Today was a genuinely unsettling day in the markets — stocks fell broadly, gold dropped sharply, and anxiety about a possible US strike on Iran pushed oil prices higher and sent volatility spiking.

Most of the automated traders had a rough go of it. The options-momentum trader, Agent 6, closed a long list of positions — the majority at a loss as the market slid — though a few winners like a big gain on CME helped soften the blow, and it remains the portfolio's strongest performer overall. The two dip-buying strategies that have been doing well all year each took a few stops too, trimming positions that had moved against them. On the other side of the ledger, the trader that bets against the market (holding inverse funds that rise when stocks fall) quietly had a good day, and the one shorting tech benefited as well. The gold strategy is having a painful stretch — gold fell over 4% today, a strange move given the geopolitical backdrop, and that account is now down significantly from where it started.

The portfolio as a whole is still comfortably ahead of where it began, but today was a reminder that even a well-diversified set of strategies can get knocked around when the world feels genuinely uncertain.