I am not a licensed financial advisor. This is a documented public experiment, not investment advice. Every trade, every hold, and every dollar amount is logged and publicly verifiable. See the pre-registration post for the full rules of this experiment.
This is Day 13 of the Investing Smarter Test — a 12-month experiment where I gave an AI $1,000 in a real Robinhood account and let it trade on its own. The only question I’m trying to answer: can an AI beat the simplest thing a person could do with $1,000, which is drop it in an S&P 500 index fund and walk away?
This morning, the market handed the AI a genuinely tempting menu — a record-backlog electrical-infrastructure stock, a data-center cooling company riding the AI boom — and the AI did the hardest thing in investing: it looked hard, and then it bought nothing.
Here’s where things stand.
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Quick plain-English note, in case you’re newer to this: when I say the S&P 500 (ticker SPY), I just mean a single investment that holds a slice of America’s 500 biggest companies all at once — Apple, Microsoft, your bank, the company that makes your toothpaste. You buy one thing and you instantly own a little piece of all of them. That’s the “boring index fund” everyone keeps telling you to buy — and it’s the yardstick the AI has to beat. Learn that one term and you’re already ahead of most people.
What This Does NOT Prove
Before I show you the scoreboard, a word about what you’re looking at.
This is one account. One run. One AI. Twelve months. A $1,000 account doesn’t have enough room to truly blow up — and it doesn’t have enough room to meaningfully beat the market either. Statistics require sample sizes. One experiment is a story, not a proof.
If the AI is up right now, that doesn’t prove AI investing works. If it’s down, that doesn’t prove it can’t. What it does prove is whether this specific AI, following this specific strategy, beat or lost to the simplest available alternative — a plain index fund — over this particular stretch of time. I’m publishing every day, win or lose. If the AI blows up, you’ll see it here. That’s the point.
The Investing Smarter Test Scoreboard — Day 13 (July 9, 2026)
| AI Account | S&P 500 Index (Benchmark) | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting value | $1,000.00 | $1,000.00 |
| Current value | $1,013.37 | $1,009.93 |
| Change from start | +$13.37 (+1.34%) | +$9.93 (+0.99%) |
| AI vs. Index gap | +$3.44 (AI ahead) | — |
| Max drawdown (AI) | -0.28% | -2.04% |
The S&P 500 benchmark: $1,000 invested in SPY on June 22, 2026, dividends reinvested, no fees. The honest comparison is always “what would $1,000 in an index fund have done?”
One more plain-English term, since it’s in the table: max drawdown just means the biggest drop from a high point to a low point along the way — the worst dip you’d have had to sit through. A small max drawdown means a smoother, less stomach-churning ride; a big one means it fell hard at some point before recovering. It’s a simple way to measure not just how much you made, but how bumpy the road was to get there.
Where we stand this morning: the AI account is at $1,013.37, and the same $1,000 in a plain index fund would be at $1,009.93 — so the AI is ahead by $3.44. Worth a caution while it’s fun: this is a tiny account over a short stretch, and a lead this small can just as easily be luck as anything else — so I wouldn’t read too much into it yet, in either direction.
If This Were $10,000 Instead of $1,000
I started this with $1,000 because that’s a real, relatable amount and it’s what I was willing to hand an AI. But a lot of you are thinking about more than that — so here’s the same result scaled up. Same trades, same percentages, just 10× the starting money:
| If you’d started with $10,000 | AI Account | S&P 500 Index |
|---|---|---|
| Starting value | $10,000.00 | $10,000.00 |
| Would be worth today | $10,133.69 | $10,099.32 |
| Change | +$133.69 (+1.34%) | +$99.32 (+0.99%) |
| Difference | +$34.38 | — |
The point of showing both isn’t “look what the AI could have made you.” It’s the gap. At $1,000 the AI is ahead of the boring index fund by $3.44; scaled to $10,000 that same gap is $34.38 — same story, bigger numbers. Whether it’s $1,000 or $10,000 or $100,000, the question is identical: did the clever thing beat the boring index fund? — and notice the boring index fund’s number scales just as cleanly without anyone having to watch it every day. (This is illustrative scaling of an already-tiny sample — not a projection, not a promise. Past performance is not future performance.)
Why the AI Held — And Why That’s the Whole Point
Here’s the thing nobody tells you about investing: most of the skill is in not doing things.
This morning the AI scanned the market and found three genuinely interesting names — the kind of stocks that are all over the financial news right now because they sit underneath the AI boom (the companies that make the electrical switchgear and the cooling systems data centers can’t run without). A human staring at that list feels the itch to jump in before missing out. That itch is what empties retirement accounts. The AI reviewed each one, found a reason each was too risky right now, and bought nothing. Here’s the reasoning it logged:
“Both existing positions (XBI biotech, +10.55%; VWO emerging markets, -2.59%) have theses that are not falsified — XBI is at a new 52-week high, VWO is holding its uptrend — so both are HOLD. On new candidates: POWL was the most compelling (record $1.8 billion backlog, a $400 million mega-order, profitable, trading 27% off its highs) but it reports earnings in 26 days, which creates a binary event risk inside my intended hold window. VRT had a similar thesis but earnings only 20 days out — even closer risk. AAOI is unprofitable with extreme volatility, which violates my quality bar. No candidate clears the fence cleanly this tick given earnings proximity. HOLD all positions; no new entry.”
A note on reading that: the AI will always write a confident explanation. Confident reasoning is not the same as correct reasoning. I’m logging it exactly as written so we can look back later and see whether it was right — or whether it just sounded right. What I like about today isn’t the picks it named; it’s the picks it walked away from. “This looks great but it reports earnings in three weeks and I don’t want that gamble” is exactly the kind of discipline most human investors skip — and the kind that’s easy to admire in a machine and hard to practice yourself.
What holding means for the strategy: This is a buy-and-hold experiment. Most days should be hold days. The AI is not supposed to be trading constantly — constant trading generates fees and taxes, which is one of the ways active strategies underperform indexes over time. So today’s hold is the expected behavior, not a cop-out.
What You Should Actually Do With $1,000
I get this question every time I write about investing experiments: “Should I do what the AI is doing?”
Here’s my honest answer: probably not.
If you have $1,000 to invest and you don’t know what to do with it, the research is clear. Put it in a low-cost S&P 500 index fund — something like SPY, VOO, or FSKAX. Set it up as automatic monthly contributions if you can. Don’t check it daily.
Where to actually do it. For each service below there are two links — a referral link where you and I both get a small bonus, and a plain direct link where I get nothing. Your choice, never required. I explain exactly how I’m paid (and not paid) on my editorial independence page.
- Vanguard — the low-cost gold standard. Buy VOO directly; about 0.03%/yr. Best if you want the cheapest DIY option. No referral program, so just one link: vanguard.com.
- Betterment — a robo-advisor that auto-builds and rebalances an index portfolio (~0.25%/yr). Referral link (we both get a bonus) or plain link (I get nothing).
- Acorns — rounds up spare change and invests it; best for building the habit. Referral link ($5 for you after you invest) or plain link (I get nothing).
- Robinhood — the commission-free broker this experiment runs on; fine for buying VOO/SPY and leaving it alone. Referral link (free fractional share for both of us) or plain link (I get nothing).
That’s it. That’s the boring, reliable thing. The entire point of this experiment is to find out whether a sophisticated AI can actually beat that boring, reliable thing — and after 13 days, here’s exactly where it stands: the AI is $3.44 ahead of the boring index fund.
Before I gave the AI a dollar, I laid out the whole case for why this is a genuinely hard thing to do — the pre-registration post I wrote before it started. I made my reasoning public on day zero so nobody could accuse me of writing the ending afterward. Can a clever AI beat a boring index fund? I honestly don’t know — that’s why I’m running it in public. Whether it proves me right or surprises me, you’ll see it happen in real time.
Transparency: The Full Log Is Public
Every trade this AI has made or declined to make — plus its logged reasoning — is publicly documented, and so are the AI’s instructions. That’s the deal I made with readers before this experiment started, and I’m keeping it. If you’re curious how a disciplined approach to money plays out beyond investing, my Find Your Path quiz applies the same “do the boring, proven thing” logic to getting out of debt.
Frequently Asked Questions
Did the AI trade today?
No. On Day 13 the AI reviewed three new candidate stocks tied to the AI-infrastructure boom and rejected all of them — mostly because each reports earnings within about three weeks, which is a coin-flip risk it didn’t want inside its hold window. It kept its two existing positions and made no new purchase.
Is the AI beating the S&P 500?
Barely, and it’s far too early to matter. As of this morning the AI account is at $1,013.37 versus $1,009.93 for the same money in an index fund — a $3.44 lead. Over a tiny account and just a few weeks, a gap that small is as likely to be luck as skill. The experiment runs a full year for exactly that reason.
Should I copy what the AI is buying?
Probably not. This is a documented experiment with $1,000, not a model portfolio. For most people, the research points to a low-cost S&P 500 index fund and automatic monthly contributions — the boring thing the AI is being tested against. The point of the experiment is to see whether clever beats boring, not to hand you stock picks.
This is what I’m seeing after 30 years of helping people with money. Take it as one informed perspective — but only you know your full situation. Use this as input for your decision, not a directive. Nobody gets to tell you what to do with your money. Not me, not anyone.
Next: Day 14 — the AI held through a scary drop and the index fund pulled ahead.
