An ongoing investment experiment
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COLBY VS.
THE MACHINES.
Human vs. Machine.
Same market. No excuses.
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Performance / Index
Observable baseline: 100Loading scoring status…
The experiment began October 27, 2026. Performance scoring begins at the first verified official close with complete contemporaneous evidence for all three competitors; the experiment day count does not restart. Missing closes are never reconstructed or plotted.
THE MACHINE
IS WATCHING.
ONLINE
LATEST
DECISION.
A decision, including when to wait.
THE RECORD.
Every cognition has a place.
The experiment
THREE WAYS
THROUGH THE MARKET.
01 / Colby
The human. My existing real Robinhood portfolio, managed by me.
02 / Trader
The machine. An autonomous AI agent with a dedicated real-money Robinhood account. $100 to start, plus $10 each U.S. trading day.
03 / VTI
The passive benchmark. Simulated, receiving the same contributions as Trader and immediately investing them in VTI.
One common measure
Contribution-adjusted normalized performance compares investment results while accounting for added capital. Each competitor begins at 100.
The constitution / Selected rules
FREEDOM.
WITH LIMITS.
$100Starting capital
+$10Each U.S. trading day
BUY / SELL / HOLDAutonomous decisions. Cash is allowed.
No margin. No leverage. No options. No crypto.
The permanent stop
A 25% contribution-adjusted drawdown from Trader’s prior official high-water mark means permanent death: OFFLINE.
Full methodology document — not yet linked.
How I built it
A BRAIN.
AND GUARDRAILS.
The model makes the investment decision. Python checks the rules, records what happened, and manages the execution path.
- Robinhood + AlpacaBrokerage, account, and market information from Robinhood; additional market evidence, news, and calendar data from Alpaca.
- Evidence packetResearch and account context assembled for the decision.
- OpenAI modelTrader’s decision-making brain.
- BUY / SELL / HOLDA decision and its supporting reasoning.
- Python validation + persistenceSafety rules, accounting, validation, and a saved record.
- Robinhood executionExecution happens in the separate trading system.
This portfolio is a read-only window into the experiment. It cannot place trades or request a cognition.