QCOM Qualcomm

Signal: Directionally right — the short moved as much as +1.42% in your favor with only −0.11% adverse, so the bearish call worked over the holding period. Timing: The rationale cites a 31% drop that had already occurred, so the trade entered after the bulk of the repricing; still, the entry itself wasn't late for the intraday move actually captured (only −0.19% since prior close at decision time). Exit: This is the dominant failure — the exit locked in roughly 0.07% (+$0.72) of a +1.42% favorable excursion, giving up about 95% of what was available; whether that was a rule-based exit or noise isn't determinable from this data.

Signal: Essentially wrong — the predicted overnight upward drift didn't materialize; price closed flat-to-down from entry (-0.04%), and the downside excursion (-2.28%) was far larger than the upside (+0.94%).

Timing: Partially pre-empted — the stock was already +0.71% off the prior close by decision time, and the fill at 164.20 was another ~0.3% above that reference, so entry paid up for a move that had partly occurred.

Exit: The close-to-close exit gave back the modest +0.94% that was briefly available, but that's the mechanical rule, not discretion; the near-flat P&L was actually a decent escape given the -2.28% worst case. Dominant factor: signal — the M&A catalyst simply didn't produce the expected drift.

Signal was the dominant failure. The bullish M&A thesis never materialized during the holding window — best unrealized was a negligible +0.03%, so there was essentially no upside to capture at any point. Timing was a minor contributor: entry came after a +0.71% pop from prior close (and a fill ~0.7% above that close), suggesting some of the news reaction was already priced in, though the data can't confirm how much. The exit was reasonable given what was available — the -0.48% realized loss sits between the +0.03% best and -0.84% worst, so the exit didn't leave meaningful gains on the table; there were none.

Signal: Marginally right at best — QCOM barely moved over the holding period (160.44 → 160.40), so the predicted earnings-driven downside drift essentially didn't materialize after entry.

Timing: The decision-time context showed the stock up +1.14% vs prev close (161.91), yet the fill came at 160.44 — roughly a -0.9% drop occurred between decision and fill, meaning much of the available down-move happened before the position was actually on.

Exit: The fixed next-close exit captured +$0.24 against a best unrealized of +0.73% (~$7 on 6 shares), while also dodging a -2.78% adverse swing. The dominant factor is timing/signal decay: the move the rationale anticipated largely occurred pre-fill, leaving a near-flat holding period where the exit had little to capture.

Timing is the dominant failure. At decision time QCOM was around ~160.7 (prev close 161.91, down 0.76%), yet the fill came at 163.42 — roughly 1.7% higher — meaning the bullish repricing the rationale predicted had largely already happened before entry, and the trade was chasing the pop. From that fill the stock never gave more than +1.02% and the exit at 160.50 (-1.79%) was taken almost at the worst unrealized point (-1.85%), so the exit captured essentially the bottom of the trade's range. Whether the bullish signal was directionally correct on a longer horizon can't be settled from this data — within the holding window the move was net down, but that's confounded by the late, elevated entry.

Signal: Wrong. The rationale predicted continued downward drift after the earnings miss, but QCOM rose ~0.85% from entry to exit; the maximum favorable move while open was only +0.53%, so the short thesis never materially played out.

Timing: The data can't fully settle this — price was only -0.21% off the prior close at decision time, so no big move had visibly happened by entry, but whether the earnings selloff had already been absorbed in earlier sessions isn't shown here. Note the fill at 163.15 was actually above the 162.68 prior close, slightly worse than the decision-time context implied.

Exit: Reasonable given what was available — the -0.85% realized loss sits well inside the -2.16% worst unrealized, and the +0.53% best was fleeting and small.

Dominant factor: Signal failure — the direction was simply wrong; exit execution neither caused nor could have salvaged much.

Signal/timing failed: after entry the stock went net higher, not lower — the bearish repricing thesis didn't play out post-fill, and the modest -0.80% dip in the prior 30 minutes suggests the trade chased a move already underway, though the data here (only -0.21% since prev close) can't confirm how much of the earnings drop had already occurred on earlier sessions. Exit was near the worst available: the realized -0.57% loss sits close to the -0.96% worst unrealized, while the best the trade ever offered was just +0.69% — so even perfect exit timing would have yielded little. Dominant factor: the directional signal was simply wrong (or exhausted) over the holding window; exit quality is secondary given there was almost no favorable move to capture.

Signal: Weak/wrong at the horizon that matters — the short thesis was that QCOM would drift down by next close, but it closed slightly higher (163.06 → 163.22), so the predicted direction didn't hold over the intended hold period. Timing: The stock was only +0.25% off the prior close at decision time, so this wasn't a case of shorting after a big move had already happened. Exit: This is the dominant factor — the position saw +1.15% unrealized in its favor (roughly +$11 on this size) but the mechanical hold-to-close rule gave it all back, ending at -$0.96; the intraday dip the thesis anticipated did occur, just not by the close. The data doesn't show when the favorable move occurred, so whether it was plausibly capturable early vs. late in the session can't be determined from what's here.

Signal (dominant factor): The bearish call was wrong — QCOM never moved meaningfully lower after entry, reaching only +0.15% favorable at best while going -0.56% against the position. Timing: Entry wasn't chasing; the stock was only +0.25% off the prior close, so the anticipated downmove hadn't already occurred — it simply didn't occur at all during the holding period. Exit: The -0.31% realized loss sits between the +0.15% best and -0.56% worst, so the exit gave up little; there was almost nothing favorable available to capture. Bluntly: this was a directional miss, not a timing or exit problem — though whether the bearish thesis would have played out over a longer horizon isn't answerable from this data.

Signal: Right — the bearish call was correct; price fell further after entry, with favorable excursion reaching +1.27%. Timing: Partially late — the stock had already dropped 2.95% in the 30 minutes before entry, so a meaningful chunk of the repricing was consumed pre-fill (whether the full 9% cited in the rationale had occurred can't be confirmed from this data). Exit: The dominant failure — the trade banked only +0.10% (+$0.90) against a best unrealized gain of +1.27%, capturing under a tenth of what the correct thesis made available.