Everything on one screen: pick who it goes to, build it, preview it, schedule it. No
switching between ActiveCampaign, AutomateWoo and WordPress to send one email. Drafts save
automatically every 30 seconds, so nothing is ever lost.
Sent last 30 days38,420across 22 sends
Open rate61.4%members only
Click rate28.9%to the note
Bounces0.31%healthy
Complaints0.02%well under 0.1%
Cost last 30 days$3.84Amazon SES
The one screenaudience · builder · settings, no tab switching
Blocks
drag in
▤ Header + logo
≡ Market ticks table
¶ Text
▣ Annotated chart
↗ Trade idea card
▬ Button
◫ Sentiment meters
⊟ Divider
⌂ Footer
Blocks pull live from the site. A trade idea card carries the real entry and P&L at
send time, so the email cannot go out stale.
First Call — August 8, 2026
Saved 12s ago
HFTHedge Fund Telemetry08 AUG 2026
First Call · 07:02 EST
S&P sentiment at 82 for a fourth day
Thomas Thornton · 4 min read
S&P
+0.2%
NASDAQ
+0.5%
RUSSELL
+0.2%
10Y
−3bp
DSI SPX
82
US equity futures are firmer after yesterday's reversal off the 5-day VWAP. The Daily
Sentiment Index closed at 82, the fourth consecutive day above 80 —
the zone where I start trimming rather than adding.
DeMark Sequential is on bar 11 of a potential 13 on the QQQ daily. Two more closes
and we have a countdown completion into a week that already carries CPI.
Autosave, every 30 seconds. The draft is written to the database on a timer
and on every meaningful change, with a full version history behind it. Close the laptop
mid-sentence and it is exactly where you left it. If two people open the same draft, the second
one gets a warning rather than silently overwriting the first. The indicator above the preview
is live — watch it cycle.
Automationsreplaces AutomateWoo and the ActiveCampaign bridge
Welcome sequence
When a subscription starts
Send "Start here" — how the day works
Wait 3 days
If not logged in → send the nudge
Tag onboarded
412 completed · 94% open
Quiet member win-back
When no reads for 14 days
Send "Here is what you missed"
Wait 7 days
If still quiet and renewing <45 days → offer 20%
Alert Tom
218 in flight · 31 reactivated
Failed payment dunning
When Stripe reports a failure
Send card update link immediately
Retry day 3, day 5, day 7
If still failing → alert Tom, pause access
6 active · reads the real Stripe state
Renewal runway
When renewal is 30 days out
If reading well → "your year in review"
If reading poorly → win-back instead
Draft — 89% of revenue renews annually
An automation is a rule that runs itself: when something happens,
wait or check, then do something. Because the
system can see subscriptions, reading behaviour and payments in one place, these rules can react
to things no email platform can see on its own. Here is what becomes possible.
Welcome sequence
Revenue
A new member gets shown how the day works, then a nudge if they have not logged
in by day three. 27 people have paid and never once logged in.
Protects the first renewal
Quiet member win-back
Retention
Nobody reads for 14 days, so they get what they missed. Still quiet at 21 days
and renewing soon, they get a discount offer and Tom gets told.
218 members currently quiet
Failed payment recovery
Revenue
Stripe reports a failure and the card-update link goes out immediately, then
retries on days 3, 5 and 7 before anyone loses access.
6 failures unchased right now
Renewal runway
Revenue
Thirty days before renewal, heavy readers get a year-in-review of what they
used. Light readers get a win-back instead. Same trigger, two paths.
89% of revenue renews annually
Card expiring
Revenue
A card due to expire before the next renewal triggers an update request at 30,
14 and 3 days, so the renewal never fails in the first place.
9 cards expiring soon
Upgrade prompt
Revenue
A Private Investors member who keeps opening The Big Picture teasers gets one
well-timed offer rather than a monthly nag.
Behaviour-triggered, not scheduled
Pending-cancel save
Retention
Someone cancels but is still paid up. That window is when an offer still works,
and right now nobody is working it.
The highest-yield list on the site
Trade idea alert
Engagement
A new tactical idea publishes and only members whose plan grants it are
emailed — the access grid decides, not a hand-kept list.
Segments cannot drift
Build oneclick the pieces to assemble a rule
Every automation is made of four kinds of step. Click any of them on the left to add it, and
watch the rule build up on the right. This is the same interface Tom would use — no
scripting, no support ticket.
Untitled automation
When New member
When Goes quiet
When Payment fails
When Renewal near
Wait 3 days
Wait 7 days
If Still quiet
If Renewing soon
Do Send email
Do Offer discount
Do Tag member
Do Alert Tom
Click a When on the left to start.
The email itselfwhat goes out today vs what I would send
Today First Call, 7 Aug
◆◆ Hedge Fund Telemetry
FIRST CALL
photo of trading monitors
Blue logo — the site is red and navy. Two different brands.
The wordmark and a stock photo eat the entire first screen before any content.
Image-heavy, so it collapses when images are blocked, which is the default in Outlook.
No preview text, so the inbox line is whatever Gmail scrapes.
Subject is just the date. Nothing to open for.
Proposed Same note, rebuilt
Inbox line: S&P sentiment at 82 for a fourth day — DeMark bar 11 of 13 on QQQ into CPI week
See the live preview in the builder above ↑
Subject carries the actual signal, not the date. That is what earns the open.
Real preview text as a second hook.
Tick table is HTML, not an image — renders with images off.
Brand matches the site. One red, one navy, everywhere.
Content starts in the first 100 pixels. No wordmark, no stock photo.
One clear call to action into the full note.
Why this matters beyond looks. An email that is mostly one big image is the
classic spam-filter signature. Moving to real HTML with a sensible text-to-image ratio improves
deliverability on its own, before we touch SPF, DKIM or DMARC — all three of which are
currently misconfigured on the domain.