AutoPilot Trader May 2026: $12,779 Fully Automated, Zero Intervention, and a Last-Day Reality Check
May was almost a record. Almost.
Through the first three weeks of the month, APT was tracking toward its best performance of 2026, ahead of April, which had held the top spot all year. Then the final trading day happened: a $7,300 loss in a single session took the record off the table. The month closed at +$12,779, fully hands-free, with zero manual intervention from start to finish.
I'm leading with that last-day loss on purpose. It's the most instructive number in the whole recap. Watch the full video breakdown below.
May by the Numbers
Net result for May: +$12,779. Static sizing throughout, running 3 NQ + 6 YM in the Two-Way Mode portfolio. The dynamic Risk Ceiling feature, which adjusts contract size based on max dollar risk per trade, was intentionally left off the entire month. I keep it off during live reporting periods so the results stay comparable month over month, without any sizing interference from the automation.
Zero issues across the entire month. The bot ran without signal problems, alert errors, or manual intervention at any point. APT went straight through the FOMC announcement and every significant news event in May without being adjusted or shut off once. The early-version bugs that affected some of the first APT users have been fully resolved. This is what clean operation looks like.
The Record That Almost Happened
April 2026 was the biggest month of the year. May was on pace to beat it going into the final week, then gave back $7,300 on the last session.
Watching that happen is genuinely frustrating. A near-record slipping away on a single losing day is exactly the kind of thing that can make a trader want to second-guess the system, start adjusting sizing, or shut it off for the rest of the session. If I were managing this discretionarily, the pull to override would have been real.
The bot took the loss and kept running. That's the designed behavior, and it's correct.
Pull back to the full 2026 picture: APT has been green every single month except January, which closed essentially flat. February finished at +$6,000. March came in at +$11,000 after opening with a significant drawdown and recovering cleanly through the rest of the month. April set the 2026 high. May closes at +$12,779. One bad final session doesn't change what a full year of documented results shows.
The Sample Size Principle
Every trader understands the law of large numbers in theory. Applying it when you're watching a record month slip away on the last day is where it actually gets tested.
A strategy with a 72% win rate across 1,187 documented trades (full backtest data here) will still have losing days, losing weeks, and occasionally a month that could have been better. That's the expected distribution playing out over the sample. One session proves nothing about the edge. What gives you a real read on the edge is the sustained result over hundreds of trades and multiple months, which in this case is overwhelmingly positive.
Week-to-week and month-to-month variance is part of the model. Trying to reduce it through manual intervention or sizing adjustments based on recent results is how traders erode systematic edges. The correct response to the last day of May is to let APT run the next session exactly the way it ran every session before it.
How May Actually Ran
Configuration for the month: 3 NQ + 6 YM, Two-Way Mode, static sizing throughout. The weighting is intentional: one NQ contract carries roughly twice the notional value of one YM contract, so the 3-and-6 structure creates balanced exposure across both instruments.
The month ran clean from the first session to the last. No connectivity issues, no signal errors, no execution problems, and FOMC week went through without any manual adjustment. The system is well past the early troubleshooting phase that some of the original APT users experienced, and this month reflected that.
What's Available Now and What's Coming
A few product updates worth knowing. The signals-only version of the Two Hour Trader is now available as a standalone option. You get the signals APT generates and execute the trades yourself. Users are reporting strong results on NQ, YM, ES, and individual equities including NVDA, MU, TSLA, AAPL, and META. The Two Hour Trader framework translates well to equities, not just futures contracts. If you're already a member of the Trader's Thinktank, the signals and indicator are included in your membership at powertrading.group/pricing
The full automated APT is a separate annual license and is not included with the Thinktank.
On the roadmap: the Spring setup, a Wyckoff-based entry pattern designed to run uncorrelated with the Two Hour Trader framework, is now targeting end of summer 2026. The original timeline slipped while the developer worked through additional technical issues. The strategic goal stands: adding an uncorrelated strategy is how you build a more durable equity curve, and the extra development time will get it done properly.
Why Automation Made May a Non-Issue
In May, I was in the middle of a move. Packing, logistics, the whole transition. Trading discretionary markets during that kind of period means showing up tired, distracted, and half-present. That's a formula for inconsistent execution.
APT ran anyway. The month produced $12,779 while I was carrying boxes and not thinking about charts. That's the use case for this system, stated plainly.
For anyone with a demanding job, a family, or anything else that competes with sitting at the screen from 8:30 to 4:30 Eastern every trading day, this is the practical argument for automation. The system executes whether you're available or not. You check the results when it's convenient.
Enrollment and Capacity
APT carries a hard cap of 250 active licenses. Performance degrades when more than 250 traders execute the same signals simultaneously, and protecting the edge for current users means the cap is enforced without exceptions.
We're currently over 200 active users. The annual license is $5,000 now, rising toward $7,997 as we approach the limit. Every license includes white-glove Zoom onboarding: the team walks you through the full configuration on a live call so your setup matches the results you see in these recaps.
Full details, the complete performance history, and the position sizing calculator are at powertrading.group/autopilot-trader
That $5000 is now $10,600! Your way of seeing the market makes sense to me. - Darrel Rohar
My first ever green month. Can't tell you how much I learned from trading with y'all in a short period of time. - Charran
Watch the Full May Recap
The May recap video covers all of this in depth: the complete results breakdown, how the bot ran through FOMC, what the last-day loss looks like against the full 2026 picture, and where the Spring setup stands on the development timeline.
If you're evaluating APT and want to see what a real month looks like, including the losing parts, this is the breakdown. For full details on getting started, visit powertrading.group/autopilot-trader
Trading futures involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
