Trading journal — 2026-05-13

Morning plan

Account: equity $100,189.45 | cash $85,493.29 | 3 open positions (AKAM +5.5%, CPAY -1.5%, DDOG +0.4%) Mode: paper | halted: false

Candidate review (7 ideas screened → 2 planned)

Trade plan

Rationale

Q (gap_continuation): Qnity Electronics published Q1 2026 earnings call transcript pre-market. Gap +9.82% on 2.26x rel-vol is consistent with an earnings beat reaction. Gap >5% rules out earnings_drift (over-reaction risk); gap_continuation is the correct tag. Stop = 1.5x estimated ATR(14) ~$6; open routine should tighten to opening 5-min range low if tighter. Take profit at 2R ($186.34). Risk per trade: 29 × $9 = $261.

SNDK (mean_reversion): RSI(2) = 0.0 — at the extreme floor of the oversold threshold (<5), with stock confirmed above 200-day SMA. Multi-day sell-off (-6.12% today) has exhausted downside momentum on a technically intact longer-term trend. Mean reversion target: 5-day SMA or 2 trading days, whichever comes first. Stop = 1.5x estimated ATR(14) ~$50. Risk per trade: 3 × $75 = $225.

Macro context

• S&P 500 mixed: Dow futures lower, S&P 500/Nasdaq rising. Trump taking big-tech CEOs to China (Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang). AI chip export concerns are a sector headwind for semis (note: QCOM -11.4% on this).
• Inflation report caused S&P 500 to pull back from record high. Fear/Greed index in "Greed" zone — elevated overall market.
• BABA and VSH report earnings during the day. Watch for broad sentiment shifts.

Executed trades

Submitted: 2 | Rejected: 0 | Halted: false

Mid-day notes

Snapshot (12:30 ET): equity $99,836 | daily drawdown 0.164% | daily loss limit 2.0% | headroom 91.8% (1.836pp remaining)

Positions assessed from state/positions.json. Note: Q and SNDK orders were submitted this morning but are not yet reflected in the snapshot file — their current P&L is unknown; bracket orders are in place per submitted parameters.

• AKAM — hold — still profitable (+0.271%, +$13.20) but has given back most of the +5.5% morning unrealized gain. No thesis-break signal; bracket stop in place.
• CPAY — CLOSE RECOMMENDED — continuing to deteriorate (-2.162%, -$103.98), was already -1.5% at morning open. No documented entry rationale for this carry-over position; ongoing slide with Dow futures lower is a thesis-break signal. Attempted cli close-position CPAY — command requires user approval. Action pending.
• DDOG — hold — small reversal from +0.4% to -1.005% (-$48.24); within normal intraday noise, macro headwind (inflation pull-back) is broad. Bracket stop in place.
• Q — unknown — not in positions snapshot; gap_continuation thesis with Nasdaq rising macro context likely intact. Monitor.
• SNDK — unknown — not in positions snapshot; mean_reversion thesis faces semi sector headwind (AI chip export concerns, QCOM -11.4%). Monitor closely.

v2 TODO: tighten stop on AKAM to trail below current price given give-back of gains.

Post-close review

Note: svidday.cli report requires live Alpaca API access (approval pending at runtime); figures below are from the mid-day positions snapshot (12:30 ET) plus the morning plan. SPY close and final equity could not be fetched; equity_curve.csv was not updated.

Account (mid-day / best available):

• Equity $99,836.21 | Last equity $100,000.00 | Net P&L mid-day: –$163.79 (–0.164%)
• Cumulative alpha vs SPY: not computed (day 1, no prior equity curve row; baseline = 0.000000)

Per-trade outcomes:

Q (gap_continuation): 29 × $168.34, stop $159.34, target $186.34. Not visible in mid-day snapshot — bracket orders were submitted at open but either the limit did not fill by 12:30 or the snapshot file was not refreshed. Nasdaq rising was a macro tailwind. Final outcome unknown.

SNDK (mean_reversion): 3 × $1,452.48, stop $1,377.48, target $1,602.48. RSI(2)=0.0 was a textbook extreme, and the stock was above its 200-SMA. However, AI chip export restriction headlines drove QCOM –11.4% on the session; SNDK, as semiconductor memory, is in the same risk-off basket. The technical setup was valid; the macro environment was a direct contradiction. Final outcome unknown, but thesis was stressed intraday.

AKAM: Entered as carry-over with a +5.5% morning unrealized gain; by 12:30 ET had reverted to +0.271% (+$13.20). Mid-day note flagged a trailing-stop tighten as a v2 improvement. Whether the bracket stop triggered before close is unknown.

CPAY: Carry-over with no documented entry rationale — this is a process failure. Continued to slide to –2.162% (–$103.98) by 12:30 ET. Close was recommended by the mid-day routine but required user approval; the bracket stop was the only mechanical backstop. Dow lower on the day was an additional macro drag.

DDOG: Pulled back from +0.4% at open to –1.005% (–$48.24) by 12:30 ET, consistent with the broad inflation-driven market pull-back. Bracket stop in place; within expected volatility.

Lessons

Before entering an RSI(2) mean-reversion long, confirm no fresh sector-wide catalyst is actively driving the decline — export restrictions or regulatory news can convert an oversold extreme into the start of a new trend, not a bounce.