, including the errors.
Every table behind this page is publicly readable: prices, signals, trades, the daily ledger, the run log, and this changelog.
A bot wins only by beating Benchmark on both return and Sharpe over the full window. Six months can't distinguish skill from luck; that's what Coinflip is for.
Nothing here is investment advice. All money is simulated.
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