Trader News skill

trader-news

A chart can look perfect and still be about to gap on an earnings date, a halt or a lawsuit. Before a setup becomes a trade, this skill reads the two feeds that carry those first, for every stock on the watchlist, and tells you only what is new. It also prints how far each stock has moved today, so a headline and a move sit side by side.

Tool in this folder (standard library Python, no keys):

python3 "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/news.py"                         # watchlist + plan + portfolio
python3 "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/news.py" --tickers TSLA NVDA --hours 12
python3 "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/news.py" --no-sec --json

What it reads and writes

file / feed	what
--tickers, else trader/watchlist.json	the scanner's hits (trader-scanner)
trader/plan.json	the trade you are planning (trader-exit)
trader/portfolio.json	what you hold (trader-broker records fills there)
Yahoo Finance headline RSS	https://feeds.finance.yahoo.com/rss/2.0/headline?s=TSLA&region=US&lang=en-US
Yahoo Finance chart endpoint	the last price against yesterday's close (unofficial, can lag)
SEC EDGAR company Atom feed	8-K by default (--forms 8-K,10-Q for more); needs sec_user_agent in trader/config.json or SEC_USER_AGENT, else filings are skipped with a note
trader/state/news.json	what has been shown (kept 30 days) and each ticker's CIK

The rules

• Headlines are leads, not facts. Before telling the user something happened, open the story or the filing and read it. Quote the source and link it. Never summarise a paywalled story you could not read: say so.
• Filings beat headlines. If an 8-K and a headline disagree, the 8-K is what the company told the SEC.
• Say what it touches. Every item lists the tickers it touches and its tags: earnings, analyst, legal, deal, capital, people, risk, halt, regulatory, macro. Filings marked ! carry an important 8-K item: earnings results (2.02), an officer change (5.02), an impairment (2.06), a delisting notice (3.01), past financials no longer reliable (4.02), bankruptcy (1.03) or a cyber incident (1.05).
• MOVING marks a stock 3 % or more from yesterday's close (--move-pct). A move with no headline is worth saying out loud too.
• No predictions. Report what was published and how far the price is from yesterday's close. Never say what the stock will do next.

Steps

1. Run the check: python3 "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/news.py". Exit code 1 means nothing new. --all shows items already seen, --json gives everything machine readable, --dry-run leaves the state alone.
2. Read the items that matter: every ! filing, anything tagged earnings, halt, legal, regulatory or risk, and every MOVING ticker first.
3. Write a short brief, per ticker: what happened, the source and link, the move, and one line on why it matters to the setup (for example "earnings are this week: an overnight gap can jump past any stop").
4. If a story changes the picture, say so before /trader-entry and /trader-exit: an earnings date inside the trade, a halt, an offering. Never act on a headline alone.

During the session: /loop 15m /trader-news, or a scheduled task each morning before the open.

Example: the reel

Monday 2026-10-19, TSLA broke its opening range at 10:15 AM ET. The check at 10:15 (Yahoo Finance's TSLA feed, 16 headlines since 8:00) leads with the morning's real stories: "Meta and Musk earnings and September pending home sales: What to Watch" (8:00, earnings), "Tesla-SpaceX Merger Mania Strikes Wall Street Ahead of Earnings" (8:04, earnings, deal), "Tech Stock Rebound Nudges US Equity Futures Mostly Higher Pre-Bell" (8:02, macro). The brief: "Tesla reports this week, so the stock can gap overnight; today's trade is in and out before the close. No new 8-K." At 10:52 the price line reads TSLA 366.48 +3.31% vs yesterday's close 354.72 at 10:52 ET MOVING. When a ticker has no news, say so rather than padding the brief.

What it never does

• Never invents or embellishes a story, a quote or a number.
• Never trades on news, and never tells the user to buy or sell because of a headline.
• Never hammers a server: one request per feed per ticker, a pause between calls, and SEC's 10 requests a second limit stays far away.

Safety

Education and tooling, not financial advice. This skill only reads and reports. Nothing places an order except /trader-broker, after /trader-risk passes and the user types an explicit yes for that order.