Meet Alex, Sarah and Elena, the AI Agents Running One Dad’s Brokerage Account. Their Best Trait Is One You Can Copy
Brokers now let AI agents buy and sell on their own, and one stay-at-home dad has given his agents names and jobs. Their best feature — no emotions — turns out to be something a human can copy with a pen.
By Sean Anees Saifi · Capital Wealth · Published Thursday, September 10, 2026 · Source: The Wall Street Journal, September 8, 2026 edition
Key Points
Brokerages including Robinhood (HOOD), Webull (BULL) and Moomoo now let customers connect AI agents, such as Anthropic’s Claude or OpenAI’s Codex, that can buy and sell on their own.
Colin Edsman, a hairstylist and stay-at-home dad, runs named Claude agents — Alex scouts stocks, Sarah reviews positions before the close, Elena writes a weekly report — in a separate account that so far beats most of the ones he runs himself.
A 19-year-old grew a brokerage account from $3,000 to $8,000 in a few months with an options-flow agent.
Moomoo, which launched agentic trading in April, could see agents handle about 20% of its trading volume by year-end, according to its U.S. chief.
An NBER working paper found AI-built strategies crowd into pricey, heavily covered stocks and didn’t appear to beat passive benchmarks; Robinhood keeps AI portfolios in a separate account with a notification for every trade.
~20%
Moomoo volume agents could handle by year-end
$8,000
A 19-year-old’s account, up from $3,000
500%+
Return on a single options trade
2007
The quant meltdown skeptics cite as a warning
Several brokerages now let customers connect AI agents that trade on their own, some in separate accounts with an alert on every trade. The pitch is discipline without the nerves.
In one line: An AI agent’s best trait is that it follows its rules without flinching, and a written rebalancing rule gives any investor that trait while keeping the judgment human.
Alex scouts stocks and ETFs. Sarah reviews the positions before the closing bell. Elena writes the weekly report. None of them takes lunch, asks for a raise or panics on a red day, because none of them is a person. They’re Claude agents working for Colin Edsman, a hairstylist and stay-at-home dad who runs them from a kitchen-table laptop in a separate Robinhood (HOOD) account. So far, that account is beating most of the ones he runs himself.
The trading desk moves to the kitchen
He has company. Robinhood, Webull (BULL) and Moomoo now let customers plug in AI agents — Anthropic’s Claude, OpenAI’s Codex — that buy and sell on their own. A 19-year-old turned $3,000 into $8,000 in a few months with an agent that tracks options flow, including one chip-stock options trade that returned more than 500%. Moomoo’s U.S. chief thinks agents could handle about 20% of its volume by year-end. Full-time options trader Angel Gutierrez sums up the appeal: “It’s kind of like a software version of me with no emotions.”
No emotions is great. No judgment isn’t.
Taking the feelings out is the right instinct; plenty of investing mistakes are feelings with a ticker attached. But an agent without emotions isn’t an agent with judgment. An NBER working paper found that AI-built strategies crowd into pricey, heavily covered stocks and didn’t appear to beat passive benchmarks. Skeptics worry about herding — everyone’s robots reading the same headlines and heading for the same exit, the way quant funds did in 2007. Brokers have added guardrails; Robinhood keeps AI portfolios in a separate account and pings the owner on every trade.
Here’s the part you can borrow without handing over the keys. The robot’s real edge isn’t brilliance; it’s that it follows its rules on the days you wouldn’t. The human version is a written rebalancing rule: a target mix, a band around each piece and a date on the calendar to check it. When something drifts past its band, trim or add back to target. Write it while you’re calm, so the decision is made before the market tests it.
One line in the story deserves a second read: Edsman hopes this gets easy enough for his 57-year-old mother to use for extra retirement income. Retirement income is exactly where you want fewer improvisers, human or silicon. Automation is a discipline, not an edge. If your own rules live only in your head, put them on one page this week and bring it to your next review — we’ll see whether it holds up on a bad week.
What It Means For Your Portfolio
Hold — automation is a discipline, not an edge
Removing emotion from investing is worth doing, but handing judgment to software isn’t the same thing; the durable version of the robot’s discipline is a written rebalancing rule a person sets calmly and follows on the hard days.
General planning principles, not advice for anyone in particular: a written rebalancing rule — target mix, tolerance bands, a set review date — captures much of what automation promises without outsourcing judgment. Money meant for retirement income generally deserves fewer moving parts, not more. Any automated strategy is worth checking for concentration in the same popular, heavily covered stocks everyone else owns.
In the book, there’s no position tied to this story, plainly put: none of the brokerages named here is held. The book already runs on written rules — this month’s is no new positions into Friday’s inflation report — and nothing is bought or sold today.
