Run 3 Update: −7.5%, and the Daily Loss Guard Just Earned Its Keep

Overnight, the High bot closed out its open positions, and the tape is ugly. Here are the exact numbers from the trade log — no smoothing, no cherry-picking.

What closed overnight

• CATONICE — 1-hour exit +8.7% (+$1.90). Textbook fast exit on an in-band play (liquidity $63,162).
• CATONICE rebuy — stop-out −72.4% (−$18.16). The re-entry collapsed and hit the hard stop. This is the biggest single loss of Run 3 so far.
• startupSI — 1-hour exit −20.4% (−$5.29). Entered at $243,615 liquidity, well above our fast-exit band.
• Doomsday — 1-hour exit +8.8% (+$1.93). Entered at $68,638 liquidity.

Net of the cycle: two small wins (+$3.83 combined) against two losses (−$23.45 combined). The one catastrophic stop-out decided the day.

The daily loss guard stepped in

The bot's rules include a daily loss guard: if the portfolio drops 4.4% in a single day, new entries are blocked for 24 hours. It tripped this morning — no new positions until tomorrow.

That's not a bug. The guard exists precisely for mornings like this one: after a −72.4% stop-out, the worst thing a momentum system can do is keep firing. The 24-hour pause forces a cooldown. All cash sits at $924.71, flat, until the timer clears.

Why we publish this

Most "trading bots" marketing shows you a green equity curve and hides the rest. We're doing the opposite on purpose: paper trading only, every trade public, losers included. A strategy that can't survive daylight isn't a strategy — and the only way to know is to watch the red days too.

Run 3 is down 7.5% after 23 trades with a 39% win rate. The exits work; the entries are the problem. That's the honest read, and it's exactly what the bake-off is designed to measure.