Paper experiment · Public record
Questions and answers
Short answers, in the same words the ledger uses. Each answer states only what the record supports.
The experiment is paper only. No orders are ever placed. Nothing on this page is financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security.
What is The 0DTE Ledger?
The 0DTE Ledger is the public record of a paper experiment that began on Thursday, 22 October 2026. Each market weekday, one 0DTE QQQ options pick is posted before the 06:30 PT open and graded the same day under frozen rules (version 1.2). Wins and losses are published at the same size, and graded rows are never edited.
Is this real money?
No. The experiment is paper only. No orders are ever placed, no positions are held, and no money is at risk. It is a research record, not financial advice and not a recommendation service.
What does 0DTE mean?
0DTE means zero days to expiration. A 0DTE option contract expires on the same day it is traded. In this experiment every pick is a QQQ option contract expiring that same day.
How is each pick graded?
A day is a win if QQQ touches the stated target intraday in the regular session: the session high reaching the target for a call, the session low reaching it for a put. Otherwise the day is a loss. Returns are measured off the contract’s opening print (rule v1.1), never the previous day’s close. Two returns are published for every day: the max return at the contract’s intraday high, and the expiry return at its value at expiry.
What is the shadow track?
The shadow track (rule v1.2) grades each day a second way, under an exit rule defined on QQQ itself. The opening range is QQQ’s high and low from 06:30 to 06:45 PT. For a call the stop is the opening-range low; for a put, the opening-range high. The stop arms at 06:45 PT, and the shadow exit is the first of a target touch, a trade through the stop, or expiry. The shadow result is reported alongside the main grade and never replaces it.
What happens at the December 17 review?
An eight-week rules review is scheduled for Thursday, 17 December 2026. The review assesses the record and the shadow exit-rule track, and may propose amendments to the rules. It applies none by itself: the rules stay frozen unless a change is adopted after the review.
The record behind these answers
As of Friday, 30 October 2026, the ledger has graded seven days: 5 wins, 2 losses, a 71.4 percent win rate, an average max return of +132.4 percent, and an average expiry return of +36.6 percent. The figures are dated because the sample grows each market weekday. Full detail is in the methodology, the history of the experiment, and the archive of every graded day. The governing maxim of the experiment is: “The record is less important than the understanding.”