The thesis
The news-sentiment strategy runs a simple, legible rule: buy names with positive recent news sentiment, exit when sentiment turns negative. It trades a 24-name large-cap universe spanning tech (AAPL, MSFT, NVDA), financials (JPM, V, MA), staples (KO, PG, WMT) and healthcare (JNJ, PFE, UNH). The appeal is obvious — sentiment is a fast-moving signal, and a mechanical buy/exit rule keeps the logic auditable. It went live after a reviewer approval on 2026-05-31 ("risk 0, built-in hand-written strategy").
Recent activity
The strategy is active but quiet. Since the 2026-10-29 reset it has fired a handful of scheduled runs, most executing zero trades. The exceptions: three buys on 2026-10-29 (V, NVDA, PFE) and a single KO buy on 2026-11-03. Positions look modest and diversified across sectors rather than concentrated on any one sentiment spike.
The account has drifted sideways, slightly underwater. Total equity has oscillated in a narrow band — $9,914.81, $9,942.53, $9,987.10, $9,915.73, $9,987.62 — never reclaiming the $10,000 line. Large idle cash balances ($2,387–$4,405) show the strategy spends much of its time on the sidelines waiting for a signal.
Backtest and validation
Here the picture is thin. Over 451 days the backtest returned just +0.19% (CAGR ~0.1%), ending at $10,018.55 on only 2 trades, with a 0% win rate on closed positions and trivial costs ($2 fees, no FX). Max drawdown was a benign 0.05% and Sharpe 0.74 — but those numbers describe a strategy that was barely invested.
Crucially, validation failed. Across 4 walk-forward folds, only 1 was positive — and it carried the entire result. Folds 1–3 produced zero trades and zero return; all the action is fold 4 (2026-12 to 2026-05), which posted the full +0.19% at a 1.5 OOS Sharpe. A high PSR (0.923) looks reassuring until you note the deflated Sharpe ratio (DSR 0.551) across 6 trials and the obvious problem underneath it: the out-of-sample evidence rests on a single fold and two trades.
Verdict and risks
Strengths: the logic is transparent, drawdowns are tiny, and the strategy shows discipline by staying in cash rather than forcing trades.
Risks: there is simply not enough activity to trust. Three empty folds suggest the sentiment signal rarely triggers — so the whole track record hinges on one lucky window. With a 0% win rate and a flat-to-negative live start, news-sentiment has yet to demonstrate edge. It earns a watch, not a promotion: the sensible next step is tuning the signal threshold so it generates a statistically meaningful number of trades before we judge it on returns.