Rules of engagement

Strategy Rules

One clean rulebook: mandate, constraints, execution filters, and risk controls.

Mandate

Beat the benchmark without options

Beat the S&P 500 over the challenge window. Stocks only — no options, ever.

Operating constraints
Starting capital: ~$100,000 Platform: Alpaca Instruments: Stocks ONLY Margin framework: Alpaca intraday margin / real-time pre-trade checks replace PDT/day-trade-count gating as of June 4, 2026
Rulebook

Grouped by how the decision is made

11 active rules

Hard guardrails

  1. 1 NO OPTIONS — ever
  2. 8 No fixed weekly trade-count cap; avoid overtrading, but entries are governed by setup quality, max positions, max size, buying power, and Alpaca intraday margin / real-time pre-trade checks
  3. 11 Patience > activity

Portfolio shape

  1. 2 75-85% deployed
  2. 3 5-6 positions at a time, max 20% each

Risk controls

  1. 4 10% trailing stop on every position as a real GTC order
  2. 5 Cut losers at -7% manually
  3. 6 Tighten trail: 7% at +15%, 5% at +20%
  4. 7 Never within 3% of current price; never move a stop down

Sector discipline

  1. 9 Follow sector momentum
  2. 10 Exit a sector after 2 consecutive failed trades
Entry checklist

Every candidate must answer these first

Specific catalyst?
Sector in momentum?
Stop level (7-10% below entry)
Target (min 2:1 R:R)