A public, pre-registered experiment
The Honest Bot Experiment
Five trading bots, rules frozen in advance, results published win or lose.
Scoreboard
Trendline
LONG$102,701
+2.70%
vs Benchmark: 0.00 pp
Benchmark
LONGThe bar to clear
$102,701
+2.70%
Coinflip
CASH$101,803
+1.80%
vs Benchmark: -0.90 pp
Snapback
CASH$101,177
+1.18%
vs Benchmark: -1.52 pp
Oracle
CASH$100,226
+0.23%
vs Benchmark: -2.47 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 | +2.70% | 2.05 | 3.38% | 1 |
| Snapback | +1.18% | 4.03 | 0.23% | 4 |
| Oracle | +0.23% | 1.40 | 0.28% | 2 |
| Benchmark | +2.70% | 2.05 | 3.38% | 1 |
| Coinflip | +1.80% | 1.75 | 3.42% | 16 |
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 11, 2026 · cnbc-markets
- 1.Here are three key takeaways from the disappointing July jobs report (Fri, 07 Aug 2026 18:09:18 GMT)
- 2.U.S. economy unexpectedly lost 23,000 jobs in July (Fri, 07 Aug 2026 19:14:22 GMT)
- 3.The July jobs numbers are due out Friday. Here's what to expect (Fri, 07 Aug 2026 11:23:07 GMT)
- 4.Private companies added just 44,000 workers in July, below expectations, ADP reports (Wed, 05 Aug 2026 15:08:46 GMT)
- 5.Europe is blowing up riverbeds as an extreme drought wreaks havoc on its economy (Wed, 05 Aug 2026 07:15:17 GMT)
- 6.Manufacturing survey shows inflation worries 'worse than pandemic era,' adding to Fed pressure (Tue, 04 Aug 2026 14:42:39 GMT)
- 7.As Warsh’s Fed faces pressure to act on inflation, these indicators show it’s at its lowest in years (Fri, 31 Jul 2026 16:51:30 GMT)
- 8.China's factory activity unexpectedly contracts in July on demand slump, typhoons (Fri, 31 Jul 2026 03:49:55 GMT)
- 9.U.S. economy slowed to 1.5% growth rate in Q2; June core inflation at 3.3% (Thu, 30 Jul 2026 15:04:43 GMT)
- 10.What a divided Fed means for investors (Wed, 29 Jul 2026 23:36:34 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 12, 2026
- close
- 770.56
- sma200
- 703.993
- rsi2
- 39.4165
always LONG
| Date | Signals | Activity |
|---|---|---|
| Aug 12 | TLSCO·BLC· | · |
| 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 | · |
| Aug 3 | TLSCOCBLCL | Coinflip BUY @ 749.44 |
| Jul 31 | TLSCOCBLCC | Snapback SELL @ 744.68 |
| Jul 30 | TLSLOCBLCC | Snapback BUY @ 736.05 |
| Jul 29 | TLSCOCBLCC | · |
| Jul 28 | TLSCOCBLCC | Coinflip SELL @ 739.19 |
| Jul 27 | TLSCOCBLCL | Coinflip BUY @ 744.91 |
| Jul 24 | TLSCOCBLCC | Coinflip SELL @ 738.51 |
| Jul 23 | TLSCOCBLCL | · |
| Jul 22 | TLSCOCBLCL | Snapback SELL @ 746.62Coinflip BUY @ 746.62 |
| Jul 21 | TLSLOCBLCC | Snapback BUY @ 746.29Coinflip SELL @ 746.29 |
| Jul 20 | TLSCOCBLCL | Coinflip BUY @ 747.06 |
| Jul 17 | TLSCOCBLCC | Coinflip SELL @ 742.08 |
| Jul 16 | TLSCOCBLCL | Coinflip BUY @ 752.76Oracle SELL @ 752.76 |
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.
56 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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