Daily Alpha Brief — 2026-09-18 — BULL regime across majors

Bayesian crypto brief for 2026-09-18: BULL regime, strategy performance, weight shifts, and quant-vs-crowd sentiment across 9 symbols.

TL;DR

• Dominant regime: BULL (4 bullish / 4 bearish of 9 symbols).
• Top signal: walk_forward_ema on SOL raised 0.395 (0.21 → 0.60).
• Shadow portfolio: $718 (-28.20%), 0 open, 35% win rate.

Shadow portfolio value since inception (dashed line = $1,000 starting capital).

Current Bayesian reliability weights, averaged across the universe.

Detected regime per symbol (EMA200 + ADX); % = lead-strategy conviction.

🌐 Market Indices

Crowd reads greed at 64/100; BTC dominance 58.6% signals balanced.

🌐 Market Overview

Economic (FRED):

Stablecoin dominance 9.7% (risk-on); yield curve regime Flat.

Funding Rates (contrarian — heavy positive = crowded longs to fade):

Economic Calendar: Next FOMC: in 40 days | Next CPI: in 25 days | position-size modifier 1.00×.

📊 Regime Analysis

Regime per symbol from EMA200 + ADX on daily candles, with the fusion signal.

The book is mixed: 4 BULL / 4 BEAR of 9 symbols.

🔗 Correlation Signals

Stable pairs (r > 0.70): SOL/DOGE: r=0.91 ✅ | DOGE/SUI: r=0.91 ✅ | ETH/SOL: r=0.88 ✅ | BTC/SOL: r=0.87 ✅ | SOL/SUI: r=0.87 ✅ | SUI/AVAX: r=0.86 ✅

Index signals: BTC dominance NEUTRAL → no rotation; Fear & Greed contrarian NONE.

⚙️ Strategy Performance

Aggregate 7-day performance per strategy (replayed across the universe). Edge = win-rate × avg P&L per trade — the table is sorted by it.

All P&L figures normalized to a 100 USDT position size for comparability (not summed across symbols).

🧠 Bayesian Weight Shifts

SOL/USDT (BULL):

rsi_macd has a catastrophic 7d profile (17% win, -9.53 Sharpe, negative pnl) triggering rules 2-3 for a hard cut to 0.10, and this conflicts with the BULL regime but data wins per rule 6. ema_cross earns a moderate raise on solid 7d metrics (44% win, 3.40 Sharpe, +125 pnl) and BULL regime alignment, while walk_forward_ema gets a modest lift on its positive 7d Sharpe (1.92) and regime fit. volume_spike is trimmed slightly from its elevated current weight because the 24h window is sharply negative (-13.59 Sharpe, -100 pnl), yet the 7d remains strongly positive (7.28 Sharpe, +458 pnl), so a cautious reduction from 0.70 to 0.65 balances the conflicting windows; bollinger and post_shock_reversal both carry negative 7d pnl and near-zero or negative 7d Sharpe in a BULL regime, so they are held near current levels with no reward; tsmom and the non-price voters (sentiment with strong 100% confluence, correlation, macro) are held near neutral or current weights given zero trade data or regime-neutral status.

BNB/USDT (BULL):

walk_forward_ema is the clearest cut: 7d win-rate of 22% with Sharpe -8.81 and pnl -216 triggers rules 2-3 hard, pushing it near the floor at 0.10. ema_cross also fires rule 3 (7d Sharpe -3.97, pnl -108, 32% win) creating a conflict with the BULL regime — data overrides regime per rule 6, so it is cut meaningfully from 0.626 to 0.40. rsi_macd has adequate trade count but a 7d win-rate of only 41% with positive pnl, so it is trimmed modestly from its elevated 0.742 to 0.62; volume_spike and tsmom show sub-50% 7d win-rates with modest positive pnl, warranting light reductions; post_shock_reversal has positive 7d pnl and Sharpe but is a mean-reversion vehicle in a BULL regime, so it holds near current; sentiment_strategy shows consistent 3-source coverage with 67% confluence and mild positive composite, supporting a slight trim from its high 0.609 to 0.58; correlation_strategy and macro_strategy report zero activity and hold near their current weights per the no-data guidance.

SUI/USDT (SIDEWAYS):

volume_spike has 91 7d trades with only 20% win-rate, negative Sharpe (-4.56), and -317 pnl — a clear rule-2/3 cut despite the anomalous 24h Sharpe spike which is likely a single large outlier across 14 trades at 36% win, still below 50%; I reduced it sharply to 0.13. post_shock_reversal similarly shows 20% win-rate, deeply negative Sharpe (-4.68), and -116 pnl on 10 7d trades, triggering rule-2/3 cuts to 0.13; the 24h single-trade win is noise under rule 1. walk_forward_ema is the only price-based strategy with a positive 7d Sharpe (1.91) and positive pnl (+62) on 13 trades, earning a modest raise to 0.37 per rule 4, despite it being a momentum family strategy in a SIDEWAYS regime the data overrides the regime prior per rule 6. bollinger gets a small trim from 0.289 to 0.25 because its sole 7d trade produced a deeply negative Sharpe (-7.22), while rsi_macd, ema_cross, tsmom, correlation_strategy, and macro_strategy all have zero 7d trades and are held within ±0.05 of current under rule 1; sentiment_strategy with consistent 100% confluence over both windows gets a small bump to 0.60.

📡 Signal Outlook

💼 Shadow Portfolio

$1,000 USDT paper portfolio, 1% risk/trade, MEXC fees modelled. No real capital is deployed.

📡 Discourse Radar

Crowd-vs-quant sentiment from CryptoCompare news, crypto RSS, the macro feeds (FT / Fed / CNBC), and the Fear & Greed index. (Reddit retired — Responsible Builder Policy restrictions, 2026.)

• Fear & Greed: +0.50 (bullish crowd).
• Macro signal (FT/Fed/CNBC): +0.10 (bullish) — “Federal Reserve Board announces approval of the application by Banco Santander, S.A. and Santander H”.

Most-talked alt: DOGE/USDT at +0.81 (bullish crowd lean).

📰 Today’s Key Reads

Curated from 3 sources monitored today:

⚠️ Bitcoin heads for third winning week in a row as macro pressures mount — cnbc_finance — Score: +0.75

🟢 JPMorgan says bitcoin could get more support than gold if ETF hedging eases — theblock — Score: +0.33

🟢 Deutsche Bank plans bitcoin, ether custody for institutional clients in Europe — theblock — Score: +0.29

⚠️ Senate is still a toss-up, but Democrats now have slight edge, prediction market traders think — cnbc_finance — Score: +0.15

⚪ U.S. diesel prices hit record high as bitcoin and gold struggle — coindesk — Score: -0.10

Academic Footnote

Addy et al. (2024) — cointegration-based crypto pairs strategies.

Disclaimer

This is algorithmic analysis only, not financial advice.