Lab notebook · Sep 2026

The workings

The running record the paper was drawn from, in seven chapters of short pages — each experiment, the number it produced, and the corrections. Read the paper for the argument; read this for the arithmetic.

1. 01 · 2 pagesThe harnessOne design rule, the broker connection, paper-only safeguards, risk limits and alerting.
2. 02 · 3 pagesBacktesting and costsTiming, the shared risk gate, the execution model, and spreads measured from live quotes.
3. 03 · 3 pagesChoosing strategiesWalk-forward selection on two universes, and the overnight-versus-intraday split.
4. 04 · 4 pagesLLM agentsScout the picker, what the API costs, and the veto that lost 112 points.
5. 05 · 2 pagesSmall caps and turnoverWhy the capacity argument defeats itself, and what slowing down revealed.
6. 06 · 1 pageMarket-neutralLong/short construction, two bugs it exposed, and negative alpha.
7. 07 · 3 pagesBreadthAre 31 signals 31 signals? Controls, the correlation matrix, and the small-cap replication.

Names in code refer to the lab's software — a paper-trading harness against an Interactive Brokers paper account and a replay backtester. The code is not published; this notebook records what it measured. All capital is simulated.