A public, pre-registered experiment
The Honest Bot Experiment
Five trading bots, rules frozen in advance, results published win or lose.
Scoreboard
Snapback
CASH$102,271
+2.27%
vs Benchmark: +1.30 pp
Trendline
LONG$100,975
+0.97%
vs Benchmark: 0.00 pp
Benchmark
LONGThe bar to clear
$100,975
+0.97%
Oracle
CASH$99,825
-0.17%
vs Benchmark: -1.15 pp
Coinflip
CASH$98,955
-1.04%
vs Benchmark: -2.02 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 | +0.97% | 0.32 | 3.38% | 1 |
| Snapback | +2.27% | 1.83 | 1.32% | 10 |
| Oracle | -0.17% | -0.42 | 0.68% | 6 |
| Benchmark | +0.97% | 0.32 | 3.38% | 1 |
| Coinflip | -1.04% | -0.33 | 3.64% | 46 |
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 October 30, 2026 · cnbc-markets
- 1.Euro zone economy slows to 0.4% growth in Q3 as crisis-hit France contracts (Fri, 30 Oct 2026 11:16:46 GMT)
- 2.European Central Bank keeps key interest rate on hold at 2.5% (Thu, 29 Oct 2026 14:48:01 GMT)
- 3.Third-quarter U.S. GDP increases a better-than-expected 3.4% as September inflation accelerates (Thu, 29 Oct 2026 18:06:31 GMT)
- 4.The politics of President Lagarde's European Central Bank early exit — and who could replace her (Thu, 29 Oct 2026 14:53:06 GMT)
- 5.Analysis: Kevin Warsh is keeping Wall Street guessing. It may be his most powerful tool (Thu, 29 Oct 2026 17:32:34 GMT)
- 6.Here are five key takeaways from the Fed rate decision and Warsh news conference (Wed, 28 Oct 2026 21:31:46 GMT)
- 7.Bessent says 'not necessarily' a mistake if the Fed hikes again (Wed, 28 Oct 2026 21:06:37 GMT)
- 8.The UK cuts energy bills, taxes banks and boosts defense in high-stakes budget (Wed, 28 Oct 2026 15:39:14 GMT)
- 9.World Bank's Banga: Availability of capital 'not really an issue' as AI demand drives up borrowing costs (Tue, 27 Oct 2026 16:15:35 GMT)
- 10.Fed rate hikes are coming, but not this week: CNBC survey (Tue, 27 Oct 2026 15:51:00 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: November 2, 2026
- close
- 755.72
- sma200
- 728.8541
- rsi2
- 9.3379
always LONG
| Date | Signals | Activity |
|---|---|---|
| Nov 2 | TLSLO·BLC· | · |
| Oct 30 | TLSCOCBLCC | · |
| Oct 29 | TLSCOCBLCC | Coinflip SELL @ 768.79 |
| Oct 28 | TLSCOCBLCL | Coinflip BUY @ 771.43 |
| Oct 27 | TLSCOCBLCC | · |
| Oct 26 | TLSCOCBLCC | · |
| Oct 23 | TLSCOCBLCC | Coinflip SELL @ 759.90 |
| Oct 22 | TLSCOCBLCL | Coinflip BUY @ 766.37 |
| Oct 21 | TLSCOCBLCC | Coinflip SELL @ 771.17Snapback SELL @ 771.17 |
| Oct 20 | TLSLOCBLCL | · |
| Oct 19 | TLSLOCBLCL | · |
| Oct 16 | TLSLOCBLCL | Coinflip BUY @ 773.24 |
| Oct 15 | TLSLOCBLCC | Snapback BUY @ 766.25Coinflip SELL @ 766.25 |
| Oct 14 | TLSCOCBLCL | Coinflip BUY @ 774.92 |
| Oct 13 | TLSCOCBLCC | Coinflip SELL @ 777.34 |
| Oct 12 | TLSCOCBLCL | Coinflip BUY @ 778.78 |
| Oct 9 | TLSCOCBLCC | Coinflip SELL @ 776.24 |
| Oct 8 | TLSCOCBLCL | · |
| Oct 7 | TLSCOCBLCL | Coinflip BUY @ 775.77 |
| Oct 6 | TLSCOCBLCC | Coinflip SELL @ 778.15 |
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.
175 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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