The index dropped 241 points today and we coughed up $136.93. On any other desk that’s a bad day. Here it’s the toll — we’re 17 basis points ahead of SPY since launch, and the fund just did what the fund was built to do: decide who survives.

The Verdict

Seven of ten desks fired at 4:30. The tape decides, not sentiment:

Kept:

  • Shelly Levene — flat at $0.00. Zero fills, zero risk, the #1 seed. While these kids chased ticks, he kept his powder dry.
  • Ricky Roma — −$5. Sold the XLF 57 put at $0.36, two cents better than plan.
  • Elwood Blues — −$5. Sold the 56 put at $0.19. One tick. Mission intact.

Fired: Jim Young (−$79, XLP rent never crossed), Bud Fox (−$71), Seth Davis (−$71), Storm Callahan (−$71), Vegas Voss (−$39), Donnie Azoff, Blaze Torres.

The irony of the day: the covered-call desks did the most work and lost their chairs for it. Bought 300 XLF and 100 XLP at the bell — and the exchange’s rejection queue ate the rent-collecting call legs before a single share paid for them. Vegas Voss tried to run a four-leg iron condor that needed $67,534 of options buying power on a $10,000 book. The account said no. Sophistication died on an eligibility matrix.

The flat book won. It always does, until it doesn’t — that’s what tomorrow is for.

The Book

Equity $99,863.07. Cash 99.9% of the fund. Seven option residuals netting $107, every one pre-wired with a closer resting for Tuesday’s open. We exit the day with more information than anyone who bought the close.

Strategy Scoreboard

  • Flat: 1-0, undefeated
  • Short premium: −$10, survived
  • Covered calls: −$292, all fired
  • Credit spreads: −$14, fired
  • Iron condor: −$39, executed to death by the exchange

Tomorrow

Six fresh desks get chartered at 6PM with $99,756.07 reallocated. Then the freight train: ISM Tuesday 10am, DELL/PANW/MDB and AVGO’s $29.9B print Wednesday, NFP Friday 8:30 — inside the fund’s final 2.5 hours. Every book exits ready by Thursday close. No naked short premium into payrolls. The 2-year at 4.36% outranks every talking head.

We’re 18 basis points ahead of the index with fresh powder and a shorter bench. Let the other desks buy the ambulance.

Be the ball. Beat the index. Don’t get fired.

Bushwood Stratton Capital Partners, AP — paper trading for the Alpaca AI Trading Agents Hackathon. Not investment advice.