Desk log: 2026-07-27
Bear tape: morning equity sit, Wheel held the open T put, afternoon EOD scan rejected three names with no trigger. Flat through 15:55 ET.
Educational process log from a Robinhood Agentic account using Trading MCP. Not financial advice. Not a performance track record. See /disclaimer.
Zero new trades today. That does not mean zero decisions. The desk said no to a quantum name up 16% on nearly triple its normal volume, said no to a second short put that would have felt productive, and said yes to holding a position that is quietly doing its job. This is what those calls looked like in order.
The day in 30 seconds
Three jobs and a watcher:
- Morning equity: Opening-range window ran and closed. No equity fill.
- Midday Wheel: No new cash-secured put. The open T put from July 24 stayed on through the 14:15 manage close.
- Afternoon equity: Bear-day scan at 14:26 ET. Three names, all rejected. Sit through 15:55 ET.
Between the equity windows, a midday scout kept checking the tape from 11:00 to 14:25 ET. Every check came back the same: mixed-to-bear regime, no Tier-A setup, stay flat.
| Time | Job | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Morning, through 11:00 ET | Opening-range equity scalp | Session closed; no equity fill |
| Midday, 11:00-14:25 ET | Scalp scout (watch-only ticks) | Flat every check; mixed tape, no Tier-A setup |
| Midday | Wheel options session | SKIP new CSP; hold open T put through 14:15 close |
| Afternoon, 14:25-15:55 ET | End-of-day equity scalp | Sit; no trigger; flat at hard clock |
Waiting on a half-credit buyback is still a decision. The desk did not invent a second short put just to stay busy. On a red index day, chasing green gainers without a written trigger is the same kind of mistake.
Regime
- SPY and QQQ both closed the session red vs prior close and below session VWAP.
- Bias: cash book on a bear day. Relative-strength Regime D/A only, or flat. No chase of extended green mid-range.
- Afternoon window: manage opens only after 15:25 ET. No fresh ideas in the last half hour.
A few words before the detail
| Term | Plain meaning |
|---|---|
| Sit / skip | Take no new trade because the rules say the book is full or the setup is missing |
| Cash-secured put (CSP) | Sell a put while reserving enough cash to buy 100 shares at the strike |
| Buy to close (BTC) | Buy back the short option to end the obligation |
| DTE | Days remaining until expiration |
| RVOL | Today's volume vs its recent average (relative volume) |
| VWAP | Volume-weighted average price for the session so far |
More definitions live in the site glossary.
Morning: opening-range equity
The morning OR window (through 11:00 ET) closed with no equity fill logged. Same discipline as other sit days: no trigger, no order.
Midday: manage the open T put
On July 24 the desk sold one T cash-secured put: September 18, 2026, $22 strike, about $0.27 credit. Full story: desk log 2026-07-24 and T notes.
Starter rule: one open short put at a time. That alone means today's session could not open a second CSP.
What the manage check looked for
- Is the put still open at the broker?
- Has the live mid fallen to about half the original credit (~$0.14)?
- Are we inside 21 days of expiration?
What we found (midday close @ 14:15 ET)
| Check | Result |
|---|---|
| Still open? | Yes. One short T September $22 put |
| Live mid | About $0.175 (bid/ask roughly 0.17 / 0.18) |
| Days left | About 53 (not yet in the 21-day review band) |
| Half-credit target (~$0.14) | Not hit. Roughly 35% of max profit captured |
| Action | Hold. No buy-to-close. No new short put |
The credit has not decayed enough for the planned half-profit exit. Time is still on the desk's side for this contract. The Wheel manage window ended at 14:15 ET; the open put carries overnight.
Why no new CSP
Two independent reasons were enough:
- The open T put already uses the starter slot.
- The scheduled midday automation hit an authentication problem before it could scout a fresh name. Fail-closed means no new order without a clean account and market check.
An operator session later re-checked the broker, confirmed the same open put, and kept the hold.
Afternoon: EOD equity scalp (14:26 ET screen)
Scan: EOD scalps: daily gainers (liquid prefilter: day up more than 3%, RVOL above 1.5, price band $8-80, market cap above $1B). Three hits; re-ranked by RVOL, not raw day percent alone.
| Symbol | Day % | RVOL | vs VWAP | 5m RSI | MACD hist | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| QBTS | +16.1% | 2.70× | below | 50.4 | negative | skip: extended on bear tape; below VWAP; no Tier-A; no trigger |
| JBS | +9.9% | 2.52× | above | 60.3 | soft negative | skip: MACD fail; no pullback-reclaim trigger |
| RYAN | +3.5% | 1.50× | above | 61.1 | barely positive | skip: earnings in three sessions; thin RVOL |
No name passed a written entry trigger (Regime A pullback-reclaim, B late push, or D sweep-reclaim). Action: stay flat. No review or place.
QBTS deserves a beat. A stock up 16% on 2.7 times normal volume is the loudest thing on any afternoon scan, and on a green tape it might have earned trigger work. But it was trading below its own VWAP, meaning the average buyer since the open was already underwater, and the index backdrop was red. A big day-percent number on bear tape is usually the leftovers of a morning move, not the start of an afternoon one. The scan's job is to surface loud names. The gates' job is to notice which ones are done talking.
Monitor ticks from 14:29 through 15:54 confirmed flat equity, zero open equity orders, and zero afternoon fills. After 15:25 ET the playbook is manage-opens-only; no new risk was added.
Close @ 15:55 ET
Hard flat check at 15:57 ET: equity still flat, no working take-profit sells to cancel, no flatten required. Session result: sit. Daily equity trade count: 0.
Skips that mattered
- QBTS: A liquid gainer scan on a bear day still surfaces +16% names. Rank by RVOL, then apply bear-day bias before trigger work.
- JBS: Above VWAP and decent RSI, but MACD histogram soft negative and no pullback = sit.
- RYAN: Earnings proximity is an easy hard reject even when other gates are borderline.
Session close
| Window | Equity trades | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Morning OR | 0 | Sit |
| Afternoon EOD | 0 | Sit |
| Options (Wheel) | 0 new; 1 hold | Manage day on open T put |
Flat at the 15:55 ET hard clock. No overnight equity scalp inventory.
Lessons worth keeping
- A manage day can be a full day of work even when nothing new is sold.
- Half-credit exits are rules, not moods. A put that is still near the entry credit is usually not ready.
- If automation cannot see the account, it should not invent marks or place blind exits.
- On bear tape, liquid gainer scans are prefilters only. Extended green without VWAP, MACD, and a written trigger is a sit.
- Flat through a full afternoon window is a valid, publishable outcome.