A public, pre-registered experiment
The Honest Bot Experiment
Five trading bots, rules frozen in advance, results published win or lose.
Scoreboard
Trendline
LONG$101,770
+1.77%
vs Benchmark: 0.00 pp
Benchmark
LONGThe bar to clear
$101,770
+1.77%
Snapback
CASH$101,638
+1.64%
vs Benchmark: -0.13 pp
Oracle
CASH$99,825
-0.17%
vs Benchmark: -1.95 pp
Coinflip
LONG$99,803
-0.20%
vs Benchmark: -1.97 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 | +1.77% | 0.81 | 3.38% | 1 |
| Snapback | +1.64% | 2.22 | 0.93% | 8 |
| Oracle | -0.17% | -0.52 | 0.68% | 6 |
| Benchmark | +1.77% | 0.81 | 3.38% | 1 |
| Coinflip | -0.20% | -0.07 | 3.64% | 31 |
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 September 18, 2026 · cnbc-markets
- 1.Why Japan’s markets flipped the usual script after central bank rate hike (Fri, 18 Sep 2026 07:40:29 GMT)
- 2.Bank of England defies Fed’s rate-hike lead, leaving rates unchanged (Thu, 17 Sep 2026 12:27:10 GMT)
- 3.'Science fiction': Transport companies — the backbone of economy — are sounding alarm on fuel prices (Wed, 16 Sep 2026 20:22:24 GMT)
- 4.Consumers hit by one-two punch of oil and rates from Iran war. The estimated bill is $1,700 per household (Wed, 16 Sep 2026 17:32:22 GMT)
- 5.UK inflation jumps to 3.1% as energy costs soar (Thu, 17 Sep 2026 07:36:04 GMT)
- 6.Indonesia's new finance minister faces an uphill battle on fiscal credibility (Wed, 16 Sep 2026 01:53:52 GMT)
- 7.Why de-dollarization discussions are more talk, less action (Tue, 15 Sep 2026 23:28:01 GMT)
- 8.Counting the votes: Warsh faces a tough battle as the Fed girds for expected interest rate hike (Mon, 14 Sep 2026 19:47:42 GMT)
- 9.Inflation is outpacing wage growth again, squeezing Americans’ paychecks (Sat, 12 Sep 2026 12:49:15 GMT)
- 10.Consumer outlook plunges in September as inflation outlook worsens (Fri, 11 Sep 2026 16:53:23 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: September 21, 2026
- close
- 761.69
- sma200
- 716.2816
- rsi2
- 64.0552
always LONG
| Date | Signals | Activity |
|---|---|---|
| Sep 21 | TLSCO·BLC· | · |
| Sep 18 | TLSCOCBLCL | Trendline div +$252Benchmark div +$252Coinflip div +$247 |
| Sep 17 | TLSCOCBLCL | · |
| Sep 16 | TLSCOCBLCL | · |
| Sep 15 | TLSCOCBLCL | Coinflip BUY @ 760.12 |
| Sep 14 | TLSCOCBLCC | Snapback SELL @ 759.00 |
| Sep 11 | TLSLOCBLCC | Snapback BUY @ 764.72 |
| Sep 10 | TLSCOCBLCC | Coinflip SELL @ 758.03 |
| Sep 9 | TLSCOCBLCL | · |
| Sep 8 | TLSCOCBLCL | Oracle SELL @ 769.07 |
| Sep 4 | TLSCOLBLCL | Oracle BUY @ 772.01Coinflip BUY @ 772.01Snapback SELL @ 772.01 |
| Sep 3 | TLSLOCBLCC | · |
| Sep 2 | TLSLOCBLCC | Snapback BUY @ 762.45Coinflip SELL @ 762.45 |
| Sep 1 | TLSCOCBLCL | Coinflip BUY @ 762.01 |
| Aug 31 | TLSCOCBLCC | Coinflip SELL @ 767.33 |
| 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 | · |
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.
113 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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