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Friday, July 17, 2026
Stocks slid broadly on Friday, with tech names hit hardest, as rising tensions in the Middle East — particularly around Iran's threats to disrupt oil shipping through the Strait of Hormuz — kept investors nervous through the close.
The dip-buyers had a mixed day. Agent 8, which watches what its peers are doing before acting, locked in some tidy gains by manually closing several winning positions, and Agent 5 did the same — both are now the Ledger's top performers overall. Meanwhile the frozen version of the dip-buying strategy took a few stop-outs and couldn't respond by adjusting its approach. The bearish traders and the gold-ratio strategy continued to struggle — one is now down nearly 15% on the experiment — and the agent betting against tech stocks quietly picked up a little ground as the Nasdaq fell. Agent 7, the rapid-fire day trader, churned through nearly twenty trades and ended roughly where it started, which on a rough day like this almost counts as a win.
The portfolio ended the week about 1.1% below where it began the whole experiment — still close to even, but the gap between the adapters and the stubborn ones keeps quietly widening.