2026-08-19 · 4 min read
Session edge, AI coach verdict, and running P&L for 2026-08-19.
Trim Review
How much of today's result was carried by a few outliers? The table recomputes the core session stats with the biggest movers removed. Trimmed rows are colored vs baseline: green = holds most of the move, amber = meaningful erosion, red = collapses or flips sign.
| Scenario | Trades | Net P&L | Total R | E[R] / trade | $ WR | PF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baseline (all trades) | 75 | +$1268.52 | +1.58R | +0.021R | 46.7% | 1.11 |
| − single best + single worst | 73 | +$1934.44 | +2.41R | +0.033R | 46.6% | 1.20 |
| − top 4 + bottom 4 (≈5% each tail) | 67 | +$1767.74 | +2.20R | +0.033R | 46.3% | 1.28 |
Trimmed trades: Single best + single worst — removed YJ +$1419.14 (best) · MSS −$2085.06 (worst). Top 4 + bottom 4 — removed 4 from each tail (by $ P&L).
Broad green session: still clearly green after trimming the biggest movers, so the day was a stack of small plus-EV decisions compounding — not a few home runs.
Session verdict
{"dayVerdict":"The day's biggest move by far was ZSTK, which ran from an open of $2.29 to a high of $12.40 at 12:07pm ET — a 441.5% swing — before giving back most of it to close at $4.96, retaining 26% of the move. Your only ZSTK trade came at 12:34pm, after the high, and you still pulled $1.23k (+1.53R) out of the pullback stage, a reasonable share of a move that size given you weren't there for the top.
SKK offered a smaller but still real move, +82.8% from $4.82 to $8.81 at 10:29am, and your 9:49am entry — 40 minutes before the high — turned into +$1.01k, one of the better-timed trades of the day. RDAC topped at $22.28 at 9:52am, up 66.4% from the open, and your entry landed right at 9:52am for +$851; the stock then collapsed to $8.78, losing 152% of its move by the close, so getting out near the top mattered.
The other side of the day was YJ, which barely moved at all — only 10.7% from open to its 9:24am high before round-tripping hard to close down 27.6% from the open, the weakest mover you traded and one of the weakest in the market that day. You still took four material positions in it between 8:27am and 9:31am, netting roughly +$360 combined across two losses (-$1.21k, -$899.79) and two wins (+$1.42k, +$1.05k) — a lot of activity spent on a name that offered almost nothing directionally.
VRAX made its high of $4.66 (+43.8%) at 8:00am and had already round-tripped to flat by the time you bought at 9:55am, costing you $1.01k on a move that was effectively over. Across the day, the runners that actually delivered size — ZSTK, SKK, RDAC — were traded reasonably well relative to what they offered, while the weakest mover of your day (YJ) absorbed the most attention and trades.
Four other runners today moved 30% or more from the open — LOOP, ZNB, BIVI, TNON — and none were traded, sizing the opportunity cost against a net day of $1.27k on 75 positions.
Across the last week's runners, halted names held up noticeably better than non-halted ones: of the 9 runner-instances with at least one halt (including ZSTK and SKK today, plus WETO 8/17, AIXC, PSQH, CDTG, MDXH, MF, STFS), 6 retained 20% or more of their open-to-high move into the close, versus a much wider spread of deep bleeders among the zero-halt names — RDAC (-52%), YJ (-257%), SGLY (-106%), UCL (-91%), IVF (-85%), OFAL 8/12 (-94%). Your two halted trades today, ZSTK and SKK, both fit the holder profile (26% and 23% retained); your two non-halted trades, RDAC and VRAX, sit with the bleeders (-52% and -4%), and YJ — also non-halted — was the worst bleeder of the bunch at -257%.
One structural note worth flagging: the 12:30-1:00pm window has been green in 10 of the last 13 trading days for a $7.8k total over 20 days, and again 3 of 4 days over the last week for +$2.8k. Today's ZSTK entry landed in that window and contributed to a $1.61k result there, consistent with that pattern rather than a one-off."}