Short Autopsy — Why v6 Lost

Thesis destroyed: Shorting on SAR cluster flips with a −10% floor works on paper, but crypto gaps liquidate shorts before the stop can fire.
In Jan–Mar 2023, the market was strongly bullish. v6 opened zero longs and 14 shorts.
Four positions were fully liquidated (−93.3% each = −$1,865). The rest were held underwater until window-end force-exit.

Every Trade in This Window

Close Date	Pair	Tag	Profit ($)	Profit %	Exit Reason
2023-01-14 00:30	MANA/USDT:USDT	bear_short	−466.3	−93.3%	liquidation
2023-01-15 18:30	SAND/USDT:USDT	bear_short	−466.2	−93.3%	liquidation
2023-01-27 18:45	COMP/USDT:USDT	bear_short	−466.2	−93.3%	liquidation
2023-02-11 02:30	HBAR/USDT:USDT	bear_short	−465.8	−93.2%	liquidation
2023-03-02 00:00	ADA/USDT:USDT	bear_short	−14.3	−2.9%	force_exit
2023-03-02 00:00	AVAX/USDT:USDT	bear_short	−35.9	−7.2%	force_exit
2023-03-02 00:00	BNB/USDT:USDT	bear_short	−44.0	−8.8%	force_exit
2023-03-02 00:00	CHZ/USDT:USDT	bear_short	−179.5	−35.9%	force_exit
2023-03-02 00:00	DASH/USDT:USDT	bear_short	−271.7	−54.4%	force_exit
2023-03-02 00:00	DOGE/USDT:USDT	bear_short	+49.9	+10.0%	force_exit
2023-03-02 00:00	THETA/USDT:USDT	bear_short	−242.2	−48.5%	force_exit
2023-03-02 00:00	TRX/USDT:USDT	bear_short	−49.0	−9.8%	force_exit
2023-03-02 00:00	UNI/USDT:USDT	bear_short	−152.9	−30.7%	force_exit
2023-03-02 00:00	XLM/USDT:USDT	bear_short	−54.1	−10.8%	force_exit

Why This Happened

Zero longs fired. In a strong bull run, v6's PCA regime detector apparently never triggered strong_bull (or the cluster-bullish conditions failed), so the strategy never entered a single bull_long trade. Meanwhile, bear_short entries kept firing on every SAR flip-down during small pullbacks.
Liquidation bypasses stops. A −10% floor stop works for long, slow moves. But in crypto, a +20% gap in one 15m candle liquidates the short position before the next candle's stop evaluation.
Bull-run asymmetry. V4 (long-only) made +$2,291 in this exact window. v6 (short-only here) lost −$2,858. The asymmetry is brutal: you can only lose 100% shorting, but the market can rally 500%.

Conclusion for Strategy Design

Abandon shorts in this framework. The risk/reward is fundamentally negative even with regime detection, gate filtering, and trailing stops. The upside of capturing bear drops is mathematically outweighed by the catastrophic tail risk of bull-run squeezes.

The correct architecture is bull-only with stronger chop detection — not a separate bear strategy. Preserve capital in bear/sideways markets by sitting out, not by shorting.

🔴 Short Autopsy: Jan–Mar 2023 Window

Every Trade in This Window

Why This Happened

Conclusion for Strategy Design