Paper experiment · Public record
The history of the experiment
The ledger is the record. This page is the short account of how that record came to exist, the rules it has been graded under, and its first days in order.
What the experiment is
The experiment began on Thursday, 22 October 2026. It is a paper experiment. No orders have ever been placed, no positions have ever been held, and no money has ever been at risk.
Each market weekday morning, one 0DTE QQQ options contract is suggested before the 06:30 PT open. The suggestion is built from overnight Nasdaq-100 futures action, the prior day’s QQQ range, and options data. One contract, one stated target, no alternates.
The same afternoon, the day is graded on a single question: did QQQ touch the stated target during the regular session? For a call, the session high must reach the target. For a put, the session low must reach it. Prints outside the regular session do not grade.
The rules, and how they changed
The rules are frozen between scheduled reviews. Two versions have applied so far.
Version 1.1, from 22 October 2026, set the grading basis. Graded returns are measured off the contract’s opening print, the price the ledger lists as Entry, and not off the previous day’s close. The previous close is a price nobody could have paid at the open, so it is context only.
Version 1.2, from 26 October 2026, added a second track, graded alongside the frozen rules and never instead of them. The shadow track applies an exit rule defined on QQQ itself. The opening range is QQQ’s high and low over the first fifteen minutes of the session, 06:30 to 06:45 PT. For a call, the stop is the opening-range low. For a put, the stop is 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 after arming, or expiry. Premium-percentage stops were considered and excluded.
An eight-week review is set for Thursday, 17 December 2026. The review may propose amendments to the rules. It applies none by itself.
The first days
Days 1 to 7, in the order they were graded. Expiry return is the contract’s value at expiry measured against its opening print, exactly as recorded in the ledger.
- Day 1 · Thu 22 Oct 2026 · QQQ 720 Put · Target 705 · WIN · Expiry return +113.4%
- Day 2 · Fri 23 Oct 2026 · QQQ 705 Call · Target 715 · LOSS · Expiry return -100.0%
- Day 3 · Mon 26 Oct 2026 · QQQ 705 Call · Target 715 · WIN · Expiry return +67.1%
- Day 4 · Tue 27 Oct 2026 · QQQ 715 Call · Target 720 · WIN · Expiry return +183.6%
- Day 5 · Wed 28 Oct 2026 · QQQ 725 Call · Target 728 · LOSS · Expiry return -82.7%
- Day 6 · Thu 29 Oct 2026 · QQQ 722 Put · Target 712 · WIN · Expiry return -5.2%
- Day 7 · Fri 30 Oct 2026 · QQQ 700 Put · Target 690 · WIN · Expiry return +80.0%
Day 6 states the experiment’s central complication in a single row. QQQ touched the target early in the session, so the day grades as a win. Held to expiry, the same contract returned -5.2% against Entry. Both statements are true, and the ledger prints both.
Standing record after Day 7: 5 wins, 2 losses.
The governing maxim was set by the person who commissioned the experiment:
“The record is less important than the understanding.”
That is why the losses are published at the same size as the wins, why the shadow track is kept separate instead of merged into a better-looking combined figure, and why no graded row is ever edited after the fact.
Back to The ledger. Each day also has its own page in the archive of every graded day.