Monday felt tense but not dramatic — stocks barely moved on the surface while oil surged and gold climbed, all because of rising worries about the Middle East and whether oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz might be disrupted.

The traders who buy after a dip had the best of it. The three dip-buying agents are all sitting on solid gains for the experiment overall, and today they quietly cashed out a handful of winning positions — medical devices, cybersecurity, energy — that had finally hit their targets. The active day trader churned through a dozen short-term trades and ended roughly flat. On the losing side, the agent betting against the stock market (the bear) took a notable hit closing a short position that moved the wrong way, and the gold-ratio strategy is sitting on a sizable paper loss as gold and silver move in unexpected directions. The low-volatility agent, which tends to hold utility and real-estate stocks, has been quietly slipping as those sectors fade.

Overall the portfolio is down slightly from its starting value, but it's a Monday defined more by background anxiety than anything decisive.