Blog · 12 September 2026
Three strategies on Centaurium 1.1
The three strategies built on Centaurium 1.0 closed on 8 September 2026. Three new ones replace them, all derived on Centaurium 1.1. Their pages are up with the full 2022–2024 backtest.
What closed, and why
Centaurium 1.1 calibrates its bands across the whole trading day. That fixed the model and broke the strategies: the cross-name ranking behind Boulevardier 1.0 was riding the older model’s miscalibrated band, and on the corrected one it stops trading. It has no successor. We would rather retire a strategy than re-point one whose edge we can no longer reproduce.
The closed pages stay published as frozen records. A strategy that stopped running is part of the track record.
What replaces it
Old Pal 1.1 — concentrated, two names, under a volatility brake. +21.4% a year over the assumed cycle, −31.6% drawdown. It is the one intraday line whose behaviour survived a change of model recipe, a re-run and a change of random seed, which is why it is the one we trade first. Its return is lopsided: 2024 alone contributed +51.3% against 2023’s +8.5%.
Americano 1.1 — volatility-managed, +10.7% a year at a −11.1% drawdown. Same policy as Americano 1.0 with the model re-pointed. The headline setting steps down from the 15% volatility target to the 10%, so the risk band steps down with the version.
Black Manhattan 1.1 — a new mechanism and a new cocktail. Flat all day, holding eight names from the close to the next open. +17.5% a year at −13.5%.
All three compute live today without placing orders. Old Pal 1.1 is the one we trade first, on a broker demo account, once its volatility overlay has warmed up.
The number that argues against us
Black Manhattan’s card carries a table showing what a strategy with no model at all would have done on the same book. Buying last week’s best overnight movers — a rule needing no forecaster, no training, nothing — returns +15.2% a year at a −16.7% drawdown, against the model’s +17.5% at −13.5%. On risk-adjusted return the two are level.
We publish that table inside the card, against a control holding the same eight names the strategy holds, because a control measured at a different book size is not a comparison. The model earns a shallower drawdown and slightly more compounding. That is a real edge and a narrow one, and a reader is entitled to see the row rather than the conclusion.
It is also why Black Manhattan is labelled a research line and not promoted.
Centaury is now Centaurium
Same model, same version numbers, a name that travels. Centaurium is the botanical genus; centaury is its common English name — a bitter herb in the gentian family. Old links redirect.
Every figure above is an in-sample 2022–2024 backtest, not a live result. Nothing here is investment advice. Full disclaimer.