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Wednesday, July 22, 2026
Today was an unsettled day across the board — markets drifted slightly lower, with smaller companies taking the biggest hit, and a tense geopolitical backdrop around Iran and the Middle East kept investors cautious.
Among the automated traders, the dip-buyers continued to be the bright spot. Two of them quietly booked gains by hitting their price targets on a handful of positions, and one — the version that learns and adjusts over time — has now grown its account more than 7% since the start, a quiet testament to patience. The gold trader had a rough day in the other direction: it's been sitting in a single gold position that has moved sharply against it, and today gold actually rose, but not enough to undo the damage already done. The strategies betting against the market — one holding inverse funds, another shorting tech — continue to struggle as stocks have generally held up better than they expected.
All told, the portfolio sits about 1.3% below where it started, and today didn't change that picture much — a cautious, grinding kind of day rather than anything dramatic.