Notes from a transparent trading desk.

Every AI trading explainer online is either selling a course, selling a broker, or dodging the hard questions. Here's the honest version: how it actually works, where it breaks, why most tools won't show you their reasoning — and how to spot the scams.

Regulators force banks to explain every AI decision that touches your loan application. No one forces a trading app to explain the AI touching your portfolio. Here's what explainable AI means, why institutions are required to have it — and why you should demand the same standard.

The Wall Street Journal handed ChatGPT a portfolio. Bloomberg ran eight AI models through a live trading contest. The results landed the same place: a chat window is not a trading system. Here's the difference — and what 'AI trading' actually requires.

Robinhood just opened its doors to AI agents — paste one link and Claude or ChatGPT can place real trades for you. Here's the plain-English version of how it works, what the agent can and can't touch, and the questions to answer before you connect one.

Every page explaining Robinhood Cortex was written by Robinhood. Here's the neutral version: what the AI assistant actually does, what it deliberately doesn't, what Gold costs you, and how Cortex differs from the new Agentic Trading.

Robinhood just made 'agentic trading' mainstream — but almost nobody explains what it means. Here's the plain-English version: what it is, how an AI agent actually makes a decision, and the one thing that separates a trustworthy one from a slot machine.

The honest answer is 'it depends entirely on the guardrails' — not on how smart the AI is. Here are the real risks of AI stock trading, the six controls that actually protect you, and the red flags that mean you should walk away.

The honest answer is 'usually not' — and the reason why is the whole story. A plain-English look at when trading bots make money, why most quietly fail, and what to demand before you trust one.

A track record is easy to cherry-pick and easy to misread. Here's how to look past the headline return and read total return, Sharpe, drawdown, win rate, and profit factor — the way a professional would.