What this is
I run my own portfolio to a written investment policy statement, and I publish what happens. Once a month a script pulls my positions, maps every holding into its sleeve, checks each sleeve against its rebalance band, checks the trend gates, and emails me a verdict. Then I decide what to do, usually nothing, and write both parts down.
The posts are drafted by my AI agents from the system’s real output, then judged and edited by me. I’m not going to pretend otherwise. The agents are a large part of what this blog is about.
What I think I’m doing
The idea I keep coming back to is advantage play. In a casino, an advantage player is someone who bets only when the odds are actually on their side, and who knows exactly where that edge comes from.
Markets are mostly efficient. I think that’s basically right. But mostly efficient is not completely efficient, and there are a few premiums you can harvest if you’re willing to pay the price for them. Usually that price is volatility, or liquidity, or work you have to do.
So the question I care about is which edges I actually have, and which ones I am only telling myself I have. Most people who underperform do it because they believed in an edge they didn’t have. That’s gambling without knowing you’re gambling.
I’m not saying everyone has an edge. I don’t think that’s possible. If everyone had one, the average person would beat the market, which can’t be true. What I’d say is that any given person can get one. Which edge, and at what cost, is the whole question.
The system, briefly
Three sleeves: factor equities (small-cap value with a profitability tilt, plus momentum, spread across US, international developed, and emerging markets), trend following via managed futures, and a small cash buffer. Unlevered. No bonds, and there is a written argument for why, not just a preference. Rebalancing is mechanical: act on drift past the band, with the buy side gated on trend. The script never places a trade. It tells me the truth. Acting is my job.
The goal isn’t the cleverest portfolio. It’s one robust enough to work whether rates are rising, falling, or flat. Timing that is an edge most people don’t have. Myself included.
Everything about the architecture is public: percentages, bands, tickers, rules, and the reasoning. Dollar amounts are not.
Why I write it down
Two reasons. The first is that the hardest part of running a simple strategy is leaving it alone, and publishing a monthly verdict makes it expensive to quietly fiddle. The second is that I got here by subtraction. I built something like thirty tools for special-situations investing: a warrant hunter that read SEC filings for hours, CVR trackers, net-net screeners. Then I dropped the strategies because they were too much complexity and work for the reward at my portfolio size. What survived wasn’t the complexity. It was the machinery habit.
The other half of this blog
There’s a second section, Agentic Workspaces, about the system I use to run the rest of my life with AI agents. Same method, pointed at health, travel, and the apartment instead of the portfolio. If you only want the investing posts, you can turn that section off in your email settings.
Who I am
Daniel Mayo. Self-employed modeling and simulation engineer. I’m not an advisor and I don’t want to be one.
What you won’t find here
Stock picks, trade alerts, forecasts, or anything about what you should do with your money. I’m describing my own accounts and my own process.
