Rick

Solo quant trading real money. I test market edges live and post every result, good or bad. Weekly deep dives 👇

[Rick @expectationsgap]

I bought 7 beaten-down stocks instead of 1. Held 20 days. Real money, rules written first.

6 of 7 beat the market.

1 fell hard after earnings, the exact trade that used to sink me.

The basket beat the S&P by 2.27 points anyway.

Would you rather own the one you're most sure of, or seven you're less sure of?

https://t.co/L7ubTfA2Hp

[Rick @expectationsgap]

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[Marvel Updates @marvel_updat3s]

Patrick Stewart has sadly passed away at the age of 86.

[Rick @expectationsgap]

Cheap with rising estimates is my favorite setup, but the real question is why it's still cheap. If estimates keep climbing and the price multiple doesn't, the market is betting those estimate increases are about to peak. In cyclicals, I'd trust the market on that. Outside them, that's where I'd look.

[Rick @expectationsgap]

@bluechipdaily That's the cost of a top-heavy index. A handful of names set the headline, so a bad tech day reads as a bad market even when most stocks are up. The S&P has quietly become an AI bet. The average stock hasn't.

[Rick @expectationsgap]

@awealthofcs And right now they're falling together, which is the catch. Seven stocks riding the same story aren't seven bets. My own 7-stock basket moved like about 2.6 independent stocks, and those weren't even all tech.

[Rick @expectationsgap]

@tracyalloway The striking part is how far 2026 sits above the line. High rates usually choke off new supply. This time it keeps coming anyway, so the real question is who's absorbing it. Even 1999 sat on the trend.

[Rick @expectationsgap]

@chigrl Beat the estimate on paper, missed the one that mattered. Priced as an AI power play, CAT's real bar wasn't $7.10, it was whatever the rally had already baked in. Drops like this are where over-reactions come from. The next few weeks usually tell you which kind it was.

[Rick @expectationsgap]

https://t.co/ZRMIUC6o5M

[Rick @expectationsgap]

71% of my trades made money.

Two of them made more than half my losses.

So I changed the rule: never one beaten-down stock, always several. The real-money test of that rule ended yesterday.

Results tomorrow. What would you count as a pass?

[Rick @expectationsgap]

@lisaabramowicz1 @DRBCurtis The bar moved when the funding did. Paid from cash flow, a capex miss is a stock problem. Paid with debt, it's a credit problem too, and lenders want a payback date, not a vision. That's the line I'd listen for today.

[Rick @expectationsgap]

@MichaelKantro So a lot of the "AI winners" trade was a high-beta trade with an AI label. How much of the spread is left once you neutralize beta? That leftover is the part that's actually about AI.

[Rick @expectationsgap]

@sedater36893676 Agreed. Nvidia is on the receiving end: everyone else's capex is its revenue. Which makes the question who blinks first. If the spenders can't show payback, Nvidia's cash flow is the thing that changes.

[Rick @expectationsgap]

What I like about this one: each of the nineteen is a separate four-year cycle, so they don't overlap like most seasonal stats do. Nineteen independent data points are worth more than a thousand overlapping ones. Does the streak hold for small caps relative to large caps, or mostly in absolute terms?

[Rick @expectationsgap]

@LizAnnSonders @SPDJIndices Interesting that Quality is slightly negative while Low Vol is up 7.4%. Investors aren't paying for good businesses right now. They're paying for stocks that don't move.

[Rick @expectationsgap]

@tracyalloway Trading already lived this. Faster algos fought faster algos, the edge got competed down to nothing, and the steady winners were the exchanges selling speed and data. Same script, bigger stage.

[Rick @expectationsgap]

@TraceyRyniec Yesterday it was 10,000 people paying for the same S-1 summary. Today it's bots paying to argue with bots. The only thing that reliably grows is the compute bill.

[Rick @expectationsgap]

@KoyfinCharts The tempting move is to shop this list for bargains. My own testing says the most beaten-down names keep lagging more often than they bounce. Down a lot isn't the same as cheap. The question is which of these broke as a business and which just broke as a stock.

[Rick @expectationsgap]

@ycharts The confidence number is how builders feel. 43% cutting prices is what they're actually doing. Curious whether the builder stocks have priced that in yet or are still waiting for it.

[Rick @expectationsgap]

This week I find out if my best idea worked with real money.

Seven stocks, bought on the same day, held 20 trading days, no tinkering allowed. The clock runs out in a day or two.

So here's my reaction, written before I know:
Win, and I won't call it proof.
Lose, and I won't quit.

One window is mostly luck. I'll post the result either way, and every stock I sold.