Momentum

Event-sourced small-cap momentum day-trading system (Ross Cameron–style gap-and-go / opening-range breakout). It screens the day's most-active gappers ($1–5, gapping ≥3% on ≥2× relative volume), arms an opening-range-breakout trigger the moment the range forms, fires a bracket order on the live cross, and manages the exit with a trailing stop + profit-lock ladder. Execution runs on an Alpaca paper account; everything is recorded in a PostgreSQL append-only event store and replayable.

Alpaca IEX bars ─► research DBs (minute+daily) ─► screen gappers ─► ArmedTriggerBook
   (1-min, live)                                                          │ live price
                                                                          ▼ crosses trigger
   PostgreSQL event store  ◄──────────────────────  TradingExecutionService ─► Alpaca paper
   (append-only: signals, orders,                            │ bracket (entry+stop+target)
    fills, account, risk events)                            ▼
        ▲                                          LiveExitManager ─► trail stop ↑ / flatten
        └──────────── AlpacaPaperSync ◄──────── (account / positions / orders)

Every read path (dashboard, journal, monitoring board) is a pure projection over the event store, so any session can be replayed and audited.

Quick start (paper trading)

pip install -r requirements.txt
cp .env.example .env          # fill in ALPACA_API_KEY / ALPACA_SECRET_KEY + DATABASE_URL

# PostgreSQL is the datastore. Point DATABASE_URL at your instance, e.g.
#   DATABASE_URL=postgresql://user:pass@127.0.0.1:5432/momentum

python run_live_paper.py      # full loop (+ embedded dashboard)

No keys? python run_live_paper.py --once runs a single dry pass to verify wiring.

Commands

Everything is driven from the repo root. The ./momentum wrapper runs the inspection CLI in the project venv; the analysis scripts are plain python.

Live trading loop — run_live_paper.py

Command	What it does
python run_live_paper.py	Full live loop: screen → arm → fire → manage exits → EOD flatten, with the embedded dashboard.
python run_live_paper.py --no-dashboard	Same, headless (how it runs in production / under a process manager).
python run_live_paper.py --once	One pass then exit — smoke-test the wiring.
python run_live_paper.py --auto-approve	Auto-arm brackets instead of waiting for dashboard approval (TRADING_AUTO_APPROVE=1).
python run_live_paper.py --symbols AAPL,SNDL	Force specific symbols onto the watchlist.

Monitoring & inspection — ./momentum

Command	What it does
./momentum watch	Live monitoring board (armed triggers, ready signals, today's trades + day P&L, risk events). Refreshes every 3s.
./momentum watch --once	Render one frame and exit (for logging / a cron snapshot).
./momentum journal	Today's trade journal — every round-trip (ET times), broker-authoritative day P&L (matched · open), win rate. The 16:02 close capture.
./momentum doctor	Health check across each pipeline stage (DB reachable, ingest fresh, broker sync, loop heartbeat).
./momentum inspect events	Tail the raw event stream.
./momentum inspect bars SYM	Today's minute bars for a symbol.
./momentum inspect discovery	What the screener surfaced.
./momentum inspect criteria SYM	Per-criterion pass/fail for one symbol (why it is/isn't a setup).
./momentum inspect signals	Recent ready signals.

Analysis, backtest & tuning

Command	What it does
python eod_replay.py [YYYY-MM-DD]	End-of-day whole-market replay: run today's logic over every qualifying gapper (not just the ~20 watched live) + a perfect-hindsight line. Also grows the stored dataset for future verification. Defaults to today.
python backtest_cli.py	Intraday backtests over stored sessions.
python sweep_exits.py	Sweep managed-exit variants (trail / breakeven / profit-lock tiers), train/test split.
python sweep_filters.py	Sweep entry-filter variants (gap / rvol / price / liquidity).
python diagnose_entries.py	Entry-quality analysis — what the losers had in common.
python nightly_tune.py	Self-tune params into data/learned_params.json (applied on next boot).
python research_cli.py	Ad-hoc: session symbols, gapper scan, RSS news pull.
python milestone3_verify.py	Schwab integration health walk-through.

Data ingestion

Command	What it does
python fetch_minute_bars.py	Ad-hoc minute-bar ingestion.
python backfill_history.py	Backfill daily/minute history for the universe.

Scheduled jobs (cron wrappers)

The .sh wrappers set the venv + cwd so cron can call them directly:

2  16 * * 1-5  /path/momentum/journal.sh       # capture the close trade journal
5  16 * * 1-5  /path/momentum/eod_replay.sh     # whole-market replay (grows dataset)
30 17 * * 1-5  /path/momentum/nightly_tune.sh   # retune params for tomorrow

Tests

DATABASE_URL=postgresql://user:pass@host:5432/momentum python -m pytest
# ~130 tests: strategy, storage, triggers, execution (cooldown/re-entry/EOD
# flatten/naked-stop guards), exits, journal P&L, schwab, api, research.

Tests isolate via throwaway mem_* Postgres schemas; tests/conftest.py sweeps them at session end.

Configuration

All behavior is environment-driven — see .env.example for every key with the why. The knobs that matter most:

• Entry: WATCHER_PRICE_MIN/MAX (1–5), TRIGGER_GAP_MIN/MAX, TRIGGER_RVOL_MIN, TRIGGER_MIN_DOLLAR_VOL (absolute liquidity floor — skip thin spikes).
• Sizing: TRADING_RISK_PER_TRADE_PCT (1%), TRADING_MAX_POSITION_PCT, TRADING_LIQUIDITY_MAX_VOLUME_PCT (size down thin names).
• Exits: TRADING_EXIT_TRAIL_MODE=prior_low, TRADING_EXIT_TRAIL_AFTER_R, TRADING_EXIT_BREAKEVEN_R, TRADING_EXIT_PROFIT_TIERS.
• Discipline: TRADING_BACKOUT_COOLDOWN_SECONDS, TRADING_BLOCK_REENTRY_AFTER_EXIT
  • TRADING_REENTRY_MIN_LOSS_PCT, TRADING_EOD_FLATTEN_TIME.
• Safety: TRADING_MAX_DAILY_LOSS_PCT — set to 0.03 before real-money trading (it ships loosened for testing).

Database & performance

The single datastore is PostgreSQL (DATABASE_URL); research bars live in DuckDB under data/research/. The event store is one append-only events table that every projection reads.

Hot-path index. Projections overwhelmingly run WHERE event_type=? ORDER BY timestamp DESC LIMIT n (latest snapshot of a type). A composite index makes this an index seek regardless of how stale the type is — without it, looking up the latest of an idle type backward-scans the whole table (measured 373 ms → 0.018 ms on 235k rows). It's created automatically by storage/event_store.py:

CREATE INDEX idx_events_type_ts ON events (event_type, timestamp DESC);

Plugins / extensions. The big win here is the index above, not an extension. For ongoing tuning:

• pg_stat_statements — enable (shared_preload_libraries, server restart) to see which queries actually cost time. Diagnostic, not a speedup itself.
• pg_prewarm — warm the cache for the events table after a restart.
• TimescaleDB — only worth it if the event/bar volume grows large (hypertables
  • time partitioning + compression). Not required at current scale, and must be installed on the server.

Maintenance. ~80% of events rows are high-volume diagnostics (criteria_evaluated, signal_blocked, module_tick). A retention/prune of old diagnostic events keeps the table small and every query fast. Run ANALYZE events after large ingests so the planner has fresh stats.

Repository map

run_live_paper.py     the orchestrator: screen → arm → fire → manage → EOD flatten
momentum_cli.py       the `momentum` CLI (watch / journal / doctor / inspect)
trading_execution.py  signal → sizing → approval → bracket order; risk discipline
runtime/              triggers (ArmedTriggerBook), exit_manager, flatten helper
strategy/             pure strategy engine: evaluation, structure, exits, backtest
storage/              event schema + store (PostgreSQL), projections
research/             research DBs, ingestion (bars, RSS, gappers), screeners
alpaca_paper/         Alpaca paper client, executor, account/order sync
schwab/               Schwab OAuth, market data, positions/orders, health
api/ + dashboard_api.py   dashboard JSON API + static UI
eod_replay.py         end-of-day whole-market replay
tests/                pytest suite (unit + integration)

Security

.env and all of data/ (DBs, data/schwab_tokens.json) are git-ignored and never committed; token files are written 0600. The .env holds live broker / database / webhook credentials — keep it local. If any secret was ever committed to a repo's history, rotate it (re-issue Alpaca keys / re-run the Schwab OAuth flow).