This week’s edge: the extremes emptied into the middle. Breakdowns fell from 24 to 20, but Trend-Holds fell too, from 26 to 22, and Transitional went from 7 to 13. Fewer names are broken and fewer are trending, so take the handful that actually reclaimed, at a level, and leave the middle of the book alone.
Every week we sort the 60 stocks and ETFs we cover into four trend regimes and publish three numbers for each: the price at which the name may be bought, the first level to take something off, and the level where we step aside. They are written before Monday opens, because a price set in advance is worth more than a decision made while a position is already moving.
What this letter is for. The names we cover are large and liquid and spread across technology, semiconductors, energy, defence, healthcare, retail, metals and European listings, and the work here is not to tell you which of them is a good company. It is to say at what price each one may be bought or traded, and at what price we step aside. Good names bought at the wrong price still lose money, and that gap is the whole reason this exists.
We buy strength that has proved itself rather than weakness that might. When a beaten-down tape snaps back hard we will be late to the names that gapped off the bottom, and we take that trade deliberately: the patience that costs us the first bounce is the same patience that keeps us out of the names that carry on falling.
If a level looks wrong to you, say so in the comments. They shape what gets covered.
Market Conditions
The S&P 500 SPY 0.00%↑ closed at 778.57, Trend-Hold and up 1.2% on the week, while the Nasdaq-100 QQQ 0.00%↑ at 751.27 is Trend-Hold and roughly flat on the week.
Beneath the surface, regime breadth turned over:
Breakdowns went from 24 to 20
Repairs rose from 3 to 5
Trend-Holds fell from 26 to 22.
Regime upgrades edged downgrades 12 to 10, with the moves running in both directions at once. Both ends emptied into the middle, with Transitional going from 7 to 13. Fewer names are broken and fewer are trending, which is churn rather than repair.
The buying concentrated in SHOP 0.00%↑ +13%, PINS 0.00%↑ +11%, PLTR 0.00%↑ +11%, INTU 0.00%↑ +8% on the upside, against ASTS 0.00%↑ -13%, INTC 0.00%↑-12%, RDW 0.00%↑ -12%, NBIS 0.00%↑ -9% on the other side.
Fresh damage showed up in AIXA.DE and CRWV, dropping to Breakdown.
Trend-Hold was reclaimed in AMZN 0.00%↑, BRK.B, DG 0.00%↑, GOOG 0.00%↑ and LLY 0.00%↑. The repair is real, and it still has to hold what it just took back.
What Changed From Last Week
Reclaimed Trend-Hold: AMZN, BRK.B, DG, GOOG, LLY. The strongest signal the framework prints, structure fully repaired. The weekly chart still has to hold what the daily just reclaimed.
Up a step into Transitional: COST, PINS, UNH, WMT. Basing turned into an actual recovery attempt, one notch short of a trend.
First repair off the lows: AVGO, BABA, INTU. Damaged names showing the first sign of basing.
Cooled out of Trend-Hold into Transitional: ETHA, INTC, LRCX, NBIS, SMSN.L, TSM, XRPI. The trend is lost and now has to be re-proved.
Lost the trend, into Repair: IFX.DE. Downgraded a full step, treat as damaged until reclaimed.
Broke down: AIXA.DE, CRWV. Fresh damage, the framework moves these to the avoid list. AIXA.DE went from Trend-Hold to Breakdown in a single week, which is a three-regime fall and the sharpest kind of break the framework registers.
ETHA restated its price history. A 1-for-3 reverse split took effect on 6 October, so every ETHA level in last week’s issue is a third of what it should be. The 20.95 entry and 19.52 stop we published read as 62.85 and 58.56 on today’s shares. Use this week’s numbers and do not carry the old ones forward.
How Our Trade Plans Work
Each name is classified into a regime (Trend-Hold, Transitional, Repair or Breakdown) from the 1D EMA stack, with the 1W regime printed beside it in every setup, and every level traces back to a specific indicator. T1 is the first profit-take, T2 the structural objective, T3 the stretch target. Regime sets how much risk a name is allowed and when: Trend-Hold earns full risk but only on a pullback to support or a confirmed breakout, Transitional gets half or nothing, Repair gets a starter only after a reclaim, Breakdown gets none until a reclaim confirms.
Two stops, two jobs, and the tighter one governs. The trade stop is the tactical level where we step aside and let the position go. The regime invalidation is the deeper level where the classification flips and the reason to own the name is gone. Both are printed in every setup, trade stop first, and the tables print whichever of the two sits nearer to price, because that is the one that will actually take you out.
How long a trade lasts, and when to take something. Every level here is a one-week level: take it during the plan week, and if neither the first target nor a stop has been reached, mark it at Friday close and re-read the structure next issue. Take a partial at T1 when it comes rather than holding out for the full ladder.
Size by risk, not by dollars. Stop distances in this issue run from 2.1% to 20%, so the same dollar amount in two names can mean risking 9 times as much on one as the other. Decide what a single losing trade may cost you, say half a percent of the account, and divide it by the distance from entry to stop. The wide-stop names are not off limits, they are simply small.
This update ranks 60 names. You are not meant to trade all of them, or even most of them. Most weeks a handful sit at a level worth acting on and the rest are there so you can check our work.
The Week Ahead
The plan week carries 3 earnings prints from the universe: UNH on Tuesday October 13, ASML on Wednesday October 14, TSM on Thursday October 15. Read the trigger, not just the date. A published trigger does not wait for the calendar, so it can fill you days before the report and leave you holding a binary the plan never priced. If you want the setup without the coin flip, wait for the print and re-read the structure on Friday.
Just beyond the plan week: NFLX, NOC and RTX on Tuesday October 20, LRCX on Wednesday October 21, LMT on Thursday October 22. Worth knowing now if you are sizing a position you intend to hold through it.
This Week’s Playbook
Same four regimes as above, in the order they earn risk. Regime decides how much a name is allowed, the level beside it decides when. Detailed setups for the top names follow, and the watchlist carries every level.
Within each group the names are ordered by how close the entry sits to Friday close, nearest first, which is what the Trigger odds column in the tables below reports. Those odds measure distance. A level within two thirds of an average day's range is Likely to be reached, one beyond a day and a third is Unlikely, and anything between the two is an even bet. Reaching a level is not the same as profiting from it. Read the top of each list as where a decision is most likely to be needed, and size it off the stop underneath.
Where that leaves your exposure. Of the 60 names we cover, 10 are set up to be bought into weakness, with a dip band already defined (AMAT, AMD, BRK.B, GOOG, LLY, META, NVDA, QQQ, SPY, XRPI). The other 50, 83 percent of the book, need a level that has not arrived: 22 need a trigger to fire, 25 need a reclaim first, and 3 have no usable room between entry and stop. That is not a forecast, it is what the rules produce in a week like this one. More of the book has a defined dip price than last week and fewer names have a trend worth owning, which is a tape that pays for patience and punishes enthusiasm. Cash is an allocation here rather than the absence of one: it costs nothing while you wait, and it is what lets you take a level when it prints. The S&P still carries its Trend-Hold. The Nasdaq-100 still carries its Trend-Hold. Those are the levels that keep risk on the table, and losing either one changes the posture for everything under it.
Trend-Hold, full risk, but only at a level. On a pullback to support: AMD, AMAT, META, NVDA, BRK.B, GOOG, LLY, QQQ, SPY. Only on strength, above the trigger in the table: FFIV, SHOP, PLTR, XOM, AMZN, MSFT, RBRK, OSCR, DG, PANW, AAPL, ASML.
Transitional, half size or nothing. The trend is not confirmed, so a position here is a probe rather than a holding. On a pullback to support: XRPI. Only on strength, above the trigger in the table: TSM, WMT, COPX, PINS, COST, TGT, NBIS, SMSN.L, ETHA, INTC.
Repair, a starter only after a reclaim. Basing, not yet trending, nothing until price takes back the trigger printed beside it: AVGO, FTI, IFX.DE, BABA, INTU.
Breakdown, no exposure until a reclaim confirms. Not every dip is a setup, and cash is the position: ORCL, ADBE, AIXA.DE, GLD, XRH0.L, NFLX, LMT, NKE, SLV, CRWV, and 10 more carrying the same instruction in the table below.
Where the payoff justifies the stop. A wide stop is not a bad setup, it is a small one, but some names are not paying enough to be worth any size at all.
Not paying for the risk, quarter size or skip: INTC (15% stop for 1% to T1), SMSN.L (10% stop for 1% to T1), NBIS (11% stop for 2% to T1), ETHA (9% stop for 2% to T1), PINS (5% stop for 1% to T1), AMAT (5% stop for 2% to T1)
No usable room between entry and stop, skip entirely: LRCX (0.8 ATR from its entry to the 308.82 trade stop), UNH (nothing holds its dip band up except the 362.60 trade stop underneath it), XOVR (nothing holds its dip band up except the 21.54 trade stop underneath it). Measured to whichever stop is nearer, which for some of these is the trade stop rather than the invalidation printed in the table. Entering there puts you at the exit before the trade has moved.
Top 5 Actionable Setups
5 names taken only from the Trend-Hold group, after dropping anything overbought above RSI 73, anything whose EMA stack is inverted, and anything without at least one average daily range between its entry and its stop. Preference goes first to names sitting within 3 percent of their 20-day EMA, then to the strongest trends by ADX with momentum confirming. Full detail, levels and both stops for each. Every rule above is mechanical, so you can reproduce this list yourself from the levels we publish. The next tier follows in the Also Actionable table, and the rest of the universe in the full watchlist below it.
