I let Claude AI trade $100 on Robinhood, week 4: It's 0 for 4, then it passed on IREN's 17% jump, and watched it run higher

By David Han · Site Operator & Investor/Trader · July 20, 2026, 12:56 PM ET

Disclosure: The Robinhood Agentic account I write about here is 100% cash and holds no positions. I do not own $IREN (IREN Limited), $QBTS (D-Wave Quantum) or $RGTI (Rigetti Computing). This is my own money and my own opinion. I am a swing trader, not a financial advisor, and nothing here is investment advice. Do your own research.

Key points

Claude AI is 0 for 4. My $100 is now $74.59, down 25.4%.
Two more stop-outs last week: Rigetti (RGTI) and D-Wave (QBTS), $7.06 combined.
It passed on IREN at +17% over a failed July 6 pop, then watched IREN run to $40.13.

Four weeks in and my $100 experiment finally has a record. It is 0 for 4.

Here is the damage. Red Cat (RCAT) lost $12.78. MicroStrategy (MSTR) lost $5.57 and we wrote about that one because it gapped up 6% the morning after Claude AI sold it. Last week added two more: Rigetti (RGTI) for $4.90 and D-Wave (QBTS) for $2.16. My hundred bucks is now $74.59, down 25.4%, and I am not dressing that up.

Something changed over the last four sessions though.

The D-Wave trade lasted two hours

Claude AI bought 4 shares of D-Wave at $17.74 Thursday morning and it had a real reason. The stock double bottomed at $17.45 and reclaimed that level on rising volume, so the stop went at $17.20 just under the low. Two hours later it filled.

Here is the part I keep chewing on. The setup got followed correctly and it lost anyway. A 3% stop on a stock that swings 5% on a boring day is not risk management, it is a coin flip on noise. Tighten the stop far enough and you stop turning one big loss into no loss. You just turn it into a bunch of small ones.

Then it stopped trading

Friday the chip trade came apart. The VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH) fell 4% and bottomed at $536.81 on 22 million shares, roughly double a normal day. Claude AI scanned about 30 names and bought nothing. There was not one green name on the list.

The IREN trade it almost made

IREN (IREN) filed an 8-K Monday morning raising its year-end AI cloud revenue target from $3.7 billion to over $4 billion on $2.8 billion of new contracts with Microsoft, Nvidia, Perplexity and Figure AI. The stock jumped 17% and dragged the whole miner-turned-AI-landlord group with it. Hut 8 (HUT), Cipher (CIFR) and CleanSpark (CLSK) all jumped double digits.

Bitcoin did nothing, by the way. The iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) was flat. This was an AI datacenter move wearing a bitcoin miner costume.

Claude AI had the order built. One share at $39.45.

I asked why it was buying the high of the day when its own rule says buy dips, and mentioned that IREN has a dilution problem. I also told it I was not going to stop it.

It went and looked instead. On July 6, IREN went up 13% to close at $43.91 on nearly identical AI infrastructure news. Then it gave the whole move back over the next nine sessions, closing at $33.62 on Friday. Anyone who bought that news day was down 23%.

Same stock. Same story. Two weeks earlier. It did not work.

The financials did not help either. IREN's quarterly revenue has fallen from $240.3 million to $184.7 million to $144.8 million while net income swung from a $384.6 million profit to a $247.8 million loss. It closed $3 billion of convertible notes in May. At a $14 billion market cap, that is roughly 24 times a shrinking revenue line.

Claude AI passed.

How it looks so far

Honest scoreboard, and it flatters nobody. IREN faded to $38.26 by 11 am, which made the pass look sharp for about an hour. Then it turned around and printed $40.13 just before 1 pm.

That is above the $39.45 where the order would have filled, so as I write this, passing has cost me money rather than saved me any. It also means IREN tagged the exact $40 level Claude AI named as its buy trigger, a couple of hours after naming it.

What I actually think

I am not thrilled about paying tuition four times running. But this is the first time Claude AI talked itself out of a trade using evidence instead of vibes, and it did it on the best-looking chart on my screen. That beats the failure mode that cost me $25.

It wants IREN to hold above $36.40 and clear $40 on volume before it will touch the thing, and the stock is testing that as I type. So next week is simple. Either it follows its own rule, or it finds a fresh reason to sit on its hands. One of those is discipline, and the other is just being scared, and I do not know which I am getting.

We are also running five AIs against each other on a pretend $10,000 if you want more of this. Check back next week. We will know either way.

This is general market commentary and opinion, not investment advice. Markets can go down as well as up, and you can lose money. Always do your own research and consider speaking with a licensed financial professional before making any investment decision.

Frequently asked questions

How much is the $100 Claude AI account worth now?

It is worth $74.59 as of July 20, 2026, down 25.4% from the $100 stake funded on June 30. Claude AI has closed four trades and lost money on all four: Red Cat (RCAT) at $12.78, MicroStrategy (MSTR) at $5.57, Rigetti (RGTI) at $4.90 and D-Wave (QBTS) at $2.16, for $25.41 in total realized losses.

Why did Claude AI pass on IREN after its 17% jump?

Three reasons. IREN had run nearly identical AI infrastructure news on July 6, popped 13% to close at $43.91, then gave back 23% over the following nine sessions to close at $33.62 on July 17. Its quarterly revenue has fallen from $240.3 million to $184.7 million to $144.8 million while net income swung from a $384.6 million profit to a $247.8 million loss. And it closed $3 billion of convertible notes in May 2026.

Is IREN a bitcoin miner or an AI stock?

It is both, and that distinction drove the July 20 move. IREN runs bitcoin mining alongside an AI cloud and data center leasing business. The jump came from the AI side, which was visible in the fact that bitcoin itself was flat that morning, with the iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) barely moving while IREN rose 17% and peers Hut 8 (HUT), Cipher (CIFR) and CleanSpark (CLSK) gained double digits.

What would make Claude AI actually buy IREN?

It wants the stock to hold above the July 20 gap at $36.40 for several days and then break $40 on rising volume. That pattern would give it a defined reference low to place a stop under, instead of guessing at a stop level inside a stock that travelled a 9.9% range in a single session.

David Han · Site Operator & Investor/Trader

David Han runs AIStockWire and trades the market himself. He's a swing trader and chart reader who writes about AI and tech stocks, shares the positions he holds, and is honest about the wins and the losses. He's not a financial advisor, and nothing he writes is investment advice.