No new names today, and for once the market is not the reason. The morning scan never arrived — the stock universe this desk selects from is still showing Friday's session — so there was nothing to screen. The tape itself looks fine: the regime reading is the strongest in a week and the trend scan fired thirteen buys against two sells. What this page carries instead is the record, re-priced, and it is not comfortable reading. The book has turned firmly negative, and the single strongest negative rule this desk has published for three weeks failed the first honest test of it.
The core stock universe did not refresh this morning; it still holds Friday's session, as do the signal and rotation lists. The sector table, the trend scan and the options-income table are current as of 10:38 ET, and those are what the market read below rests on. No stock was screened, scored or selected against stale data — that is why there are no names rather than a shorter list. One rates feed was unreachable. Everything in the performance section below is priced live.
| Sector | Momentum | Accel | 1W | Read |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shipping · BOAT | +9.85 | −26.59 | +1.68% | Still first on the long windows, flat on the short ones |
| Cloud · SKYY | +9.58 | −36.33 | +3.34% | Up 3.82% today; fastest deceleration in the table for a third session |
| Software · IGV | +7.70 | −22.70 | +2.07% | Recovered through the week after a soft patch |
| Semiconductors · SOXX | +7.50 | −18.82 | +12.04% | Strongest one-week number anywhere in the table; +7.67% in three sessions |
| Crypto · BLOK | +6.07 | −8.81 | +5.51% | Mildest deceleration of the five leaders, and +9.98% in three days |
| Artificial Intelligence · AIQ | +5.53 | −15.54 | +4.83% | Positive on every window |
| Nuclear & Uranium · URA | +0.04 | +7.96 | +3.42% | The only sector tagged as turning, and one of five with positive acceleration |
| Energy · XLE | −2.28 | −13.68 | −6.42% | Now negative on momentum, 23rd of 39, and −6.4% on the week. Twenty-one of the thirty-nine prior picks sit here |
Fourteen of 39 sectors carry positive momentum, the widest in five sessions, and the trend scan fired thirteen buys against two sells. But all five leaders are still decelerating — the ninth consecutive session — so the strength is in the short windows, not the long ones. The clearest fact in the table is Energy: it has gone from first to 23rd and from positive momentum to negative in three weeks, and it is where more than half of this desk's history is invested.
No new names today — the scan did not run
This is a stand-down, but not the usual kind. On the two previous stand-downs the regime reading had collapsed and the market itself said no. Today the market reads fine: the regime score is 75, its best in a week; thirteen names fired fresh buy signals against two sells; breadth is the widest in five sessions. The reason there is no list is that the universe of stocks this desk selects from never refreshed this morning — it still holds Friday's session.
Screening Friday's list and presenting it as Tuesday's work would have produced a perfectly plausible three names. It would also have been fiction, and it is exactly the failure this desk is built to refuse. No stock was scored, no name was flagged, and nothing was added to the record.
What would have qualified: had the universe been current, the list would have been capped at three by decelerating leadership, and the hunting ground would have been semiconductors, software and cloud — not Energy. The selection rule would have been relative strength above twenty, which is the one measure below that is still working.
With no finalists there is nothing to pair a structure with, so no setup is presented today. The cash-secured-put screener did refresh normally — 948 contracts across 155 names, built on live options data rather than the stale stock list — and it reads the same regime the rest of this page does: risk-on at 75, with implied volatility low (VIX 14.4, down 16% on the week) and sentiment nonetheless tagged fear at 37. Low volatility with fearful positioning is a poor premium-selling backdrop: you are paid little to carry the risk. The bull-put-spread table was not rebuilt today, so no spread is quoted. No LEAP call surfaced, 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 | +1.71% | −3.98% | 3/7 | CVI +25.6% | ESTC −12.7% |
| 2026-09-01 · 7 | −4.34% | −1.03% | 3/7 | CRWD +5.8% | PRGS −15.3% |
| 2026-09-02 · 3 | −14.07% | −14.51% | 0/3 | VET −12.5% | HP −15.2% |
| 2026-09-03 · 3 | −6.20% | −5.43% | 0/3 | PFE −3.5% | ZYME −9.7% |
| 2026-09-08 · 3 | −6.86% | −6.92% | 0/3 | ELPC −0.6% | MTDR −13.1% |
| 2026-09-11 · 3 | −2.30% | −5.22% | 1/3 | TEN +4.5% | UROY −6.2% |
| 2026-09-15 · 3 | −10.99% | −8.39% | 0/3 | CVE −7.9% | SM −16.7% |
| 2026-09-16 · 2 | −7.98% | −7.98% | 0/2 | MPC −6.7% | LPG −9.3% |
| 2026-09-17 · 3 | −5.25% | −4.70% | 0/3 | SMTC −4.4% | TRMD −6.6% |
| 2026-09-18 · 2 | −2.47% | −2.47% | 1/2 | ABCL +0.6% | CMBT −5.6% |
| 2026-09-21 · 3 | +5.82% | +6.07% | 2/3 | ALAB +12.3% | RBRK −0.9% |
| All 39 | −4.07% | −5.43% | 10/39 | trimmed −4.71% · ex top two −5.32% | |
Total alpha across 39 picks is −158.9 points: a mean of −4.07%, a median of −5.43%, and only 10 of 39 beating the index. A week ago the headline was positive. Trimming the two best and two worst names leaves −4.71%, and removing just the two best leaves −5.32% — so unlike every earlier reading of this book, no small group of names is responsible. The whole distribution has moved.
The cause is concentration. Twenty-one of thirty-nine picks — 54% — are Energy names, and four separate cohorts were 100% Energy. Energy has since gone from the top of the sector table to 23rd of 39. The one encouraging line is the last: Friday's three picks were the first cohort with no Energy exposure at all, and they are the best-performing cohort in the book at +5.82% after one session. One session is not evidence, but the direction is the one the sector read has been pointing at for a week.