Trader Rebalance

trader-rebalance

The Rebalancer keeps the portfolio looking like the plan. Prices move, new money arrives and a new 13F changes the weights; this skill finds the stocks that drifted too far and proposes the trades that bring them back. It writes proposals only: trader-risk checks them and trader-broker asks the user yes or no for each one.

${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR} below is this skill's folder (where this SKILL.md lives).

bashCopy code
python3 "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/rebalance.py"                    # the drift table, no files written
python3 "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/rebalance.py" --band 5 --write   # proposals -> trader/orders.json
python3 "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/rebalance.py" --sell-untracked   # also sell holdings not in the targets
python3 "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/rebalance.py" --json

What it reads and writes

How it decides

• Account value = cash + every holding at its price.
• Targets: the weights renormalised over the stock sleeve (account minus the cash buffer), with no stock above max_position_pct of the account. The excess is shared out, the same way trader-budget does it, so a capped stock is not bought back over the cap every month.
• Drift = current percent of the account minus target percent.
• Band: only stocks drifting MORE than the band trade (default 5 points). A trade takes the stock all the way back to its target. A small band means more trades; a wide band means fewer.
• Sells first, then buys. Buys only spend cash above the buffer; if there is not enough, all buys are scaled down by the same share.
• Trades under min_order_usd are skipped. A trade over max_order_usd is cut to the max with a note to run again after it fills.
• Untracked holdings (not in the targets) are left alone and listed, unless the user asks to sell them with --sell-untracked.

Steps

1. Refresh prices: trader-alerts alerts.py quote --holdings --write.
2. Run rebalance.py and show the drift table in plain words: which stocks are over or under, by how many points, and what it would trade.
3. Before any sell, run trader-tax (lots.py sell TICKER SHARES) and show what the sale would realize. Selling a winner can mean a tax bill.
4. If the user wants the trades: rebalance.py --write, then /trader-risk, then /trader-broker, one yes per order.

Example: the reel's portfolio

The copy portfolio bought on 2026-10-13 (AAPL $1,250 capped, AXP $1,119, GOOGL $823, KO $708, BAC $600, $500 cash), valued at that day's closes, sits on its targets: every drift is under 0.1 point, so rebalance.py says "Nothing is outside the band" and exits 1. If the user adds $2,000 of cash, the account is $7,000 and the cap becomes $1,750. AAPL is now 7.1 points under its target and AXP 6.4, both outside the 5-point band, so it proposes buying $499 of AAPL and $446 of AXP. GOOGL, KO and BAC are under target too, but inside the band, so they wait. Add $5,000 instead and all five are outside the band: five buys that leave the $1,000 buffer in cash.

What it never does

It never places an order, never trades inside the band to chase small differences, never sells holdings outside the targets unless asked, and never says a rebalance will improve returns.

Safety

• Education and tooling, not financial advice. A rebalance follows the user's own targets, not a forecast.
• Paper trading by default ("paper": true). Going live is the user's own decision, in their own config.
• Nothing in this pack places an order except trader-broker, and only when all three hold: trader-risk passed that exact order today, the user typed an explicit yes for that one order in the chat, and the user clicked Allow once on Claude's own card because the order tool is set to "Needs approval" (Customize > Connectors > tool permissions). Never set an order tool to "Always allow".
• No options, margin, short selling or leverage unless the config allows it and the user confirms.
• Broker keys live in environment variables or the Claude Desktop config, never in the chat.