Field Notes 5 min read
I'm putting $50,000 into the smallest stocks on the market
A software engineer with no trading record, a research system built from scratch, and a promise to publish every dollar. Here are the rules.
A trading journal, written in public
Digging for gold in the smallest stocks on the market.
I'm a software engineer with $50,000, a research system I'm building from scratch, and no trading track record. This is the whole record: the build, the trades, the dollars, and every mistake along the way.
Stake$50,000
Equity$50,000
Return0.0%
Trades0
StatusBuilding the system
Latest from the mine
Building the Mine 5 min read
Two weeks, 1,784 commits, zero trades: building the mine
The first two weeks of a microcap research system: almost none of it is about picking stocks, and one timestamp problem could have faked every result.
Building the Mine 5 min read
Rule one: don't fool yourself (the backtest is lying)
The best of 200 random strategies made 27% a year in its backtest and 3% afterward. Four ways backtests lie about microcaps, and my defenses.
Microcap 101 6 min read
Why microcaps: the corner of the market big money can't reach
A $1 billion fund would need four years to buy the stocks I'm targeting. That's the whole case for microcaps, plus the three things that make it hard.
What you'll find here
- Field NotesWhat I am thinking, doing and getting wrong this week.
- Building the MineHow the research system gets built, without handing out the map.
- Trade LogEvery trade, winners and losers, with the dollars.
- Monthly AssayThe monthly scorecard against the benchmarks.
- Microcap 101How the smallest corner of the market actually works.
The deal
Real money, real tickers, real dollar amounts. I'll show you the losers as loudly as the winners. What I won't share is the exact recipe. Some of it is my edge, and some of it would stop working if a few thousand people copied it.