GOOGL Alphabet

Signal: wrong. The short predicted continued downside on the spy-ad story, but GOOGL reversed and closed above the prior close (349.67 vs 347.90), so the bearish read did not hold. Timing: the stock was already down 0.86% at decision time and the fill at 342.53 was roughly 0.7% below the decision-time price (~344.9), meaning the entry came at or near the day's low after the drop had largely occurred — though the data doesn't show when the article hit relative to that decline, so whether the news was "already priced" versus the drop being unrelated can't be settled here. Exit: the trade only ever showed +0.49% in its favor and was closed at about -2.08%, close to the -2.72% worst, so the exit captured almost nothing of a small window that was tiny to begin with.

Dominant factor: the direction was simply wrong — a mild, already-extended dip reversed into a rally, and the small favorable window was never taken.

Signal: Weakly right at best — the price was 354.13 at exit versus ~353.39 implied at decision time (+0.19% over 352.72), so GOOGL did drift up, but only ~0.2%, and the catalyst was a biweekly "Week In Review" roundup, which the journal labels FRESH but the material here doesn't settle whether the M&A item was actually new to the market.

Timing (dominant factor): The fill at 356.32 was ~0.8% above the decision-time price — the move the trade was chasing happened between decision and entry, so the position was long from a local high and immediately underwater (worst -1.23%, best only +0.60%).

Exit: The exit at -0.61% landed roughly midway between best and worst unrealized; it didn't capture the brief +0.60% but also avoided the full -1.23%, so the exit was mediocre rather than the problem — the entry slippage/late fill is what turned a marginally correct call into a loss.

Signal: Correct — GOOGL did go up after entry, reaching +1.15% unrealized against only -0.36% drawdown, though note the headline is about CEG winning a Google deal, so the bullish read on GOOGL itself was a tangential inference rather than a direct catalyst. Timing: Fine — price was essentially flat vs. prior close (-0.00% / +0.09% last 30m) at decision time, and entry at 352.2 was only ~0.15% above the 351.66 close, so the move had not already happened. Exit: This is the dominant factor — the trade closed at +0.15% (+$1.08) while +1.15% was available, capturing roughly an eighth of the best unrealized gain; the data doesn't say why the exit fired (time stop, trailing rule, etc.), so the specific exit mechanism can't be diagnosed from what's here.

Signal: Direction was at least briefly right — GOOGL traded up to +0.70% above entry while open — but the catalyst was a second-hand read-through (Samsung/TSMC results, not GOOGL news), so the bullish case was thin and the follow-through was small.

Timing: By entry at 352.12 the stock was already +1.1% over the prior close of 348.29, i.e. the entire move cited in the price context was priced in before the fill; the trade bought the top of a move that had already happened.

Exit (dominant factor): The position saw +0.70% unrealized and ended at -0.16% (-$1.10), giving back the full gain without ever reaching the -0.37% worst; the exit captured none of the available upside. Whether the stock continued higher after exit isn't in the data, so I can't say if holding longer would have helped — only that the available +0.70% was left on the table.

Signal: Right — GOOGL went long and rose ~1.0% (348.01 → 351.58), and the position never went materially underwater (worst unrealized +0.02%), so the overnight-drift call on the partnership news held.

Timing: Fine — at decision time the stock was down 0.55% from the prior close and still slipping in the last 30 minutes, so the entry caught the name below the prior close rather than chasing a move that had already run; the data don't say whether the article itself was already priced in earlier, only that the stock hadn't rallied on it yet.

Exit: The dominant factor is the fixed next-close exit, which realized +1.03% against a +1.89% peak unrealized — a bit over half of what was available — so the trade left roughly 0.85% (~$6) on the table, though that is inherent to the mechanical exit rule rather than a misread of the signal.

Signal: Correct — GOOGL fell 0.72% after the short and the position was never underwater (worst unrealized +0.02%), though the data can't establish that a Microsoft/H-1B penalty story was the cause of a GOOGL decline rather than coincidence. Timing: Not stale — the stock was flat at entry (+0.04% vs prev close, filled at the prior close), so the move had not happened yet. Exit: Captured +5.08 USD against a best unrealized of +1.12% (~+7.85 USD), i.e. roughly two-thirds of what was available; the dominant factor here is simply a correct directional call with a moderately early exit that left about 0.4% on the table.

Signal: Wrong over the holding period — the bullish call on the nuclear-partnership story gave back everything, with GOOGL never getting more than +0.18% above entry and finishing at 350.52, right back at the prior close. Whether the article's premise was sound in a longer window isn't settled by this data, but the position only ever saw a 1.5% downside swing.

Timing: The decision was made with GOOGL at roughly +0.32% over prior close (~351.6), but the fill came at 355.67, about 1.1% higher — the move happened between decision and fill, so the trade chased a spike rather than catching it early. That slippage alone accounts for most of the loss.

Exit: The exit at -1.45% sits essentially at the worst unrealized (-1.48%), and it was forced by netting against an outranking S3 short rather than by any strategy exit — so the exit logic captured nothing, but it also wasn't the strategy's own decision. Dominant factor: a chased fill well above the decision-time price on a signal that then went the wrong way; the forced net-out just locked in the trough.

Signal: weak at best — the stock finished the holding window at 347.96, essentially flat against the prior close of 347.70 (+0.07%), so the predicted post-news drift barely materialized on a close-to-close basis. Timing is the dominant factor: at decision time the stock was -0.67% from prior close (~345.4), but the fill came at 350.63, roughly 1.5% higher, meaning the pop the trade was meant to ride occurred between the decision and the entry and the position was opened at a local high. Exit: the mechanical next-close exit left the +1.62% peak uncaptured and closed near the -1.16% trough (-0.76%); the data doesn't show when that peak occurred, so whether an earlier exit was realistically reachable isn't settled here.

Signal was right: the bullish call on the nuclear-power deal played out, with GOOGL rising from the 345.39 entry to a 350.6 exit (+1.51%). Timing was fine — the stock was actually down 0.67% from the prior close at decision time with only +0.17% in the last 30 minutes, so the move had not already happened; entry was below the prior close and the trade never went meaningfully against it (worst unrealized -0.01%). The exit captured nearly everything available: +1.51% realized versus +1.55% best unrealized, so the dominant factor here is simply a correct signal executed cleanly, with nothing in this data pointing to a deficiency.

Signal: Right — GOOGL closed +0.88% above entry, so the predicted overnight drift direction held. Timing: Not pre-empted at the price level — entry was only +0.35% over the prior close (and the decision-time context showed just +0.25%, last 30m flat), so the move largely came after the fill; whether the news itself had already been priced in earlier isn't determinable from this data. Exit: The mechanical next-close exit captured essentially the full available upside (+0.88% realized vs. +0.92% best unrealized), despite a -1.20% adverse excursion mid-hold that the strategy rode through. The dominant factor is a correct directional call with a near-optimal exit; the only notable fact is that the path was volatile (the trade was underwater by more than it ultimately gained at one point).