Everything we publish, free

Every Friday after the close: what moved the week, why it mattered, and what it did to the tape. Levels and scenarios, never calls.

• August 28, 2026 — Jackson Hole, and Nvidia's round tripTwo things happened this week and they pulled in opposite directions. Wednesday night the largest company in the index reported a quarter that doubled its…12 min
• August 21, 2026 — the bond market wrote the scriptThe bond market wrote this week's script, and equities spent five sessions reacting to it. Yields on 30-year Treasuries pushed to their highest since 2007…13 min
• August 14, 2026 — cooler inflation, and the AI names sold anywayTwo inflation prints came in cooler than expected, the S&P 500 closed at what the coverage called a record on Thursday, and the two companies that sell the…11 min
• August 7, 2026 — a jobs miss, and the best week in monthsThe economy lost jobs in July, and stocks had their best week in months. Those two facts belong in the same sentence, because the second one happened because…11 min
• July 31, 2026 — a flat month and a correction, in the same four weeksJuly ended with the index you happened to own deciding your entire month. SPY +0.03%. QQQ -6.57%. IWM -3.08%. A flat month and a correction, describing the…10 min
• July 24, 2026 — two red weeks, and the 8-week line gave waySPY closed the week at 738.93, down 0.59% — its second red week in a row. Here's what the tape looks like going into an FOMC week.5 min

Every Sunday, the forward half of the week: what is set up, what would confirm it, and what would break it. Scenarios and levels, never a forecast.

• August 30, 2026 — A stretched tape into a payrolls weekFour macro prints and one earnings report land before Friday: ISM manufacturing Tuesday, ADP and JOLTS Wednesday, ISM services Thursday, then August payrolls…26 min

How the instruments and the machinery actually behave — including the tests of our own ideas that failed.

• AI Trading Discipline: The System That Grades ItselfAI trading discipline is not willpower — it is externalized rules that survive a losing streak. The six mechanisms, each with a live working example.10 min
• Best AI Trading Bots 2026 — an Honest ReviewThe best AI trading bots of 2026, reviewed by a competitor with zero affiliate links: Trade Ideas, TrendSpider, Composer, QuantConnect, Coil, and more.15 min
• Best AI Trading Strategies, Measured — Not ListedThe best AI trading strategies, measured — not listed: we tested the five every list recommends and published the results, including the failures.12 min
• Can Claude trade stocks? How AI agents place tradesCan Claude trade stocks? Only when wired to a broker via a connector and given rules. How AI agents place orders — and why an unconstrained one tends to lose.9 min
• Correction vs Bear Market: Why the Thresholds Are ArbitraryPullback, correction, bear market — what the thresholds actually are, who defines them, and why 19.8% and 20.2% are the same tape. The label is a reporting convention, not a decision boundary.11 min
• Crypto trading signals for AI agents — BTC & ETH, benchmarked honestlyCoil's crypto board scores BTC and ETH with long-only trend signals — and publishes the backtest next to buy-and-hold, losing years included. It does not beat holding; it cuts the crashes.8 min
• We tested betting on the decline. It did not work.We pre-registered a grid of inverse-ETF hedges and measured every cell against cash and a defensive macro sleeve. All 36 failed. Here is the full result, published.11 min
• Buying Pullbacks vs Chasing Breakouts: The Entry MathWhy disciplined traders buy leaders on pullbacks to support instead of chasing breakouts: the entry-math tradeoff, when breakouts do work, and how a rules engine encodes the difference. Educational, not advice.5 min
• Robinhood MCP Server Options: Official vs Trayd vs DIY (2026)Three ways to connect an AI agent to Robinhood: the official MCP connector, the open-source Trayd bridge, or building your own. An honest capability matrix — auth custody, tool surface, order support, and what breaks.5 min
• Robinhood MCP Tools: The Complete Reference (All 53)Every tool on the Robinhood MCP surface, categorized: account, market data, orders, options, watchlists, and server-side scans — with the gotchas we measured in live use and a downloadable JSON reference.7 min
• Self-tuning vs static trading botsWhat self-improving should and shouldn't mean in a trading bot: static params decay, unconstrained tuning overfits. The disciplined middle, with guardrails.9 min
• Single-Stock Leveraged ETFs on Robinhood: The Full List (2026)39 single-stock leveraged and inverse ETFs (2x NVDA, 2x TSLA, inverse MSTR and more) with live-probed Robinhood tradability: which allow fractional shares, which trade 24/5, and which are position-closing-only.8 min
• Do SOXL & SOXS Reset Daily? 3x ETF DecayYes, SOXL and SOXS reset leverage every day, and that reset is what causes decay. SOXL's real 2016-2026 record vs naive 3x (2024: index +17%, SOXL negative), a decay calculator, gap risk, and whether a 3x ETF can hit zero.14 min
• What Is the Inverse of SOXL? SOXS, ExplainedThe inverse of SOXL is SOXS, the 3x inverse semiconductor ETF. How the pair works, daily-reset math, decay over multi-day holds, and gap risk.12 min
• Glossary: automated & agentic trading termsPlain-English definitions of automated and agentic trading terms — AI agent, MCP, leveraged ETF, profit factor, drawdown, backtest, look-ahead bias, and more.13 min
• Trading Software You Can Buy Once (2026)The real one-time-purchase trading software of 2026: AmiBroker, NinjaTrader, MultiCharts, Gunbot, PowerX Optimizer, Coil — prices and honest trade-offs.13 min
• Why the Sentiment Gauges DisagreeAAII, CNN Fear & Greed, the VIX and put/call ratios contradict each other because they measure different things on different clocks. What each one actually reads, and where sentiment belongs.12 min
• Why Your x402 Endpoint Is Unpayable by Half the ClientsThe x402 v1 client line parses the 402 BODY and needs friendly network names plus maxAmountRequired; v2 reads the PAYMENT-REQUIRED header and speaks CAIP-2. Serve one dialect and the other half of the ecosystem cannot pay you. Measured, with the fix.7 min

Method, and where agentic trading is going.

• What Makes Software Agent-NativeAgent-native software ships machine-readable docs, manifests, deterministic CLIs, and verifiable claims. Here is what that looks like in practice.7 min
• Can AI Agents Buy Software Yet?How AI agents find and buy software in 2026: llms.txt, machine-readable manifests, and the checkout step that still needs a human.7 min
• AI Job Displacement and Market LeadershipAutomation waves reshape market leadership. Where earnings power migrates when AI changes work, and how rotation frameworks track it without forecasts.7 min
• AI Trading Scams: 9 Red Flags to Check FirstNine red flags to check before paying for any AI trading product: guaranteed returns, income promises, hidden risk, unverifiable track records and more.7 min
• Will Automation Give You Better Returns Than Trading Manually?The honest answer: automation does not add returns, it subtracts mistakes. What the research says retail traders actually lose to, what a bot fixes, what it cannot, and how to judge any automated strategy.8 min
• Buy Pullbacks, Not BreakoutsWhy disciplined systems buy leaders on pullbacks to real support instead of chasing breakouts. Entry price defines risk and structure gives a close stop.7 min
• Can an AI Agent Manage My Portfolio?Should an AI agent manage your portfolio? Why improvised trading fails, why rule execution is different, and the questions to ask any tool.7 min
• Can an AI Agent Trade Crypto in 2026? Broker by BrokerYes at Coinbase, announced at Robinhood. The broker-by-broker state of AI agents trading crypto in July 2026 — and where a benchmarked signal read fits.8 min
• Cash Is a PositionCash is an allocation, not the absence of an opinion. Why systems that must always be invested degrade, and why long-only ones need permission to sit out.6 min
• Crypto Trend Following vs Buy-and-Hold: BTC/ETH, HonestlyTen years of BTC/ETH through a 50-day/200-day gated trend rule: 59.6% vs 74.9% CAGR — it does not beat holding — in exchange for smaller crashes. Full table inside.7 min
• How to Read a Backtest Before You Trust ItA vetting guide for backtests: survivorship bias, fill assumptions, cost modeling, inflated t-stats, and the exact questions to ask any vendor.8 min
• Leadership Rotation, ExplainedMarket leadership rotates. Why last cycle's winners go stale, how relative strength ranks the new leaders, and why cash is a valid answer.7 min
• Leverage as an Accelerant, Not a DefaultLeverage works as a deliberate accelerant on high-conviction setups at reduced size, not a standing default. How Coil treats leveraged ETFs.7 min
• Leveraged ETF Gap Risk: When Stops Don't FireOvernight gaps skip stop losses. A 3x fund turns an index gap into roughly triple the damage at the open. How to score gap risk before entry, not after.6 min
• Market Weakness Is a Risk Input, Not a VetoWe built the rule that stops buying when the market is down, measured it over 2,649 S&P sessions, and threw it out. Weakness predicted drawdown, not returns.9 min
• MCP Explained for TradersWhat the Model Context Protocol is, what a broker MCP server exposes, why it beats screen-scraping and pasted API keys, and what agents still cannot do.7 min
• NVDL vs NVDA: What 2x Daily Really MeansNVDL targets 2x NVDA's daily return, not 2x the stock. How daily reset and compounding drift change multi-day holds, and when a system uses 2x.7 min
• Regime Concentration: Where Edge Actually LivesMost strategies earn their edge in specific regimes and roughly match markets elsewhere. Why vendors hide this and how to ask when a system fails.7 min
• Relative Strength vs Momentum: The Real DifferenceMomentum measures a stock's own trend. Relative strength ranks it against every peer. Why the difference matters and how a scanner uses both.7 min
• Robinhood's 70,000 Agentic Accounts, in ContextRobinhood says roughly 70,000 accounts have enabled agentic trading, well under 1 percent of its funded base. What that tells us about the era ahead.7 min
• Robinhood Agentic Crypto Trading: What's KnownRobinhood's Q2 report says customers can now trade crypto through AI agents. What shipped since July 10, what our own agentic account can actually reach, and what's still unknown.11 min
• Robinhood Agentic Limited Margin: Trading Unsettled FundsRobinhood says agentic accounts can switch from cash to limited margin starting this week — trade with unsettled funds, no margin borrowing. What it fixes, what to check before you flip, from a team that runs one.11 min
• Scheduled AI Agents: Software on a CadenceAgent scheduling lets trading software run on a cadence inside your AI agent instead of a server you maintain. What it enables, and what to demand.7 min
• Sector Rotation: A Practical GuideHow money rotates between sectors, how it shows up in relative strength before headlines, and why rotation informs entries but never dictates them.7 min
• Self-Custody Trading Software: Keep Your KeysWhat self-custody means for trading tools: why broker API keys should stay on your machine, the threat model of hosted platforms, and what to check first.7 min
• Single-Stock Leveraged ETFs: A 2026 Field GuideA 2026 guide to single-stock leveraged ETFs: how they differ from index leveraged funds, why decay and gap risk bite harder, and who they suit.7 min
• Structural Stops vs ATR Stops, ExplainedWhy stops placed at the price where the thesis fails beat volatility-multiple stops, how wide stops interact with sizing, and why no stop is a guarantee.8 min
• Survivorship Bias in Backtests, ExplainedTesting today's index members backward quietly deletes every stock that died. How survivorship bias inflates backtests and how to fix it.7 min
• The Agent Economy: When Software Buys SoftwareAI agents are starting to discover, compare, and buy on our behalf. What that changes for builders and buyers, and where a buy-once, self-hosted tool fits.7 min
• TQQQ vs QQQ: The Long-Term MathTQQQ promises 3x the Nasdaq-100 per day, not per year. Plain-words math on daily resets, volatility decay in chop, gap risk, and holding-period honesty.7 min
• The Trading Bot Passive Income MythWhy passive income from a trading bot is a myth: adversarial markets, regime-dependent edges, overnight drawdowns, taxes, and what a bot honestly is.7 min
• Should You Turn Your Trading System Off During a Crash?A losing system and a broken system feel identical from inside a drawdown. The only way to tell them apart is with criteria you wrote down before it started.11 min
• UBI and AI in 2026: Where the Debate StandsThe UBI debate as AI displaces work: arguments for and against, what pilots suggest, and why people reach for ownership while policy stalls.7 min
• What Is Agentic Trading? A Plain ExplainerWhat agentic trading is, how it differs from robo-advisors and classic bots, and what a safe setup looks like. A plain explainer for 2026.7 min
• Why Long-Only Is a Feature, Not a LimitationShorting doubles the ways to be wrong and inverse ETFs decay on multi-day holds. Why Coil trades long-only, and what that choice honestly costs.7 min

Step by step, against a real brokerage account.

• How to automate SOXL/SOXS trading with an AI agentA practical, honest how-to: the components, the rules, and the validation it takes to run a hands-off SOXL/SOXS strategy through your own AI agent and broker.10 min
• Claude + Robinhood Agentic Trading: Prompts, Tools, FixesWhy your agent refuses to trade, what prompt and read order to give Claude, and which Robinhood MCP tools it actually calls. Long-only, honest risks.17 min
• Robinhood Agentic Trading Setup with Claude CodeStep-by-step 2026 setup: open the Robinhood agentic account, connect the MCP (with the --transport http flag most people miss), arm the safety guardrails, then add a strategy. The 5-step walkthrough with the pre-written prompt.19 min
• Robinhood MCP Troubleshooting: Errors, Causes, FixesRobinhood agentic trading MCP errors, keyed by the exact symptom: 429 rate limits, silently dropped filters, stale 5-minute bars, hourly closes that differ from SIP, rejected orders on non-agentic accounts. Measured first-hand; each row is error, cause, fix. As of August 2026.4 min

Coil against the alternatives, including where it loses.

• Coil vs ChartingLensCoil vs ChartingLens: an AI charting platform with a win-rate screener vs. a scanner that scores every S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 name — and trades its board.12 min
• Coil vs Composer.tradeCoil vs Composer.trade: Composer is a hosted no-code strategy builder on subscription. Coil is a long-only engine you download and own, one-time.9 min
• Coil vs Robinhood Agentic TradingRobinhood Agentic Trading is the free connection that lets an AI agent place orders. Coil is the long-only strategy that rides on it.9 min
• Coil vs StockHeroCoil vs StockHero: StockHero runs no-code trading bots on its cloud, subscription-priced. Coil is a long-only engine you download and own, one-time.11 min
• Coil vs Tickeron (AI trading)Coil vs Tickeron: Tickeron is a hosted AI trading subscription; Coil is a long-only engine you download and own once. Keys, transparency, breadth, cost.9 min
• Coil vs Trade IdeasCoil vs Trade Ideas: Trade Ideas leads AI day-trading signals on subscription. Coil is a long-only engine your own AI agent runs — bought once, not rented.12 min
• Coil vs Trading Bots & SignalsCoil vs trading bots and signal services: compare on keys, transparency, cost, and who owns the risk. Coil is long-only, agent-native, and bought once — not a subscription.10 min
• Coil vs Trayd MCPCoil vs Trayd (trayd-mcp): Trayd, a free open-source Robinhood-via-Claude bridge, needs your rules. Coil is a validated long-only engine, rules built in.9 min
• Coil vs TrendSpiderCoil vs TrendSpider: TrendSpider is best-in-class chart analysis on subscription; Coil is a long-only engine that decides by rule in your own agent — bought once, not rented.10 min

Also free

Not articles, but open to everyone and no account required.

• Trading glossaryPlain definitions for every term the board and the letter use.
• Every stock we scoreOne-day-delayed per-ticker reads across the whole scored universe.
• The live demoThe real dashboard on frozen data. No signup, no card.

About what we publish

What does Coil publish for free?

The Friday Wrap weekly market letter in full, every explainer and essay listed on this page, the trading glossary, one-day-delayed scores for every stock we track, and a live demo of the real dashboard on frozen data. None of it requires an account.

Do these pages give trading advice?

No. They explain how instruments and systems behave, and they report what our own tests found. Nothing here is investment advice, a recommendation, or tailored to anyone's circumstances, and the weekly letter states no forecasts, targets or trades.

Do you publish results that went against you?

Yes, and they are among the most-read pages here. The inverse-ETF hedge grid failed in all 36 cells and is published in full. The market-weakness gate we built turned out to be anti-predictive for returns and we threw it out in public. Where an outside source disagrees with our own data, we print both numbers.

How often does this change?

The Friday Wrap adds an issue every Friday. Explainers and essays are added as the work produces them, and this hub is generated from the published pages themselves, so it is never out of date with the site.