Two names today, out of sixty-four that passed the strength filter. The morning data landed normally, so the screen ran in full — and then almost all of it was cut. With the market reading only mid-band, the desk's rule is that every name must carry an independent confirmation from outside the screen itself, not just a good score inside it. Exactly two did. Both are in a sector that is going nowhere, which is said here rather than buried, and neither has a matching options structure. What did improve is the trend tape: yesterday it ran nineteen sell signals to one buy, today six buys to one sell.
Everything behind today's page refreshed on schedule this morning and the figures were pulled live at 10:42 ET. One outside research feed remains unavailable, so no analyst ratings, institutional scores or news-sentiment readings are quoted anywhere below — where those would normally appear, the space is left empty rather than filled from an older snapshot. Earnings proximity was checked against a separate calendar source, so that gate still ran.
The market reading sits in the middle band — strong enough to keep buying, not strong enough to buy freely. The desk's rule for that band is that a good score is not sufficient: each name must also be confirmed by something measured outside the screen, either a fresh trend crossover or genuine institutional accumulation. Sixty-four names cleared the strength filter this morning. Three of those also fired a fresh crossover in the last two sessions. One of the three had already slipped back below the price where its signal triggered, which is the definition of a failing entry, so it was dropped. That leaves two.
Everything else was cut for the same underlying reason, and it is worth being blunt about it: the strongest names on the screen are in the leading sector, and not one of them carries an independent confirmation. The two that do are in a sector that is going sideways. The desk is not claiming these are the best businesses on the list. It is claiming they are the only two where two independent methods agree.
| Sector | Momentum | Accel | 1W | Read |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Semiconductors · SOXX | +9.24 | −26.97 | +7.51% | First on momentum and first on the week. Up 1.24% today. But 3-month is still −2.9% |
| Cloud · SKYY | +8.69 | −37.02 | +3.49% | Positive on every window out to six months — the cleanest trend in the table — and the fastest fade in it |
| Commodities · DBC | +7.50 | −17.35 | +0.82% | Positive across every window too, and the shallowest deceleration of the five leaders |
| Software · IGV | +7.21 | −24.65 | +2.98% | Third straight week of gains; 3-month +21.8% |
| Artificial Intelligence · AIQ | +5.92 | −19.95 | +3.35% | Fifth leader. 3-month only +5.0% — the weakest medium-term of the group |
| Energy · XLE | +0.64 | −10.61 | −3.44% | Ninth of 39 and barely positive. Down 0.80% today, −4.7% on two weeks. Half the prior book sits here |
| Consumer Discretionary · XLY | −2.71 | −1.27 | −0.96% | Nineteenth of 39. Both of today's names sit here — the single biggest caveat on this page |
| Biotechnology · XBI | −1.23 | −16.01 | +0.12% | Twelfth. Month change −19.2%, and it holds much of the screen's raw strength |
Ten of 39 sectors carry positive momentum — 25.6% — and all five leaders are decelerating for a twelfth straight session. Four groups are tagged as institutional outflows and none as inflows, which is the immediate cause of the rotation screen returning nothing at all today. The honest summary of the sector picture is that leadership is real, narrow and slowing simultaneously: semiconductors put up the best week anywhere at +7.5% while shedding more acceleration than any group except cloud.
The cleanest confluence available today. Stage 2 for sixteen weeks with
Mansfield RS at 31.3 and rising 7.0 on the week, and an EMA 3/30 daily buy crossover fired yesterday at
$176.94 which it is still holding above. RSI 58 — trending, not stretched. It trades $1.4bn a day, so it is
the one name here that can be entered at any size, and it sits 9% below its 52-week high rather than at it.
Against it: Consumer Discretionary ranks nineteenth of thirty-nine sectors and is falling,
so this is a strong name in a weak neighbourhood. Its composite screen score of 52.4 is middling, it did not
appear in the top thirty on the cross-check screen at all, and its daily and weekly strength readings are
both 7 out of 10 — good, not exceptional. The case rests on the crossover and the relative strength, not on
the screen loving it.
Stronger on paper, much harder to own. Mansfield RS of 46.5 — half again
SN's — and rising 14.0 on the week, with its own EMA 3/30 buy crossover yesterday at $9.24 that it is
holding above. RSI 59.7, so again trending rather than stretched.
Against it, and this matters more than the numbers: a $193m market capitalisation trading
roughly $7.8m a day. That is enterable in small size and nothing more, and there is no meaningful options
market on it. It is also Stage 2B — the late phase, forty-three weeks in — in the same weak Consumer
Discretionary sector as SN, and its composite screen score of 51.8 is the lowest of anything shown on this
page. It is ranked second rather than first for exactly these reasons. Position size is the entire risk
decision here.
Both names are new to the book — neither has been flagged before, so neither is a repeat observation of a move already being tracked. Both were added to the desk watchlist, which now carries 42 symbols.
Both income screens rebuilt cleanly this morning — 821 cash-secured puts across 148 names and 500 bull put spreads across 50, 97 unique after de-duplication. Neither SN nor LCUT appears in either, and that is expected rather than a gap: those screens deliberately hunt large, high-volatility index and mega-cap names, while the trend funnel produces mid- and small-cap momentum. They are two different populations sharing one dashboard. On most days most finalists will have no matching structure.
One thing worth flagging for anyone selling premium into this tape: every one of the ten highest-ranked cash-secured puts today expires this afternoon. The top of that list is entirely same-day contracts on AAPL, MSFT, QQQ, NVDA, AVGO and SPCX, and every one of them is rated hold rather than buy by the screen's own entry rating. Volatility is also low — VIX 15.7 — so the premium on offer is thin, while the five-day VIX change has just turned positive for the first time this week. No LEAP call surfaced anywhere, which is just as well: that structure's record on this desk is −$90.8k.
| Cohort | Mean alpha | Median | Beat SPY | Best | Worst |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-08-31 · 7 | −1.44% | −0.00% | 3/7 | CVI +20.8% | GEN −27.9% |
| 2026-09-01 · 7 | −3.89% | +0.39% | 4/7 | CRWD +9.6% | SLB −14.9% |
| 2026-09-02 · 3 | −13.56% | −12.30% | 0/3 | VET −12.2% | HP −16.1% |
| 2026-09-03 · 3 | −5.52% | −4.82% | 0/3 | PFE −1.3% | ZYME −10.4% |
| 2026-09-08 · 3 | −8.83% | −7.86% | 0/3 | ELPC −4.7% | MTDR −13.9% |
| 2026-09-11 · 3 | −7.84% | −7.53% | 0/3 | TEN −1.5% | DK −14.5% |
| 2026-09-15 · 3 | −10.81% | −8.81% | 0/3 | SUN −7.6% | SM −16.1% |
| 2026-09-16 · 2 | −8.82% | −8.82% | 0/2 | MPC −7.7% | LPG −9.9% |
| 2026-09-17 · 3 | −2.96% | −1.74% | 1/3 | IOVA +0.7% | TRMD −7.8% |
| 2026-09-18 · 2 | −4.01% | −4.01% | 0/2 | ABCL −0.8% | CMBT −7.2% |
| 2026-09-21 · 3 | +5.83% | +4.69% | 3/3 | ALAB +12.5% | RBRK +0.2% |
| 2026-09-23 · 3 | −0.50% | −1.51% | 1/3 | MRNA +4.1% | OMER −4.1% |
| All 42 | −4.65% | −4.76% | 12/42 | trimmed −4.86% · ex top two −5.72% | |
Across forty-two picks the desk is 4.65% behind the index on the mean, 4.76% behind on the median, with 12 of 42 beating it and −195.5 points of cumulative alpha. Yesterday the same book read −3.40 / −4.23 with 13 of 42. One session erased a week's worth of improvement, which is the appropriate way to read yesterday's optimism in hindsight: two good cohorts were never a turn.
The weakness is broad, not a tail problem. Trimming the two best and two worst leaves −4.86%; removing only the two best leaves −5.72%. The distribution genuinely sits below the index rather than being dragged there by a few names. The 09-21 cohort remains the only clearly good one at +5.83% with 3 of 3 beating the index, and it is also the only cohort where every name was confirmed by a trend crossover — a coincidence worth watching but far too small to lean on, and one today's two names begin to test.