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Chronos Square Capital, 3255 Oak Ridge Loop E, West Fargo, ND (2026)

08/19/2026

Back to school

Home room
Bring the teacher an apple (or AAPL)
You guessed it. Our first closed trade of the new school year is AAPL. It’s apropos to reflect back to an amazing professor at NEU that my colleague, Bonser, and I truly appreciated and considered one of the best. We will refer to him as Dick, since that was his name. He viewed AAPL as one of the most elegant stocks of this generation for analysis and for investment. It’s only fair we tie it all together as schools welcome students back, and we give appreciation for the teachers.

Music class (maybe choir, maybe band, maybe Rock History)
‘Begin the day
With a friendly voice
A companion, unobtrusive
Plays the song that’s so elusive
And the magic music makes your morning mood.’

Gym class
To start the school year and craft a trade, we will focus on jumping rope, hopscotch and jump shots, and culminate with an (exactly) ATM LEAP BuCD, Jan 28 $300 x Sep $320.

Foreign Language
Of course we are studying Greek this semester, or should we more appropriately say the Greeks? We aren’t talking about Odysseus here, rather delta, gamma, theta and vega. Interesting observation - theta accounted for 31% of our return! Ahhh, the elegance of a LEAP BuCD!

Math
We never met a math class we didn’t like, even Ring Theory. Here’s your math assignment.
Trade cost of $4,641.04 per contract
Closing proceeds of $5,348.85 per contract.
July 31 to August 19 holding period.
365 days in 2026.
This is far from Ring Theory, so have at it. You do the math. It’s elementary.

History
As the profound Winnie Churchill said, ‘Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.’ We try to learn from every trade and leverage that experience into our trading rules. Hence, as AAPL predictably closed in on our SC, we entered an aggressive closing order and a little end-of-day pop in price gave us a fill.

Chemistry, or, How our Momentum Oscillator works.
‘Signal transmitted, message received
Reaction making impact invisibly
Elemental telepathy, exchange of energy
Reaction making contact mysteriously.’

Mega props to the Professor.

08/07/2026

SPCX - Spacex
We don’t know whether SPCX is that stock you need to buy and tuck away forever, or not. We do know attractive option chains developed quickly and present viable trades. SPCX jumped on its opening and proceeded to fall to and below its IPO price, which, frankly, we found interesting and compelling. The rate and depth of the selloff were rather intense, with RSI slumping to the low 30’s.

Our ANN-driven momentum oscillator is calibrated on data for a 3-year minimum, so we did NOT have bells, gongs or whistles. We did see a precipitous price decline, a very viable option chain and an opportunity. With the weak momentum, backwardation in the volatility curve heightened the attractiveness of short maturity short calls, a nice pairing to a longer-dated long. We also have the database of more than 750,000 observation points for individual stocks and domestic and international Fama-French portfolios over more than 20 years through multiple market cycles (AND, the RSI triggers for every NASDAQ 100 and S&P 500 stock, with means, medians, modes and standards deviations no matter how we slice the data.

While not ‘armed’ with our normal arsenal, we were not unarmed.

We crafted a well-ITM Jan 28 $120 x Oct $140 LEAP BuCD. The trade gave us a $107 B/E, very positive theta, uncapped returns, and an opportunity to ‘win’ through delta, gamma, theta, AND vega.

How did it turn out? All of the Greeks worked for us. We elected to close the trade on day nine with a 26.58% HPR and a 1,078 annROI.

RSI was only 51, we were still $10 below the short strike and we were far from negative delta. So, why close? Why not? What’s wrong with a 1,078% annROI? What happens to hogs? What would you have done?

08/03/2026

META - Facebook
Quick and dirty, META got hit hard after a punk earnings release. RSI dipped to 32.11, close enough to our oversold trigger to induce us to enter a near the money Mar 27 $530 x Oct $560 muted delta BUCD.
Momentum reversed and surged quickly as META sliced through our SC. We closed after a day with an 8.03% HPR and a 2,830 annROI.

NFLX - Netflix
No secret we like the stock and consider every opportunity to trade it. That said, it’s been a very tough three months for NFLX and intermittent spurts of positive momentum have not proven sustainable. As the stock wallowed in its summer funk, we entered a trade we don’t do often. Our Jan 28 $65 didn’t have a roommate, so we had the luxury of pairing it or closing it on the recent price strength. We elected to close and reassess opportunities. Our 12.87% 14-day HPR netted us a 336% annROI.

07/30/2026

GOOGL - Alphabet (again)
GOOGL entered seriously overbought territory in early May, with an RSI of 84. Our upside trigger flashed sell signs, but we didn’t enter a trade because, we prefer oversold trades. Regardless, the overbought GOOGL did what it was supposed to do and momentum reversed aggressively.

The negative momentum brought into a nice two-week trade in late June/early July we highlighted recently.
GOOGL trued to sustain upward momentum but stalled and revered again, starting a slide in mid-July. As the song goes, ‘I can learn to resist
Anything but temptation.’ GOOGL again flirted with our O/S trigger and we entered an ITM Jan 27 $310 x Aug $335 BuCD on July 24.

A number of aspects of this trade worked well for us. GOOGL price rose, time passed, and, importantly, general AI volatility touched a number of stocks. We exited after a five-day hold with a 15.93% HPR and a 1,163% annROI.

07/20/2026

GOOGL - Alphabet
In and out June 23 - July 7 -
We forgot all about this nice little W.
When a stock we like as much as Alphabet (GOOG or GOOGL) fires off an oversold flare, we are always ready to make a move. After a rough two months, GOOGL flashed a nice Buy signal for us on June 23. With a notional of $350/share, GOOGL options can get pricy quickly and the short has a major notional pricetag. This is especially true with purchase of choice, the LEAP BuCD. We rolled in the expiration with a straight BuCD that gave us a bit of delta and a bit of theta. Although GOOGL has moved around a bit since our exit, it shows some decent upward momentum after we entered the trade and until we exited (after it blew through our SC).
Our trade
Jan 27 $350 x Aug $370 BuCD
14-day hold
12.97% HPR
338% annROI
This was just what the Doctor ordered and followed our plan nicely.

07/20/2026

VZ - Verizon
Verizon ‘behaves’ very well, and by behaves, we mean the stock adheres to behavioral responses to our momentum triggers very well. Although our research and our ANN momentum oscillator model considers overbought AND oversold triggers, for reasons we’ve identified previously, our focus is on the Buy signals we observe from breaches of our oversold triggers. That said, a visual inspection of VZ is instructive. Over the past one year, VZ has displayed some elegant vacillations in price and momentum. The visual highlights five instances of a breach of our trigger RSI, all followed by a reversal in momentum and varying degrees of price strength.
On July 1, VZ crashed through our downside trigger once again. We did not trade VZ following the prior signals. Why? We didn’t find trades (read that to mean either backwardation or sloshy spreads) with which we connected.
We did find a trade we liked this time.
Jan 28 $42 x Aug $46 LEAP BuCD
18-day hold
18.9% HPR
383% annROI

07/17/2026

WMT - Wally World again.
After WMT seemingly ended its case of the summer doldrums and started rallying, momentum flagged and the stock legged lower. RSI breached our buy trigger and slid further, bottoming on July 1 at 25.84. This is tantamount to WMT saying ‘buy me!’
We filled a June 27 $110 x Aug $115 with the underlying just a tick OTM at $109 and small change. Our trade had a decent positive theta and a modest delta with a potential return at the SC strike at expiration in excess of 25% at a 68+% win probability. Twelve to 15% should have been ‘in the bag.’
Then reality happened. The volatility curve inverted into backwardation as WMT rallied, dampening our upside.

The deceptive variable in the Black-Scholes option pricing model is volatility. Getting your arms around the other Greeks is fairly straightforward, but vol can sneak up with a larger than expected impact. As volatility increases, option value increases (other variables constant). When the curve goes into backwardation, the effect on a BuCD, or most trades with a calendar dynamic, can be dramatic.

In the end, WMT went through our SC and it was time to take a small win and move on.
Our 14-day hold gave us a 3.63% (meh) HPR and a 95% annROI.

07/15/2026

BABA - Alibaba Group

This trade is a great example of a stock that broke through our oversold trigger and failed to reverse momentum for an extended period, with price weakness continuing into deeply oversold territory. Eleven days after breaching our trigger, BABA RSI bottomed at 16.54 and, yes, we did buy more.

Our original trade was a Jan 28 $110 x Aug $125 LEAP BuCD.
Interestingly, net delta worked against us during the initial 11 days, and while the plump theta offset much of the delta drag, it was definitely a drag.

When momentum finally reversed, the combination of delta/gamma and theta kicked the return into overdrive.

Nice support from delta, gamma, and theta (not Vega so much) drove a 15.31% HPR for a 30-day hold, generating a fair 186% annROI.

The key takeaway here is that our Momentum Oscillator doesn’t ’pick’ the bottom. It is calibrated to identify the RSI at which the stock price will (100%) be above the then current price within 30 days. And, it worked, as it consistently has.

Finally, why did we close the trade? We had room to the SC and a ton of space to negative delta, but RSI hit 62.89, pushing through our exit point.

07/08/2026

ADBE - Adobe
We mean this in the nicest way possible, but since February 2024, ADBE has been a financial sinkhole, not an investment, a chasmic disaster. So, we bought, and sold, and won. Phew!

Had you invested in ADBE in Feb 2024, you would have successfully poured roughly 70% of those funds down a rathole, as it collapsed from $638 to around $200 at its recent low. But, every time ADBE’s RSI breached our downside trigger, momentum reversed and gains were there to be made. We’ve been reluctant to trade this rough stock. So, how did we feel when our Momentum Oscillator flashed another oversold Buy signal against the reality of Adobe’s price action since early 2024?
Calculated conviction.
ADBE has been an absolutely abysmal investment for 2 ½ years, so we felt intense compulsion to put our momentum oscillator to yet another test.
Our trade was an ITM Jan 27 $210 x Aug $225 BuCD with juicy theta, a muffled delta and a decent breakeven point. All chains beyond Jan 27 were Sloppy (cap S intended). Yuck.

ADBE languished a few days before it began a steady upward assault, breaching our short call AND boosting RSI into our hard sell territory. So, we closed a winner.
Results
22 day hold
10.55% HPR
175% annROI

Synopsis
ADBE has been a miserable investment but a decent trading asset. It’s been a rule follower with elegant vacillations.

07/07/2026

AMZN - Amazon
First, we’d like to offer a refresher on our Calendar Anomaly Model (CAM, aka $$calendar).
1. We look at every trading day over the past ten years. Over a course of time, you can buy or sell a stock or option on 361 unique calendar days. We exclude Feb 29 for obvious reasons. Equity and options markets aren’t open 1/1, 6/19, 7/4 & 12/25, and 365 - 4 = 361.
2. We model HPRs (holding periodic returns) for all 361 days hypothesizing holding periods of one through 35 days. That results in 361 x 35 = 12,635 permutations of day and time.
3. We determine the frequency of positive, negative and (seldom) no return.
4. We calculate the Sharpe Ratio for each of the 12,635 scenarios.
5. Now, we get to the really cool and fun part! We weight each Sharpe Ratio by the frequency of positive returns AND by the number of observations.
6. To illustrate, take a look at the second trade noted at 13.61. SR x 100% x 7 = 13.61. The 100% and the 7 indicate that 100% of the (seven possible) trades on the respective date for a 25-day holding period resulted in a positive return!
7. Note - Consider an analysis of every nyse/nasdaq stock from 1999-2020 that suggests the pool of individual stocks had 57.48% positive returns over 1-35 day holding periods. This indicates a .5748^7 = .0207, or a fairly small probability of 100% frequency for seven of seven observations.
8. We rank all 12,635 permutations to identify the best days to enter a trade.
Our CAM isolated June 25 as the second best day in 2026 to buy AMZN. So, we bought.
Our trade? We opened a barely ITM Jan 27 $230 x Aug $245 BuCD for $19.13/share.
Positive theta ✔️
Uncapped ✔️
Juicy delta ✔️
Results?
We had an 11-day hold, 18.28% HPR and a 607% annROI.

Chronos Square Capital

08/19/2026

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