This week’s edge: the confirmation arrived. Breakdowns fell from 23 to 21 and Trend-Holds grew to 24, and this time the indexes came with it, with SPY reclaiming a clean trend and QQQ already holding one. The risk flips from missing the turn to overpaying for it: take the pullbacks where there are any, and leave the extended names alone.
Every Sunday we sort the 60 stocks and ETFs we cover into four trend regimes and publish three numbers for each: where to enter, where the idea is wrong, and where to take the first profit. They are written before Monday opens, because a level set in advance is worth more than a judgement made while a position is moving against you.
The claim underneath that is a narrow one. Knowing where you are wrong travels further than knowing what will rise, and the record bears it out unevenly. Names we tagged avoid that never reclaimed fell 2.8% across 132 cases, against roughly 1% for the rest of the universe. Over thirteen weeks the featured five has not separated itself from five names drawn at random from the same watchlist, and the running record is behind the index. All of it is in the scorecard, and none of it changes what the levels are for.
We wait for a reclaim, so when a beaten-down tape snaps back we lag the names that gapped off the bottom. That is the price of the rule, not a defect in it.
If a level looks wrong to you, say so in the comments. They shape what gets covered.
Market Conditions
The broad tape broke higher this week. The S&P 500 (SPY) closed at 771.35, Trend-Hold and up 1.3% on the week, while the Nasdaq-100 (QQQ) at 744.50 is Trend-Hold and up 3.2% on the week.
Beneath the surface, regime breadth improved: Breakdowns fell from 23 to 21, Repairs rose from 6 to 8, and Trend-Holds rose from 21 to 24. Regime upgrades outnumbered downgrades 13 to 10, a broad advance that carried the indexes with it.
The biggest moves went to INTC +13%, META +13%, AMD +13%, XRPI +11% on the upside, against NVO -10%, INTU -9%, OSCR -8%, ORCL -7% on the downside. Fresh damage showed up in BABA, GLD, RTX and SLV, dropping to Breakdown.
The cleanest signal was a full reclaim of Trend-Hold in AMAT, ASML, DG and LLY, among others. That is the confirmation the prior week was waiting on: the reclaim now runs from the individual names all the way up to the indexes themselves.
Broad participation is the strongest version of this signal, but it also means the easy part of the move is behind us. The framework still engages at defined levels: chasing extended names here is how a good tape turns into a bad entry.
What Changed From Last Week
Reclaimed Trend-Hold: AMAT, ASML, DG, LLY, LRCX, RDW, SHOP, SMSN.L, SPY. The strongest signal of the week. Several got there in a single week, so the weekly chart still has to hold it.
First repair off the lows: ASTS, COST, CRWV, WMT. Damaged names showing the first sign of basing.
Cooled out of Trend-Hold into Transitional: BRK.B, GOOG, OSCR, XOM. Leaders that lost their trend and now need to re-prove it.
Lost the trend, into Repair: AMZN, FTI. Downgraded a full step, treat these as damaged until reclaimed.
Broke down: BABA, GLD, RTX, SLV. Fresh damage, the framework moves these to the avoid list. GLD and SLV 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.
How Our Trade Plans Work
Each name is classified into a regime (Trend-Hold, Transitional, Repair or Breakdown) from the 1D EMA stack, cross-checked against the 1W chart, 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 a single trade is wrong and you cut it. 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 table now, trade stop first. For most setups the invalidation was the only number we showed, and it sat a median of 9.9% away while the typical trade never travelled more than 3.1% against us: only one trade in ten ever reached it. A stop that far out is a thesis level, not risk control, and printing it alone was our mistake.
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. That is now also how the scorecard grades us, which was not true before, so the record measured something we never asked you to do. Take a partial at T1 when it comes: 36% of 457 filled setups touched it, and holding them all to Friday instead turned a 53% win rate into 40%.
Size by risk, not by dollars. Stop distances in this issue run from 1.3% to 38%, so the same dollar amount in two names can mean risking 29 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. A 1.3% stop carries 29 times the position of a 38% stop for identical risk. 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
These names in the universe report during the plan week - Thursday: NKE
Earnings are binary and the framework does not trade into them. If one of these sits at a defined entry, either take it at reduced size or wait for the print and re-read the structure afterwards. A level that was valid on Friday is not wrong after a gap, it is simply no longer the level.
Read the trigger, not just the date. NKE triggers at 37.08, 3.7% (1.4 ATR) above Friday’s close, with 3 sessions to fire before the print. A published trigger does not wait for the calendar: it can fill you days before the report and leave you holding the binary the rule above tells you to avoid. That is not hypothetical. In the week of 31 August LULU reclaimed its trigger on the Monday and reported on the Thursday: the print gapped it 19.4% lower, straight through a stop that works on closes, for a 16.8% loss on a level we published. If you want the setup without the coin flip, wait for the print and re-read the structure on Friday.
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. That shows where a decision is likely to be needed, not where the reward is. Of the 413 triggers we have published, the ones we would have called likely were reached 75 percent of the time, even odds 47 percent, and unlikely 16 percent, with roughly half never touched at all. Reaching a level is not the same as profiting from it: of the 162 near ones that filled, the average came back about one percent negative, with about four times in ten closing green. Read the top of each list as the levels most likely to demand a decision, and size them off the stop underneath.
Where that leaves your exposure. Of the 59 names we can trade, 2 offer a price you could act on at Friday close (LLY, SPY). The other 57, 97 percent of the book, need a level that has not arrived: 26 need a trigger to fire, 27 need a reclaim first, and 4 have no usable room between entry and stop. That is not a forecast, it is what the rules produce when most of the universe sits below its own trend, and it means the default position this week is cash. Cash is an allocation here rather than the absence of one: it is the only holding that costs nothing while you wait, and it is what lets you take a level when it finally prints. The S&P still carries its Trend-Hold. The Nasdaq-100 still carries its Trend-Hold. Those are the numbers that would put risk back on the table. Until one of them prints, do not manufacture a trade out of a name you like at a price the plan never gave you.
Trend-Hold, full risk, but only at a level. On a pullback to support: SPY, LLY. Only on strength, above the trigger in the table: AMAT, MSFT, AMD, TSM, LRCX, RDW, AAPL, XOVR, and 12 more carrying the same instruction in the table below. NVDA, QQQ are also Trend-Hold but do not appear above: their entry sits on top of their own stop, so they are in the skip list below.
Transitional, half size or nothing. The trend is not confirmed, so a position here is a probe rather than a holding. Only on strength, above the trigger in the table: TGT, BRK.B, XOM, COPX, XRPI, OSCR. GOOG sits in the skip list below.
Repair, a starter only after a reclaim. Basing, not yet trending; nothing until price takes back the trigger printed beside it: IFX.DE, CRWV, AMZN, ASTS, WMT, FTI, COST, UNH.
Breakdown, no exposure until a reclaim confirms. Not every dip is a setup, and cash is the position: SLV, AVGO, GLD, AIXA.DE, LULU, BABA, PALL, SOFI, and 12 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.
- Tight and paying: RDW (7% stop for 18% to T1)
- Not paying for the risk, quarter size or skip: INTC (34% stop for 3% to T1), SHOP (17% stop for 2% to T1), OSCR (9% stop for 1% to T1), LRCX (16% stop for 2% to T1)
- No usable room between entry and stop, skip entirely: QQQ (1.0 ATR to its 725.13 trade stop), NVDA (1.0 ATR to its 217.14 trade stop), GOOG (1.0 ATR to its 325.63 invalidation). 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
The five names closest to a defined entry that also clear our room requirement, with full detail, levels, and both stops for each. That is a mechanical screen, not a conviction ranking: over thirteen weeks this selection has not separated itself from five names drawn at random from the watchlist below, which is measured in the scorecard. The next tier follows in the Also Actionable table, and the rest of the universe in the full watchlist below it.
