Forensic from the source trader's 2026-07-02 recap: his ENTIRE day (+$8.9k) was CX — a thin
reverse-split name that squeezed $3->$6 on a headline (his "wildcard effect": on dead pre-holiday
days the one mover gets everyone's attention). Our system NEVER SAW IT: zero bars, zero discovery
events. Root cause: discovery ranks by ABSOLUTE SHARE VOLUME (most-actives), and a thin %-squeezer
never cracks a volume-ranked top-N. Every other name he called out we saw and judged the same way
he did (DSY passed/backed-out, CWD too cheap, AHMA rejected) — the gap was pure discovery scope.
- alpaca_paper/client.py: get_movers(top) — /v1beta1/screener/stocks/movers top %-gainers
(verified working with our keys: CLRO +114%, CWD +73% live).
- discover_active_symbols: wildcard gainers are fetched FIRST (warrants/units filtered:
'.'-suffixed + 5-char W-endings), deduped with most-actives, same price-band filter.
Additive + fail-open: a movers failure never breaks the existing actives path.
Discovery/ingestion scope ONLY — every trading gate (confirmation window, quality, VWAP, cap)
still applies unchanged. The immediate value is that shadow tracks + the labeler finally get
BARS for wildcard movers, so the next CX is measurable instead of invisible.
Verified live: universe now leads with gainer-sourced names (CLRO, CWD, USDE, YRD, DSY). 16 tests pass.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
detect_momentum_ignition (strategy/evaluation/ignition.py): standalone, pure,
binary-rule detector for a vertical squeeze (blue-sky fresh-HOD + price velocity
+ ABSOLUTE volume burst, NOT rvol/float). Stop = last established higher low (per
operator). NOT wired into classify_setup (deliberately). 8 unit tests on
synthetic verticals: fires with the right trigger/stop, and each gate blocks
(not-blue-sky / not-new-HOD / velocity / volume / insufficient-bars / no-ATH).
REALITY CHECK (verify, don't assume): ran it over the REAL PLSM 2026-06-24 bars ->
0 fires, CORRECTLY. PLSM's high was at the 9:35 ET open (it ran +400% PRE-MARKET,
which we don't ingest), and in RTH it was HALTED 228 of ~390 minutes — a
halt-resumption GAP chop (+3.6/-12.5/-17.3/-14.4% jumps), not a smooth vertical.
A consecutive-bar detector structurally cannot see that. So the ignition
opportunity is a PRE-MARKET + halt-resumption phenomenon -> capturing it needs
pre-market bar ingestion + halt-aware gap detection + pre-market/halt trading
(into the FCUV halt-down risk), a far bigger lift than an RTH detector. Documented
front-and-center in docs/IGNITION_SETUP_SCOPE.md as a pre-P1 operator decision.
The P0 detector + tests are a correct foundation regardless.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Scope for a SECOND, shadow-only lane to catch PLSM-class vertical squeezes the
pullback-ORB scorer is structurally blind to (PLSM was evaluated 1895x and
blocked ~30% every time — a vertical gives no pullback). Produced by a read-only
4-agent mapping workflow; no code changed.
Key findings: detect on blue-sky fresh-HOD + price velocity + ABSOLUTE volume
burst (NOT RVOL, which zeros out on thin IPOs; NOT float, which is NULL). Emit a
new ShadowSignalEvent that the execution snapshot (query_ready_signals_snapshot,
filters event_type=signal_ready) can never read -> structurally cannot trade.
Score nightly by reusing the labeler + eod_replay forward-outcome machinery.
Pre-register the promotion bar (runner-vs-trap separation, distinct-runner n)
before shadowing. Phased P0 detector -> P1 dark emission -> P2 nightly scoring ->
P3 validation -> P4 tiny live lever only after separation is proven. Strictly
additive; never touches the ORB book or anti-chase guards.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Prioritized P0->P2 plan to make the system cleaner + easier to troubleshoot,
produced by a 4-agent read-only mapping pass (no code changed). Key findings:
- Single-Postgres migration is FUNCTIONALLY COMPLETE at the connection layer
(all live code -> storage/db.py -> db_pg -> one DATABASE_URL Postgres; no
live duckdb.connect). Datastore work is cleanup, not architecture.
- The real architectural item is the TWO entry paths. The live (auto) path is
missing five fast-path-only gates: extension, day-extension, halt-guard,
liquidity-sizing, rank — a REAL current gap (47/47 of today's fills were
approved_by="auto"). Root cause: the ready-signal snapshot carries no live
price/day_open/volume/rank. Fix sequenced behind a flag, reversibly.
- Dead-code/cleanup: core/ + telemetry/ packages (zero callers), archive/ tree
+ 232MB zip (gitignored), dead schwab/ integration, an orphaned mem_ test
schema left in prod Postgres.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
