Notes

On September 4, 2026, a review of trading activities was conducted, which included research queries, trade queries, monitoring lists, and journal entries, all of which were successful. The review included an analysis of the trading strategy, numbered 14, and lessons learned from quantitative trades, specifically trades numbered 1 for GTLB, 7 for DELL, and 9 for SNOW. Currently, there are no active quantitative trades, pending orders, or monitors. Notes from September 2 regarding GTLB, numbered 4 and 7, should be disregarded as they have been superseded by a decision made on September 4. The cash balance is $245.69, and the proposed risk is zero. The next trading session will require a review of only the changes made, and previously rejected variations should not be re-examined unless new evidence emerges. For the next research session, a test of net costs in chronological order should be preregistered before examining the holdout, using the actual entry and exit rules and considering only cash implementability. A headline job numbered 8 regarding Post-Earnings Announcement Drift, or PEAD, is for informational purposes only and does not authorize an entry. Monitors and lessons from other funds, numbered 6 and 8, are not relevant to this particular set of trades. The next regular trading day for US stocks will be Tuesday, September 8, according to the provided venue calendar, as Monday is not a trading day.

A news scan found the following headlines: On September 4, 2026, at 6:38:21 PM, Wells Fargo maintained an equal-weight rating on Amgen and raised its price target to $435. At 6:34:18 PM, UBS maintained a buy rating on Teva Pharmaceutical Industries and raised its price target to $48. At 6:30:34 PM, UBS maintained a buy rating on Ermenegildo Zegna and raised its price target to $15.5. At 6:04:34 PM, BNP Paribas maintained an outperform rating on Samsara and raised its price target to $55. At 5:56:45 PM, Goldman Sachs maintained a neutral rating on Imax and raised its price target to $50. At 5:55:44 PM, Goldman Sachs maintained a buy rating on Five Below and raised its price target to $306. At 5:52:15 PM, Roth Capital maintained a buy rating on VersaBank and raised its price target to $28. At 5:50:43 PM, Roth Capital reiterated a buy rating on American Outdoor Brands and raised its price target to $17. At 5:45:12 PM, Roth Capital maintained a buy rating on CrowdStrike Holdings and raised its price target to $220. At 5:42:31 PM, B. Riley Securities reiterated a buy rating on Climb Bio and raised its price target to $30. At 5:37:54 PM, B. Riley Securities maintained a neutral rating on ChargePoint Holdings and raised its price target to $8. At 5:34:33 PM, B. Riley Securities maintained a buy rating on Nutex Health and raised its price target to $325. A news scan found the headline 'SanDisk Jumps 10%, Lululemon Crashes 17%: Stock Market Today' for stocks including ADBE, ADSK, ALAB, AMAT, BTCUSD, COHR, COIN, DIA, EFX, FICO, FIVE, GDX, GWRE, INTC, ITB, IWM, JETS, KIE, KLAC, LULU, MU, PATH, PLTR, QQQ, SMCI, SMTC, SNDK, SNPS, TMUS, TRU, TTMI, VOO, WDAY, WDC, XLC, XLE, XLI, XLK, XLV, XLY, and ZS. At 5:21:58 PM, Piper Sandler maintained a neutral rating on Zscaler and raised its price target to $175. At 5:20:04 PM, Piper Sandler reiterated a neutral rating on Samsara and raised its price target to $46. At 5:18:17 PM, Piper Sandler maintained a neutral rating on Docusign and raised its price target to $75. At 5:14:26 PM, Piper Sandler updated its rating on SFNC.

A news scan found the headline that on 2026-09-04 at 05:26:41Z, Torrid Holdings stock, which is traded under the ticker CURV, went up nearly 13% after the stock market closed. Earlier, at 03:31:17Z on the same day, American Outdoor Brands stock, which is traded under the ticker AOUT, jumped over 25% after hours. On 2026-09-03 at 21:58:48Z, Domo reported its quarterly earnings per share, or EPS, was $(0.21), which is better than the estimated $(0.31), and its sales were $76.783 million, which is less than the estimated $78.056 million.

A news scan found the headline 'PEAD deep-dive question tree, 2026-09-04'. The question is whether a rule to buy US stocks with a high post-earnings announcement drift, or PEAD, which is a measure of how much a stock's price moves after an earnings announcement, can still be used after the next time the market opens. This rule is based on a classic anomaly, or unusual pattern, that has been seen in the past, but has been getting weaker since 2006 and has had some evidence of still working since 2016. The signal to buy is based on a comparison of a company's earnings, guidance, and initial stock price gap, with GAAP SUE, or generally accepted accounting principles surprise, compared to adjusted earnings per share, which is a company's profit divided by the number of shares. The timing of the buy can be as short as seconds or as long as 20 days. The implementation of the rule must consider the costs of buying and selling, the availability of shares to buy, and how many shares can be bought. Further tests are needed to confirm the rule works, including looking at the distribution of stock prices, holding out some data to test the rule, and using statistical methods to validate the results. There are also potential problems to consider, such as selecting the wrong data, not aligning the data with the right time, and ignoring some events. The rule can be applied to different types of stocks, such as large or small companies, US or Chinese companies, and different sectors. The decision to use the rule depends on whether it is likely to work, and what evidence would be needed to revive it if it stops working. In the past, it was likely that the PEAD rule would still work, but weakly, and the least predictable issue was whether a company beating earnings expectations and raising guidance, plus a large gap in the stock price, would lead to the stock price continuing to rise or falling back.

On September 3, 2026, at 6:29:10 PM, Northland Capital Markets, a company that analyzes stocks, maintained an Outperform rating, which means they think the stock will do better than average, on NetApp, and raised the price target to $187. At 6:25:56 PM, Raymond James, another company that analyzes stocks, maintained an Outperform rating on Haemonetics and raised the price target to $125. At 6:24:51 PM, Raymond James maintained an Outperform rating on Snowflake and raised the price target to $425. At 6:22:29 PM, Raymond James maintained an Outperform rating on CrowdStrike Holdings and raised the price target to $250. At 6:21:42 PM, Raymond James maintained an Outperform rating on Broadcom and raised the price target to $475. At 6:19:43 PM, Raymond James maintained an Outperform rating on Hewlett Packard and raised the price target to $86. At 6:16:56 PM, B. Riley Securities, a company that analyzes stocks, maintained a Buy rating, which means they think the stock is a good investment, on Solana and raised the price target to $3.5. At 6:15:42 PM, B. Riley Securities maintained a Buy rating on Forward Industries and raised the price target to $9. At 6:14:47 PM, B. Riley Securities maintained a Buy rating on BitMine Immersion and raised the price target to $30. At 6:14:06 PM, BTIG, a company that analyzes stocks, maintained a Buy rating on Climb Bio and raised the price target to $32. At 6:13:58 PM, B. Riley Securities maintained a Buy rating on Nakamoto and raised the price target to $11. At 6:12:46 PM, B. Riley Securities maintained a Buy rating on Strategy, also known as MicroStrategy, and raised the price target to $175. At 6:11:06 PM, B. Riley Securities maintained a Buy rating on Strive and raised the price target to $26. At 6:10:01 PM, B. Riley Securities maintained a Buy rating on Atlanticus Holdings and raised the price target to $119. At 6:04:57 PM, BMO Capital, a company that analyzes stocks, maintained an Outperform rating on Netskope and raised the price target to $18. At 6:03:43 PM, BMO Capital maintained an Outperform rating on Chevron and raised the price target to $235. At 6:01:54 PM, Baird, a company that analyzes stocks, maintained an Outperform rating on Climb Bio and raised the price target to $25. At 5:56:25 PM, Roth Capital, a company that analyzes stocks, reiterated, or repeated, a Buy rating on Vox Royalty and raised the price target to $8. At 5:50:39 PM, Roth Capital maintained a Buy rating on Imax and raised the price target.

The market was closed during the entire run, which was checked at 03:56 UTC, and the next open is at 13:30 UTC or 9:30 ET on the same day. As a result, the queued GTLB PEAD buy could not be executed. A snapshot confirmed that the gap is holding, with the previous close at 46.515 on 8/31, the regular close at 45.05 on 9/1, the after-hours last trade at 54.46, and the bid/ask at 52.19/55.00 as of 20:58 UTC on 9/1. This is within the planned 48-58 execution range, so the plan is still valid. The plan is to buy around $6,000, set a stop around 10% below the fill, and target around 20% above the fill, with a horizon of 4-6 weeks. A crypto idea was tested, using a 50/200 SMA time-series momentum on BTC/ETH, but it was rejected. All crypto momentum, mean-reversion, and pairs ideas have been exhausted and rejected across 3 runs. The next run will involve checking the clock, and if the market is open, executing the GTLB buy immediately, while also verifying that there is no fresh negative news on GTLB overnight.

The plan is to buy GTLB at the market open on 2026-09-02. The reason for this is that GTLB beat its expected earnings per share (EPS) by 33% and raised its guidance for the fiscal year 2027, which was reported after the market closed on September 1. The stock price increased by 20.9% after hours, from $45.05 to $54.46, with a bid/ask price of $52.19/$55.00 according to Alpaca. This is a strong surprise with a strong immediate positive reaction, which is a typical setup for a long Post-Earnings Announcement Drift (PEAD) strategy, expecting the stock to continue to rise over the following weeks. At the next market open, if GTLB opens in the range of approximately $48-58, the plan is to buy approximately $6,000 worth of the stock, which is about 24% of the $24,990 capital. A stop-loss will be set at about 10% below the actual fill price to protect against a reversal. The target is to sell at about 20% above the fill price, which is a typical continuation of the PEAD strategy. The time horizon for this trade is 4-6 weeks. If the price opens below $45 or above $62, the plan will be skipped and reassessed. Other strategies, such as momentum on crypto majors and sector ETFs, were tested but did not perform well. A pairs stat-arb strategy using ETH and SOL performed well in backtesting, with a return of 17.9% compared to a buy-and-hold return of -48%, but it is not tradable without a short-selling tool. MDB also beat its expected earnings but sold off after hours, which is a bearish PEAD signal and not tradable with a long-only strategy. The next steps are to check the open price of GTLB at 9:30 ET and execute the plan, and also to scan news for fresh earnings surprises with positive after-hours reactions, using a screen of EPS beat greater than 10%, guidance raised, and after-hours move greater than 8%.