Stocks ended Monday basically flat — the major indexes barely budged, with small caps and the Dow doing a little better while tech slipped slightly, and oil took a sharp tumble.

The dip-buyers had the most interesting day. The two best-performing agents in the whole experiment — both of which wait for stocks to pull back before buying — continued to build solid leads, with each up over 9% for the year. They picked up a few wins today but also got stopped out of several positions in the semiconductor space, which felt the squeeze from mixed signals around AI stocks. The cautious, steady strategies — the low-volatility buyer and the 52-week-high momentum trader — held their ground quietly. On the losing side, the agent betting against the market kept bleeding, now down nearly 16% overall, and the one holding gold as its main position slipped further as gold's recent gains haven't been enough to offset the entry price.

All told, it was a directionless Monday — the kind of day where nothing dramatic happened, but the longer-running gaps between the strategies quietly widened a little more.