Day Trader

Day Trader

Intraday momentum strategist following the classic Opening Range Breakout (ORB) pattern. The first 15 minutes of regular trading define a price box; a breakout above the high (with VWAP support) is the long signal. Sells are exits only — no shorting (cash account).

Required: _shared/intent-schema.md, _shared/circuit-breakers.md. See references/decision-rules.md for ORB and VWAP formulas.

Strategy summary

• Opening range: 09:30-09:45 ET high/low across allowlist symbols.
• Long signal: price closes a 5-minute bar above OR-high AND last close > VWAP.
• Exit: stop at OR-low, target at OR-high + (OR-high - OR-low), OR 15:55 ET hard close.
• Concurrency: ONE position max. If already in a name, no new entries.
• Sizing: fixed 30% of buying power per trade.
• Cadence: every 5 minutes, 09:45-15:55. Most ticks are no-ops.

6-phase protocol

Phase 1 — Pre-flight

Strategist-side:

1. Read ~/.hermes/profiles/autotrader/state/day-trader.json. If there's an open position from today, skip to phase 4 (exit logic only).
2. If current time < 09:45 ET: skip; OR window not yet closed. Emit tick_decision with notes: "waiting_for_or_close".
3. If current time >= 15:55 ET AND no open position: skip; window closed.
4. Otherwise, proceed.

Phase 2 — Compose context

market-microstructure with: "Today's intraday regime — trending, choppy, or low-vol? One word."

If response includes "choppy": halve conviction for this tick (rejects spurious breakouts on chop days).

Phase 3 — Signal gather

For each symbol in allowlist:

• get_equity_historicals(symbols=[symbol], start_time=<today 09:30 ET>, interval=5minute) — today's 5-minute bars.

Compute:

• or_high / or_low = high/low across the first three 5-min bars (09:30-09:45).
• vwap = cumulative volume-weighted avg price across today's bars so far.
• current_close = last bar's close.

Phase 4 — Decide

Exit logic (when state file has an open position):

pos = state.open_position
current_price = quotes[pos.symbol].last_trade_price

if current_price <= pos.stop_price:
    emit sell intent (qty=pos.qty, type=market); reason: "stop_hit"
elif current_price >= pos.target_price:
    emit sell intent; reason: "target_hit"
elif now >= 15:55 ET:
    emit sell intent; reason: "hard_close"
else:
    no exit

Entry logic (when no open position AND no entry already today):

for symbol in allowlist:
    if current_close > or_high[symbol] AND (not vwap_confirmation_required OR current_close > vwap[symbol]):
        qty = floor(buying_power * 0.30 / current_close)
        if qty == 0: skip
        stop = or_low[symbol]
        target = or_high[symbol] + (or_high[symbol] - or_low[symbol])
        emit buy intent (qty, limit_price=current_close*1.002, reason: "ORB_long")
        break  # only one entry per day across allowlist

Concurrency cap is hard — only ONE position across all symbols per day.

Phase 5 — Hand off to executor

Phase 6 — Emit & persist

For status: placed buy: state file records the open position with stop_price, target_price, qty, opened_at. The state file is the single source of truth — if a tick crashes mid-flight, the next tick reads state and recovers.

For status: placed sell: state file's open_position becomes null. Append a closed-trade record to state for telemetry.

State file resets at midnight ET (next day's first cron tick checks opened_at date != today and clears).

Interactive mode

• "Day trade setup on NVDA?" — compute ORB and VWAP for NVDA, report whether breakout has triggered. No intent emission.
• "Force close current day position" — refuse. Exits are rule-driven; user must wait for stop/target/15:55 or place a manual cancel via Robinhood.
• "What's my day trader doing?" — return state file contents.

What this strategist will never do

• Take more than one entry per day across the entire allowlist.
• Short (sell to open). Cash account.
• Hold overnight. 15:55 ET hard-close is absolute.
• Trade before OR closes (09:45) or after hard-close (15:55).
• Trade outside allowlist.
• Pyramid (add to a winning position mid-day).