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Daily X-Ray

Wednesday, October 28, 2026 close — updated each weekday from the daily capital markets brief

Biggest events

FOMC hawkish hold, 10–2. Rates held at 3.75–4.00%; Cook and Hammack dissented for a hike. Growth upgraded to strong, no guidance given — December is now the live meeting, a hike priced near 90%. S&P 500 +0.28% to 7,743.98; Nasdaq +0.27% to 26,549.85; Dow +0.19%.
After the close: Microsoft beat, Alphabet missed. Microsoft EPS near $4.90, Azure +48%, capex well below fears — shares +4 to +6% after hours. Alphabet EPS $2.12 vs ~$3.01 on an $8.7B equity loss, negative free cash flow, buybacks suspended — shares −6 to −10% after hours.
Oil jumped back over $100. WTI ~$102–103, +2–3%; Brent ~$115.4, +1.3% — Houthi claim against Saudi’s Ras Tanura refinery (unconfirmed) plus a 1.9M-barrel U.S. crude draw.
Power earnings proved the order books. GE Vernova EPS $4.81 vs ~$4.01, orders +96%, backlog $197B, cash-flow guide raised. Vertiv EPS $2.21 vs $1.82, sales +61%, shares +16.5%.
Israel: no winner. Netanyahu bloc ~54 seats, Eisenkot ~48, Arab parties ~18 — nobody at 61. Shekel −2%, Tel Aviv stocks ~−3%.

Biggest movers up

Vertiv (VRT +16.5%) — massive beat and raise, orders +100%
Oracle (ORCL +10.7%) — AI infrastructure strength
Micron (MU +4.7%) — SK Hynix profit up sevenfold
GE Vernova (GEV ~+3%) — beat, raise, and a $9B deal
SK Hynix U.S. (SKHY +12.7%) — record profit, $75B shareholder return plan

Biggest movers down

F5 (FFIV −20.4%) — sold on the outlook
Enphase (ENPH −16.0%) — earnings miss, solar demand soft
LPL Financial (LPLA −15.2%) — post-earnings
Robinhood (HOOD −3.9%) — profit missed on crypto softness
Boston Scientific (BSX −2.9%) — trimmed its profit forecast

Key news and what’s next

Curve steepened on the hold: 2-year 4.78%, 10-year 5.05%, 30-year 5.34% — no comfort from Warsh on timing
VIX fell to 16.91 — the market is pricing December, not fearing October; washout score 2/100, no buy signal armed
Gold held above $4,000 (~$4,040–4,060); Bitcoin $81,220, +0.5%
Ford beat on EPS ($0.49 vs $0.41) but missed on revenue — shares −1.8% after hours
Ahead: GDP + PCE Thursday 8:30 a.m. ET, Amazon and Intel after Thursday’s close, ECB Thursday, Bank of Japan Friday, U.S. midterms November 3

Week of October 23, 2026 · The CIO’s verdict

Stay invested, defensibly tilted.

The long-term trend is still up and the S&P 500 sits above its 10-month average, so we stay invested — but the regime is shifting from Quad 2 toward Quad 3, so the portfolio leans defensive: quality, staples, health care, utilities and gold over rate-sensitive and cyclical risk.

Market Notes Three editions every trading day — the morning note, the midday report and the closing summary

Something to read when you wake up, at lunch, and on the drive home.

MORNING NOTEThursday, October 29, 2026 · As of 8:15 a.m. ET

The AI trade has a new grading rule — who funds the build-out from cash flow — and overnight it split the hyperscalers: Microsoft passed, Alphabet failed.

Microsoft passed the cap ex test: revenue $92.28B, +19% vs $90.69B expected; Azure +48% to $33.17B — disclosed in dollars for the first time — on cap ex of $45.2B, under the ~$50B feared, with free cash flow still +$18.6B. Shares +3.7% pre-market; Amazon after today's close is the third data point.
Alphabet failed it: revenue $127.6B missed the $128.2B expected even as Cloud grew +103% to $30.7B; cap ex of $51.4B pushed free cash flow to −$9.1B for a second straight quarter, plugged with $28.7B of new debt and $12.4B of stock. Shares −9% to −11% pre-market, Nasdaq-100 futures ~−1%.
The rest of the board: Lilly raised its full-year revenue guide to $91–92B (from $85–87B) on GLP-1 volume, +~5% pre-market; Samsung's record quarter confirmed the memory supercycle — a good read-through for Micron; Lagarde steps down February 7, 2027, announced hours before today's ECB decision. No tripwire fired: 10-year ~5.03%, Brent ~$110. Ahead: GDP + PCE at 8:30 a.m. ET.

MIDDAY REPORTWednesday, October 28, 2026 · As of 2:51 p.m. ET

A hawkish hold — the Fed kept rates at 3.75–4.00% with two votes to hike, December 8–9 is now the live meeting, and no positioning changed.

The decision (2:00 p.m. ET): hold at 3.75–4.00%, vote 10–2 — Cook and Hammack dissented for a +25bp hike; growth upgraded to “strong” and the statement promised to “deliver price stability.” December hike pricing jumped to ~86–90%.
First reaction: S&P 500 and Nasdaq +0.2% as Warsh spoke; 2-year 4.73%, 10-year 5.01%, 30-year 5.33% — the curve steepened with no comfort on timing. Brent ~$115–116, under the $120 escalation line.
Bill's read — no tripwire fired: the 10-year sits between the ≤4.40% duration-harvest line and the ≥5.40% extension line, so the belly perch stands; the high-yield starter still needs OAS ≥5.00% (recent ~3.40%). The long-term trend state stays green — Friday's month-end close vs the 10-month average (~7,274) is the structural test.

CLOSING SUMMARYWednesday, October 28, 2026 · As of the October 28 close

A hawkish hold the market had already priced, and an earnings night that sorted rather than sank — stay invested, defensibly tilted, with December now priced as a hike.

The day: S&P 500 +0.28% to 7,743.98, Nasdaq +0.27%, Dow +0.19% — a third straight gain. The Fed held at 3.75–4.00% (10–2, two dissents for a hike); the curve steepened — 2-year 4.78%, 10-year 5.05%, 30-year 5.34% — and VIX fell to 16.91: the market is pricing December, not fearing October.
Winners and losers: Vertiv +16.5% and Oracle +10.7% led as GE Vernova (orders +96%, backlog $197B) and Vertiv (sales +61%) proved the power order books; F5 −20.4%, Enphase −16.0% and LPL −15.2% were sold on outlooks. Oil jumped back over $100 — WTI ~$102–103, Brent ~$115 — on an unconfirmed Houthi claim against Ras Tanura and a 1.9M-barrel U.S. crude draw.
After the close, the AI bill came due: Microsoft beat — Azure +48% on less cap ex than feared, +4 to +6% after hours; Alphabet missed — negative free cash flow, buybacks suspended, −6% to −10%. Watch Thursday: GDP + PCE at 8:30 a.m. ET, Amazon and Intel after the close, the ECB Thursday and the Bank of Japan Friday.

Risk panel Readings as of the October 26, 2026 close

The regime: exiting Quad 2, tipping into Quad 3

Growth is slowing while inflation re-accelerates — that is Quad 3 — and Quad 4 is dominant across 2027
In the slowing-quad overlap, the assets that tend to win are gold, utilities, staples, health care, the quality factor and munis
Energy and power are a Quad 3 trade to harvest, not marry
Long bonds are the 2027 prize once the hiking cycle credibly ends
We are underweight financials, discretionary ex-quality, high yield, leveraged loans and small caps

Tactical Risk Score

47.4%

Recession Watch

LOW 7 clear · 1 on watch — payrolls

Business Cycle

Expansion

Credit Cycle

Expansion

10-Year Treasury

4.99%

VIX

18.39

S&P 500

7,676.77

Where do you want to go?

Coverage The team never sleeps on a story — every wire, print and podcast, swept on a schedule

Earnings Radar

Daily

Every reporter across the 310-name brand universe, plus foreign sector-ETF holdings
Every figure verified against the primary release; sector QuickTake episodes carry the owning desk’s opinion

News Sweeps

3× daily

CNBC and Bloomberg headline wires, Reuters and the Asian wires — early, morning and midday
Asia’s overnight session covered before the US wakes up: SK Hynix’s record print was flagged pre-market on Oct 28

Bloomberg Podcasts

Every 2 hours

The full Bloomberg lineup swept for new episodes — Surveillance, Odd Lots, Masters in Business, The Close, Trillions, Daybreak
Transcripts distilled to the owning desk the same day

Flows & Tape

Daily

Options-flow scan for concentrated premium and one-way footprints
Trading-desk flags when the tape moves first

Washout Watch

Daily

Capitulation score and breadth extremes — $NASI included — monitored against the team’s tripwire lines

Tripwires & Event Calendar

Always on

FOMC decisions, major prints and month-end trend verdicts on a standing calendar
Nothing on it arrives as a surprise

Weekly Cycle

Weekly

Every desk files its week; the CIO rolls it up into the State of the Markets and the weekly podcast

The scoreboard Strength Scores, highest to lowest · Desk scores as of the Wednesday, October 28, 2026 close · refreshed daily after the close · prices update every close · tap a sector to open its desk

81–100 Exceptional 61–80 Strong 41–60 Neutral 21–40 Weak 0–20 Broken

Macro · Marco, Macro Strategist

Exiting Quad 2, tipping into Quad 3 — with Quad 4 dominant across 2027.

A quad is one of four macro regimes — every period is sorted by whether growth and inflation are rising or falling.

The call in brief

Regime: exiting Quad 2, tipping into Quad 3 — growth slowing while inflation re-accelerates — with Quad 4 dominant across 2027.
Positioning: overweight the slowing-quad overlap — gold, utilities, staples, health care, the quality factor and munis; energy and power are a Quad 3 trade to harvest, not marry.
The Fed is the swing factor: a hold is about 90% priced for October 28 and the December language is the event; the 10-year Treasury sits at 4.99% and high-yield spreads at 337bp.

The quad map The four regimes at a glance — growth on the vertical axis, inflation on the horizontal

QUAD 1Goldilocks

Growth ↑ · Inflation ↓

The friendliest regime — favors stocks broadly, growth names and credit.

QUAD 2ReflationLeaving now

Growth ↑ · Inflation ↑

Favors commodities, energy, cyclicals and other real assets.

QUAD 4DeflationDominant across 2027

Growth ↓ · Inflation ↓

Favors long bonds, gold and quality defensives; hard on cyclicals, commodities and credit.

QUAD 3StagflationTipping in now

Growth ↓ · Inflation ↑

Favors gold, commodities and defensive sectors; hard on credit.

The markers flag the team’s current read. What each regime rewards in practice is set out under Optimal Positioning, further down this tab.

Macro dashboard Labeled readings — value, source and date on every panel

As of the October 26, 2026 board unless a panel states otherwise.

Rates

Fed funds3.75–4.00%

2-year Treasury4.71%

10-year Treasury4.99%

30-year Treasury5.30%

Curve — 10-year minus 3-month+0.74%

Spreads — AAA42bp

Spreads — BBB111bp

Spreads — high yield337bp

Source: Market close · Date: October 26, 2026 (curve and AAA/BBB spreads: October 23, 2026)

How to read this:

Every spread is measured over US Treasury bonds of similar maturity — the federal government’s risk-free rate
A spread of 1.00% means those corporate bonds pay one percentage point more than Treasuries — investors demand extra yield for default risk
AAA is the highest credit rating (the safest borrowers, the thinnest spread)
BBB is the lowest investment-grade rating (the widest spread before ‘high yield’)

Fed policy bias

Hawkish tilt

Held at 3.75–4.00% on October 28 — and the only dissents wanted a hike. December is now the live meeting.

The October 28 decision

Funds rate — held3.75–4.00%

Vote10–2

Dissents — Cook & HammackFor a +25bp hike — a first this cycle

StatementGrowth upgraded to “strong” · will “deliver price stability”

Forward guidanceNone — Warsh let the statement speak

What the market prices

Hike at the December 8–9 meeting~85% priced

Implied funds rate — end of 2026≈ 4.09%

Implied funds rate — September 2027≈ 4.7%

Easing priced anywhere in 2027None

Futures price roughly three more hikes by September 2027 and no easing at all — market pricing sits on the other side of the easing-by-mid-2027 framework.

The Fed’s own projections — September SEP

Funds rate — end of 20264.1%

Funds rate — end of 20274.1%

Funds rate — longer run3.2%

Core PCE — 2026 / 20273.4% / 2.5%

Unemployment — end of 20264.1%

Sixteen of the eighteen officials who submitted projections pencilled in at least one more hike this year — and the dots refresh at the December meeting.

Distance from the target

Core PCE, year-on-year3.1%

Gap to the 2% target+1.1 points

Core PCE, September month+0.3%

Real policy rate (funds midpoint less core PCE)≈ +0.8%

The gap widened in September — core inflation is moving away from the target, not toward it, which is exactly the case the two dissenters were making.

Balance sheet & calendar

Balance sheet — total assets$6.75 trillion

Runoff (QT)Ended Dec 2025

Next decision — Dec 8–9Fresh SEP projections

2027 calendarRate votes at 7 of 8 meetings — one session turns strategy-only, no vote or statement (announced October 28)

The balance sheet has been broadly flat since runoff ended — reserve-management purchases now offset the remaining mortgage runoff. A balance-sheet task force reports to the FOMC early in 2027.

Sources: Federal Reserve, FOMC statement and press conference, October 28, 2026 · CME FedWatch, October 29, 2026, and fed funds futures, October 28, 2026 · Federal Reserve, September 2026 Summary of Economic Projections (released September 16, 2026) · BEA, PCE price index, September 2026 (released October 29, 2026) · Federal Reserve H.4.1, week ended October 21, 2026

Recession watch

Low recession risk — next 12 months

LowWatchElevatedHigh

0 of 8 components sit in recession territory, and 1 is on watch — payrolls. The evidence is the board itself:

Early warnings — leading indicators 0 of 5 warning

The smoke detectors — they have turned before every modern recession, typically 6–18 months ahead.

Yield curve — 10-year minus 3-month+0.87%Clear

The bond market’s recession alarm

Flips red below 0% (inverted) · October 28, 2026

Leading Economic Index — 6-month change+0.6%Clear

Ten forward-looking series rolled into one index

Flips red on a sustained six-month fall · September 2026

ISM factory new orders55.3Clear

Factory new orders — demand before production

Flips red below 50 (contraction) · September 2026

Jobless claims — 4-week average196,750Clear

The fastest layoff signal there is

Flips red on a sustained climb above ~300,000 · Week ended October 24, 2026 · Trending down

High-yield spreads (OAS)3.37%Clear

What investors charge shaky borrowers

Stress zone — the flip line — at 5.00% · October 26, 2026

Where we are now — coincident indicators 0 of 3 in recession territory · 1 on watch

The confirmation — by the time these break, a recession is usually already starting.

Unemployment rate4.2%Clear

The share of workers without a job

Watch zone above 4.5% — it has held a 4.1–4.3% range since March · September 2026

Sahm rule0.00Clear

Unemployment’s momentum against its own 12-month low

Triggers at +0.50 — this reading is as far from the line as it gets · September 2026

Payrolls — 3-month average+51KWatch

Net hiring, smoothed over three months

Stall speed is +50K a month; negative means contraction · Jul–Sep 2026 (September alone +29K, after 60K of downward revisions)

Labor detail — context rows (not scored)

Job openings (JOLTS)7.1M

Employers’ unfilled demand for labor

August 2026, BLS · Down 256K on the month to the lowest since March — about one opening per unemployed person; the September print lands November 3

Wage growth — average hourly earnings+3.0% y/y

Pay growth across private nonfarm workers

September 2026, BLS · The slowest annual pace since May 2021 — pay is now rising more slowly than prices

How to read this: every component is a public series shown against the level that has marked recessions in the past — the threshold is printed on its row. The headline band counts the warnings rather than averaging them: Low means no early warning is flashing and nothing current has broken; Watch takes one leading warning or one coincident break; Elevated takes two or more leading warnings; High means the Sahm rule has triggered, or three or more warnings lit at once. No probability is attached and no score is computed behind the scenes — the lights are the evidence.

Sources: U.S. Treasury yields (October 28, 2026) · The Conference Board LEI and ISM Report On Business (September 2026) · U.S. Department of Labor (week ended October 24, 2026) · BLS Employment Situation (September 2026) and JOLTS (August 2026) · ICE BofA U.S. High Yield OAS via FRED (October 26, 2026). Updated as each series prints.

What to expect — long-run return assumptions

Stocks 6.3% · Bonds 5.0% the Street’s base case, per year over 10 years

The base case is the average of published Wall Street long-horizon forecasts — the assumptions the big houses themselves build plans on
The bull case is the desk’s scenario: a return to long-run normal, not a boom
Build expectations on the base case; treat the bull case as something the market has to earn

Base case — Street averageBull case — desk scenario

Stocks

US large-cap stocks6 houses · range 3.1–9.0%

6.3%

10.0%

US small-cap stocks3 houses

7.3%

11.0%

Developed international stocks4 houses

7.2%

9.5%

Emerging-market stocks5 houses

7.2%

10.0%

Real assets & credit

Real estate (REITs)2 houses, definitions differ

7.1%

No desk bull case — base only

Investment-grade credit1 house published

6.1%

No desk bull case — base only

Bonds & cash

US bonds (Aggregate)4 houses · range 4.7–5.6%

5.0%

5.5%

High-yield bonds4 houses

6.0%

6.75%

Cash / T-bills3 houses · the bull case runs lower — rates fall in that world

3.4%

2.75%

The headline: in its base case the Street pays stocks only about 1.3 points a year more than bonds
Two of the six houses expect bonds to match or beat US stocks outright
A 60/40 portfolio works out to about 5.8% a year on the base case and 8.2% on the bull case

The bull case is normal, not euphoric: US stocks back to their long-run ~10% compounding needs earnings growth of about 8%, the shareholder yield of about 2%, and no shrinkage in valuations
Earned if AI productivity broadens, credit stays contained and the 10-year Treasury normalizes instead of rising
Private equity is left off the chart deliberately: house forecasts run from 9.2% to 15.9%, too dispersed to average honestly

Today’s earnings-yield spread — forward earnings yield 4.93% (1 ÷ 20.3 forward P/E) less the ~5.00% 10-year Treasury, October 23, 2026 close−0.07% ≈ zero

Stocks pay you nothing extra in current earnings yield over bonds today — the entire case for equities rests on future growth, which is exactly what the base and bull cases above are arguing about.

Base case: simple average of published 10-year nominal return forecasts — J.P. Morgan LTCMA 2027 edition (October 2026), BlackRock (August 2026), Vanguard (September 30, 2026), Goldman Sachs, Schwab (2026), Research Affiliates (December 31, 2025); houses per class shown on each row. Cross-check: the 43-firm Horizon Actuarial survey averages US stocks 6.5% and core bonds 4.9%. Bull case: the desk’s scenario, reviewed weekly. Compiled October 27, 2026. Illustrative and hypothetical — not a prediction; see Disclosures.

Equity valuations

Forward P/E20.3x

CAPE40.6x

Source: Market data · Date: As of October 23, 2026

Geopolitics rating

YELLOW — Cautious

Grant’s qualitative read, updated weekly — geopolitical temperature: Elevated. Drivers:

Houthi strikes on Saudi Aramco energy infrastructure
Brent $115.81
Russia sanctions package suspended before taking effect

Source: Grant — Politics & Geopolitics Strategist · qualitative read, updated weekly · Date: Week of October 23, 2026

Inflation

Core CPIabout 2.4–2.5%

PCE headline, year-on-year3.4%

Core PCE3.0%

TrajectoryRising, energy-led

Next PCE printOctober 29

Source: BEA (PCE) · Date: August 2026 for PCE; next PCE print October 29

US federal debt

$40.44 trillion total

Held by the public$32.6 trillion

Share of GDProughly 127%

TrajectoryRising about $5 billion a day

Debt limit$41.104 trillion

Headroomroughly $0.9 trillion

Source: U.S. Treasury · Date: October 22, 2026

Money market assets

$7.94 trillion

Change on the weekUp $21.5 billion

Institutional$4.83 trillion

Institutional, year-on-yearUp 10.2%

Source: ICI · Date: Week ended October 21, 2026

Margin and leverage

4.61% of GDP — margin debt

The highest since 1997.

Source: Margin debt as a share of GDP · Date: Latest reading on the October 23, 2026 board

Consumer savings rate

4.1% of disposable income

Amount saved$990.2 billion

July4.6%

Two-decade averageroughly 5.9%

Source: BEA · Date: August 2026

Consumer sentiment

91.7 Conference Board Consumer Confidence

The headline survey on this board — the Conference Board’s is the sturdier of the two. It rebounded 7.5 points in October, off September’s revised 84.2 (first reported at 81.9, a 12-year low), as gasoline prices eased.

Present Situation Index120.4

Expectations Index72.6

The Board’s recession line for Expectations80 — still below it

Frame of reference: the index’s all-time high is 144.7 (2000) and it stood at 132.6 in February 2020, against a long-run average in the high 90s. October is a rebound off the floor, not a return to normal — and the expectations half stays under the line the Board itself associates with recession within a year.

University of Michigan — the second read

Sentiment index (final)48.0

Current conditions / expectations46.7 / 48.8

Year-ahead inflation expectations4.7%

Frame of reference: 48.0 is the second-lowest reading in the survey’s history — below the June 2022 low of 50.0, which stood as the record until this year; the all-time low is 44.8 (May 2026). Against a long-run average in the mid-80s, today’s print also sits below the level seen at the start of every recession since the survey began.

The two surveys measure different things: the Conference Board leans on how people see the job market; Michigan leans on personal finances and prices. They can honestly disagree — a household can feel secure about work and squeezed at the pump at the same time — and the gap between them is itself information.

Fear & Greed — the market’s mood (CNN)

Now 36 — Fear, at the October 28 close.

0 · Extreme fear50 · NeutralExtreme greed · 100

Previous close34

A week ago27

A month ago37

A year ago32

Sources: The Conference Board, Consumer Confidence Survey (October 2026, released October 27, 2026) · University of Michigan, Surveys of Consumers, final October 2026 (released October 23, 2026) · CNN Fear & Greed Index, as reported for the October 28, 2026 close (month- and year-ago readings as published October 26, 2026)

The consumer, in actions

Sentiment is what they say; this panel is what they do — the two together are the robust read.

Real consumer spending (PCE)≈ 0.0%

Inflation-adjusted spending — the broadest “do” there is

September 2026, BEA · Nominal spending rose 0.5%, but prices rose nearly as fast — real volume rose less than 0.1%, a step down from August’s +0.55%, the largest real gain since March 2025

Retail sales — control group+0.1%

The slice of retail that feeds GDP — strips out autos, gasoline, building materials and restaurants

September 2026, Census Bureau · After +1.2% in August; the headline’s +0.8% was mostly gasoline (+6.4%)

Credit cards 90+ days late12.8%

Share of card balances in serious delinquency — the New York Fed’s quarterly count

Q2 2026 (released August 11; next report November 10) · Read it with the flow: newly-serious delinquencies are flat at ~7.0% — the 12.8% stock still counts old charged-off balances sitting on credit reports

Revolving credit−4.2%

Card borrowing at an annual rate — consumers paid cards down in August

August 2026, Federal Reserve G.19 · Balances of $1.352 trillion, down from July’s record

Sources: BEA, Personal Income and Outlays (September 2026) · U.S. Census Bureau, retail sales (September 2026) · Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Household Debt and Credit (Q2 2026) · Federal Reserve, G.19 Consumer Credit (August 2026). Updated as each series prints.

Optimal Positioning for Quad Regime

Scope:

Marco’s framework guidance for the current quad regime — which assets tend to win and lose in this regime
Not a description of the Timeless portfolios’ actual holdings (those are on the Portfolios tab)
Nor of Paul’s asset-allocation model

Overweight — the slowing-quad overlap

Gold and real assets
Utilities, staples, health care — the defensive compounders
The quality factor and munis
Energy and power — a Quad 3 trade to harvest, not marry
Long bonds — the 2027 prize, once the hiking cycle credibly ends

Underweight

Financials
Consumer discretionary, ex-quality names
High yield and leveraged loans
Small caps

Five triggers that change the call

Brent below ~$100, sustained — the inflation leg of Quad 3 weakens
Brent above ~$120 — the inflation shock deepens; defense goes up a gear
December FOMC language — whether the hiking cycle is credibly over
Two more soft payrolls — the growth slowdown is confirmed, Quad 4 arrives early
Hyperscaler 2027 cap ex guidance — the AI build-out’s trajectory, and the power trade with it

Market Technicals · Trent, Technical Analyst (CMT)

Long-term trend up. Short-term tape, softer.

Price leads fundamentals. The structure of the bull market is intact; the near-term internals say respect the tape, don’t chase it. Readings as of the October 28, 2026 close.

The rule that runs the portfolio

The 10-month moving average rule

One line decides the big question — judged on month-end closes against the 10-month moving average, and the response is graduated:
● Structural Bull — month-end close above the line: stay invested
● Market in Transition — the first month-end close below: slow portfolios down; capitulation and washout signals confirm or dispute the move to fuller defense — about 50% of the time, markets bottom in the first month after closing under the level
● Bear Market — two consecutive month-end closes below: full defensive positioning rebalance

S&P 500 — October 28 close7,743.98

The line — 10-month moving average7,230.78

Distance above the line+7.1%

Status: Structural Bull

Last completed month-end (September 2026) closed above the line — 0 consecutive month-end closes below. Next verdict: the Friday, October 30 month-end close.

The tripwire

The verdict lands on month-end closes only — an intra-month dip below the line changes nothing
The first month-end close below = Transition: slow portfolios down. A second consecutive close below flips the playbook to full defense — portfolios de-risk as far as they go
No debate, no discretion: the line is the line

Long-term trend

UP

The structural bull market is intact.

Intermediate trend

UP

50-day average 7,698.05 above the 150-day average 7,458.59.

Short-term trend

UP

Above the 25-day average of 7,725.62 and the 50-day — the near-term tape is positive inside the uptrend.

The internals Every metric labeled with its reference universe and date

Market Technicals Strength Score52 / 100 · Neutral

VIX — October 28 close16.91Positive

10under 20 · Positive20–30 · Volatilityover 30 · Dangerous40

VIX < 20 — Positive20–30 — Volatility> 30 — Dangerous

Desk rule: under 20, volatility is a green light; 20–30, respect it; over 30, dangerous — the zone, not the tick, sets the posture

Stocks above their 200-day average — S&P 500 members · October 2657.8% · 289 of 500 tracked

Advance / decline — NYSEOct 26: advancers beat decliners 1.36 to 1 (Reuters)

$NASI (McClellan Summation Index) — Nasdaq · October 26−786.74

$NAMO (McClellan Oscillator) — Nasdaq · October 26+3.52

Stocks above their 20-day average — S&P 500 members · October 2869.0% · 347 of 503 tracked

Stocks above their 20-day average — Nasdaq Composite members · October 2845.4% · 1546 of 3402 tracked

Stocks above their 50-day average — S&P 500 members · October 2659.4% · 298 of 502 tracked

New 52-week highs / lows — S&P 500 members · October 268 highs / 7 lows

S&P 5007,743.98

10-year Treasury4.99%

Sources: breadth counts computed by the desk from S&P 500 member closes (Yahoo Finance daily data, October 26, 2026 close; 503 of 504 members tracked — moving-average counts use the 500–502 members with sufficient price history, and highs/lows use the 499 members with a full prior year). $NASI / $NAMO: StockCharts published readings. NYSE advance / decline: as reported by Reuters for the October 26 session. The two 20-day breadth rows (S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite members), the VIX and the 10-month state refresh after every close on the same member-close basis (Nasdaq Composite: NASDAQ-listed common stocks — test issues, ETFs and preferred shares excluded); each breadth series keeps its own history, so the 30-day comparison is always the same series against itself. VIX zones are the desk’s standing rules: under 20 Positive, 20–30 Volatility, over 30 Dangerous.

Reading the McClellan gauges The frame of reference — where the extremes sit, and what they have meant

$NASI — Summation Index · Nasdaq

−786.74 · October 26, 2026

−2,000−1,000 · washout line0+1,000 · overbought+2,000

The Summation Index is the running total of every day’s McClellan Oscillator — whether more stocks are rising than falling, added up over months
It normally lives between −1,000 and +1,000
Above +1,000, breadth has run hot for a long stretch: a stretched, late-stage tape
Below −1,000 is the washout zone — the October 2022 bear low, the October 2023 correction low and the April 2025 crash low all printed with this gauge under −1,000
That is why the desk’s washout tripwire sits on that line
Fading an extreme on this gauge means treating it as exhaustion rather than continuation: historically, the washout prints have been where forced selling ran out
Today’s −787 is deep in negative territory but still short of the washout line

$NAMO — McClellan Oscillator · Nasdaq

+3.52 · October 26, 2026

−200−100 · oversold extreme0+100 · overbought extreme+200

The Oscillator is the fast version: the gap between the 19-day and 39-day averages of daily net advances
It swings around zero — above it, breadth momentum is positive; below it, negative
The classic extreme bands are ±100 — deep panic or euphoria prints reach toward ±150
Past +100, buying has historically run too fast to hold that pace
Past −100, selling has reached panic speed and has historically marked exhaustion points
Extremes are reference lines, not triggers by themselves — a strong trend can hold an extreme for days
Today’s +3.5 sits on the zero line: no momentum extreme in either direction

The capitulation gauge

Capitulation Score: 2 / 100 — not armed
The Washout Watch only arms when the S&P 500 is at least 8% below its 52-week high; at these levels it isn’t
A score of 70+ would mark a washout worth buying; 85+ is historic
Today it says: no panic, no capitulation, no signal

Sectors · Eleven desks

Eleven desks. One scoreboard.

Every desk closes its report with a Strength Score from 0 to 100 — 0–20 broken, 21–40 weak, 41–60 neutral, 61–80 strong, 81–100 exceptional. Tap any desk for its report, score drivers and Timeless 10.

Q3 earnings season: GOOD and accelerating — 73.5% of 166 graded reporters beat, guidance balance +58. Full scoreboard on the Earnings tab.

Strength Scores, ranked best to worst Board of Wednesday, October 28, 2026 · scores refresh daily after the close — tap a bar to open its desk

Reading the bar.

Every bar is the same width and carries the desk's Strength Score — the number and its band color
The technicals sit beside the bar in two blocks, each colored on its own reading
10-MO: the long-term trend — the sector ETF against its 10-month average
50/150: the intermediate — the 50-day over the 150-day
Green up, red down
Quad fit = the sector's fit under the expected regime (Marco's call on the Macro tab — Quad 3, tipping in now), shown beside the score, never inside it: FAVORED green · NEUTRAL gray · HEADWIND amber — it never changes the number
A Strong score sitting in a bear tape, like Utilities on this board, reads at a glance

How the score is built.

Each Strength Score is an analyst recommendation, not a formula and not a trend rating
The desk weighs its named drivers — cycle position, through-cycle economics, balance-sheet strength, cash generation, valuation against the sector's own ten-year history, fit with the macro regime, and what the price tape is hinting at
Those drivers are published, ranked best to worst, on the desk's card below
Bands: 0–20 Broken (avoid) · 21–40 Weak (underweight, own only the exceptions) · 41–60 Neutral (selective, stock-picking over sector bets) · 61–80 Strong (overweight candidates, add on weakness) · 81–100 Exceptional (full conviction, with a check that it is not euphoria)

Why Strong can sit in a downtrend.

The score is forward conviction; the Technicals column at the right of each bar is the pure tape — and the two are allowed to disagree
Utilities scores 71 Strong while its ETF trades under its 10-month average, with its 50-day under its 150-day — a defensive, rate-base call made into weakness
Industrials (67) also scores Strong, with both technical checks at No — the desk's order-book conviction leads its tape
Technology (77) is the mirror case: Yes on both checks, while its ETF still sits under its 25-day average — the long-term tape is strong, the short term is not yet confirmed
The score says what the analyst would own; the technicals say what the tape is doing — both are printed so you can see the argument

Desk reports Same order — best to worst

Earnings · Q3 2026 season scoreboard · the reaction layer refreshes nightly after the close

Corporate earnings: GOOD — and accelerating.

73.5% of graded reporters beat, 12.0% missed, and the guidance balance is +58 — raises are outrunning cuts by a wide margin, and the back half of the season is running hotter than the front half.

Beat rate 73.5% — 122 beat / 24 met / 20 missed of 166 graded reporters (Tier 1 desk verdicts: 70.5% of 78; Tier 2 secondary: 76.1% of 88)
Guidance balance +58 — 70 raised vs 12 cut (17 maintained, 67 not given or not stated) — the forward gauge is strongly positive
Second half hotter — Oct 22–29 reporters: 76.6% beats, guidance +44 · Oct 13–21: 67.8% beats, guidance +14

Sectors — the season by desk Graded reporters only · read rule in the method note

Sector	Graded	Beat/Met/Miss	Beat %	Guidance bal	Read	Trend
Utilities	4	4/0/0	100.0%	+1	GOOD	—
Consumer Staples	5	5/0/0	100.0%	+3	GOOD	—
Technology	19	18/1/0	94.7%	+9	GOOD	● flat
Health Care	18	16/2/0	88.9%	+8	GOOD	▲ improving
Energy	8	7/0/1	87.5%	+1	GOOD	—
Real Estate	6	5/0/1	83.3%	+3	GOOD	—
Industrials	40	31/3/6	77.5%	+15	GOOD	● flat
Communication Services	9	6/2/1	66.7%	+4	GOOD	▼ fading
Consumer Discretionary	16	9/2/5	56.2%	+6	NEUTRAL	▲ improving
Financials	33	17/11/5	51.5%	+6	NEUTRAL	▲ improving
Materials	8	4/3/1	50.0%	+2	NEUTRAL	—

Beats 122 reporters · stack-ranked by surprise magnitude, biggest first

Company	Sector	Date	EPS actual vs est (surprise)	Revenue surprise	Guidance	Stock since print
Etsy, Inc. ETSY · T1	Consumer Discretionary	10-28	1.00 vs 0.74 (+35.1%)	—	Raised	+0.7%
Builders FirstSource, Inc. BLDR · T1	Industrials	10-29	1.51 vs 1.12 (+34.8%)	—	Maintained	+9.5%
The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. GS · T1	Financials	10-13	17.01 vs 12.86 (+32.3%)	—	Not given	+4.2%
DoorDash, Inc. DASH · T1	Consumer Discretionary	10-29	1.06 vs 0.82 (+29.3%)	—	Not given	n/a
The Hershey Co. HSY · T1	Consumer Staples	10-29	2.64 vs 2.11 (+25.1%)	—	Raised	-1.3%
Capital One COF · T2	Financials	10-20	6.69 vs 5.50 (+21.6%)	—	Not given	+3.4%
Vertiv Holdings Co. VRT · T1	Industrials	10-28	2.21 vs 1.82 (+21.4%)	—	Raised	+20.7%
Quanta Services, Inc. PWR · T1	Industrials	10-29	6.06 vs 5.02 (+20.7%)	—	Raised	+6.3%
Eli Lilly & Co. LLY · T1	Health Care	10-29	7.48 vs 5.68 (+31.7%)	+8.0%	Raised	+6.5%
Merck & Co., Inc. MRK · T1	Health Care	10-29	2.49 vs 2.08 (+19.7%)	—	Raised	+4.9%
Booz Allen Hamilton BAH · T2	Industrials	10-23	1.76 vs 1.48 (+18.9%)	—	Not given	+6.8%
Phillips 66 PSX · T1	Energy	10-28	14.08 vs 11.97 (+17.6%)	—	Not given	+1.5%
SAP SAP · T2	Technology	10-21	2.14 vs 1.83 (+16.9%)	—	Not given	+0.1%
Garmin Ltd. GRMN · T1	Consumer Discretionary	10-28	2.76 vs 2.41 (+14.5%)	—	Raised	-2.4%
BlackRock, Inc. BLK · T1	Financials	10-14	15.93 vs 13.97 (+14.0%)	—	Not given	+9.8%
UnitedHealth Group UNH · T2	Health Care	10-13	4.69 vs 4.12 (+13.8%)	—	Raised	+7.4%
Meta Platforms, Inc. META · T1	Communication Services	10-21	7.40 vs 6.54 (+13.1%)	—	Raised	-9.4%
Valero Energy VLO · T2	Energy	10-22	23.90 vs 21.28 (+12.3%)	—	Not given	-12.6%
FedEx Corp. FDX · T1	Industrials	10-28	3.74 vs 3.34 (+12.0%)	—	Raised	+1.7%
GE Healthcare Technologies, Inc. GEHC · T1	Health Care	10-28	1.34 vs 1.20 (+11.7%)	—	Raised	+8.2%
United Rentals URI · T2	Industrials	10-21	15.55 vs 13.94 (+11.5%)	—	Raised	+11.4%
EQT Corp. EQT · T1	Energy	10-27	0.42 vs 0.38 (+10.5%)	—	Maintained	-2.3%
Freeport-McMoRan FCX · T2	Materials	10-27	0.88 vs 0.80 (+10.0%)	—	Not given	+1.6%
Northrop Grumman NOC · T2	Industrials	10-20	7.89 vs 7.18 (+9.9%)	—	Raised	+10.8%
Amphenol Corp. APH · T1	Technology	10-28	0.80 vs 0.73 (+9.7%)	—	Raised	+6.2%
Western Digital WDC · T2	Technology	10-22	4.64 vs 4.11 (+12.9%)	+5.8%	Raised	+12.2%
American Electric Power AEP · T1	Utilities	10-28	2.23 vs 2.05 (+8.8%)	—	Raised	-1.1%
Raymond James RJF · T2	Financials	10-28	3.59 vs 3.30 (+8.8%)	—	Not given	+1.2%
HCA Healthcare HCA · T2	Health Care	10-27	7.22 vs 6.65 (+8.6%)	—	Not given	+2.1%
Texas Instruments TXN · T2	Technology	10-21	2.62 vs 2.42 (+8.3%)	—	Raised	+8.6%
Citigroup C · T1	Financials	10-13	2.85 vs 2.65 (+7.5%)	—	Not given	-4.3%
CSX Corp CSX · T2	Industrials	10-21	0.57 vs 0.53 (+7.5%)	—	Not given	+6.2%
Howmet Aerospace HWM · T1	Industrials	10-29	1.46 vs 1.37 (+6.6%)	—	Raised	+6.1%
Lockheed Martin LMT · T2	Industrials	10-22	7.97 vs 7.49 (+6.4%)	—	Raised	+17.3%
Netflix, Inc. NFLX · T1	Communication Services	10-20	0.87 vs 0.82 (+6.1%)	—	Cut	-9.6%
CenterPoint Energy CNP · T1	Utilities	10-27	0.53 vs 0.50 (+6.0%)	—	Raised	+2.4%
NextEra Energy NEE · T2	Utilities	10-21	1.24 vs 1.18 (+5.1%)	—	Not given	+4.2%
BNY Mellon BNY · T2	Financials	10-15	2.37 vs 2.26 (+4.9%)	—	Raised	+8.8%
CBRE Group, Inc. CBRE · T1	Real Estate	10-22	2.05 vs 1.96 (+4.6%)	—	Maintained	-5.3%
Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc. TMO · T1	Health Care	10-21	6.68 vs 6.40 (+4.4%)	—	Raised	+3.3%
Morgan Stanley MS · T1	Financials	10-14	3.03 vs 2.91 (+4.1%)	—	Not given	+3.0%
American Express Co. AXP · T1	Financials	10-23	4.68 vs 4.50 (+4.0%)	—	Raised	-0.6%
Procter & Gamble PG · T2	Consumer Staples	10-22	2.00 vs 1.89 (+5.8%)	+2.0%	Maintained	+1.4%
PPG Industries PPG · T2	Materials	10-27	2.25 vs 2.12 (+6.1%)	+1.6%	Raised	+4.9%
Hilton Worldwide Holdings, Inc. HLT · T1	Consumer Discretionary	10-27	2.45 vs 2.37 (+3.4%)	—	Raised	+0.4%
S&P Global, Inc. SPGI · T1	Financials	10-27	4.58 vs 4.43 (+3.4%)	—	Raised	+1.6%
IBM IBM · T2	Technology	10-21	2.95 vs 2.86 (+3.1%)	—	Not given	+1.2%
Royal Caribbean Group RCL · T1	Consumer Discretionary	10-27	6.57 vs 6.38 (+3.0%)	—	Raised	+10.9%
KLA Corp KLAC · T2	Technology	10-28	1.22 vs 1.18 (+3.4%)	+2.5%	Not given	+5.7%
Cadence Design Systems, Inc. CDNS · T1	Technology	10-26	2.11 vs 2.05 (+2.9%)	—	Raised	+6.5%
Equifax EFX · T2	Industrials	10-20	2.26 vs 2.20 (+2.7%)	—	Not given	+12.2%
Mastercard, Inc. MA · T1	Financials	10-29	5.31 vs 5.17 (+2.7%)	—	Maintained	+4.3%
Microsoft Corp. MSFT · T1	Technology	10-28	4.89 vs 4.73 (+3.4%)	+1.8%	Raised	-1.3%
Seagate Technology STX · T2	Technology	10-27	7.68 vs 7.45 (+3.1%)	+1.9%	Not given	+4.9%
Trane Technologies TT · T2	Industrials	10-29	4.86 vs 4.74 (+2.5%)	—	Raised	-4.4%
Johnson & Johnson JNJ · T2	Health Care	10-13	2.59 vs 2.53 (+2.4%)	—	Raised	+4.2%
Philip Morris PM · T2	Consumer Staples	10-21	2.36 vs 2.30 (+2.6%)	+1.1%	Not given	+3.0%
MSCI MSCI · T2	Financials	10-20	5.11 vs 5.02 (+1.8%)	—	Not given	+9.1%
Automatic Data Processing, Inc. ADP · T1	Industrials	10-28	2.82 vs 2.77 (+1.8%)	—	Raised	-2.7%
Linde LIN · T2	Materials	10-29	4.59 vs 4.52 (+1.5%)	—	Raised	-1.7%
Align Technology, Inc. ALGN · T1	Health Care	10-28	2.80 vs 2.77 (+1.1%)	—	Cut	+1.0%
Caterpillar, Inc. CAT · T1	Industrials	10-29	7.20 vs 7.08 (+1.7%)	+0.6%	Maintained	-7.8%
Altria Group MO · T2	Consumer Staples	10-29	1.52 vs 1.51 (+0.7%)	—	Raised	+3.6%
ASML Holding NV ASML · T1	Technology	10-14	—	—	Raised	-2.1%
Fastenal FAST · T2	Industrials	10-14	—	—	Not given	+1.9%
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. TSM · T1	Technology	10-15	—	—	Raised	+0.6%
GE Aerospace GE · T2	Industrials	10-20	—	—	Raised	+0.4%
General Motors GM · T2	Consumer Discretionary	10-20	—	—	Maintained	+3.6%
Genuine Parts GPC · T2	Consumer Discretionary	10-20	—	—	Not given	-6.5%
Halliburton HAL · T2	Energy	10-20	—	—	Not given	+8.9%
Intuitive Surgical, Inc. ISRG · T2	Health Care	10-20	—	—	Not given	+2.2%
3M MMM · T2	Industrials	10-20	—	—	Raised	+8.8%
Omnicom Group OMC · T2	Communication Services	10-20	—	—	Not given	-1.7%
RTX Corp RTX · T2	Industrials	10-20	—	—	Raised	+4.7%
SpaceX SPCX · T2	Industrials	10-20	—	—	Not given	-2.6%
CME Group CME · T2	Financials	10-21	—	—	Not given	-0.2%
Elevance Health ELV · T2	Health Care	10-21	—	—	Not given	-4.6%
Kinder Morgan KMI · T2	Energy	10-21	—	—	Not given	-0.3%
Lam Research LRCX · T2	Technology	10-21	—	—	Raised	-1.9%
Southwest Airlines LUV · T2	Industrials	10-21	—	—	Cut	+9.6%
Northern Trust NTRS · T2	Financials	10-21	—	—	Not given	+4.9%
AT&T T · T2	Communication Services	10-21	—	—	Raised	-10.4%
Bloom Energy BE · T2	Industrials	10-22	—	—	Raised	+3.7%
Comfort Systems USA, Inc. FIX · T1	Industrials	10-22	—	—	Not given	n/a
Newmont NEM · T2	Materials	10-22	—	—	Not given	-2.4%
Union Pacific Corp. UNP · T1	Industrials	10-22	—	—	Maintained	+3.9%
Public Storage PSA · T1	Real Estate	10-26	—	—	Raised	+2.7%
Verizon Communications, Inc. VZ · T1	Communication Services	10-26	—	—	Raised	-2.1%
Welltower, Inc. WELL · T1	Real Estate	10-26	—	—	Raised	-3.1%
American Tower Corp. AMT · T1	Real Estate	10-27	—	—	Raised	-1.9%
CMS Energy CMS · T2	Utilities	10-27	—	—	Cut	+0.5%
Centene CNC · T2	Health Care	10-27	—	—	Raised	-0.7%
CoStar Group CSGP · T2	Real Estate	10-27	—	—	Not given	-13.7%
Expand Energy EXE · T2	Energy	10-27	—	—	Not given	-4.1%
F5 FFIV · T2	Technology	10-27	—	—	Not given	-20.6%
Corning GLW · T2	Technology	10-27	—	—	Raised	+3.0%
Hubbell HUBB · T2	Industrials	10-27	—	—	Not given	-4.6%
IQVIA IQV · T2	Health Care	10-27	—	—	Raised	+1.3%
Johnson Controls JCI · T2	Industrials	10-27	—	—	Raised	+6.6%
The Coca-Cola Co. KO · T1	Consumer Staples	10-27	—	—	Raised	-0.4%
NXP Semiconductors NXPI · T2	Technology	10-27	—	—	Cut	+2.1%
ONEOK OKE · T2	Energy	10-27	—	—	Not given	-1.5%
Pentair PNR · T2	Industrials	10-27	—	—	Not given	+18.4%
SoFi Technologies, Inc. SOFI · T1	Financials	10-27	—	—	Raised	+20.6%
Teradyne TER · T2	Technology	10-27	—	—	Not given	-7.3%
Visa, Inc. V · T1	Financials	10-27	—	—	Maintained	+2.0%
Aon AON · T2	Financials	10-28	—	—	Not given	+4.9%
Biogen BIIB · T2	Health Care	10-28	—	—	Raised	-0.0%
Brinker International, Inc. EAT · T1	Consumer Discretionary	10-28	—	—	Raised	+12.1%
Flex FLEX · T2	Technology	10-28	—	—	Not given	+13.5%
GE Vernova, Inc. GEV · T1	Industrials	10-28	—	—	Raised	+0.6%
IDEX Corp IEX · T2	Industrials	10-28	—	—	Raised	+1.5%
Labcorp LH · T2	Health Care	10-28	—	—	Raised	+8.8%
Masco MAS · T2	Industrials	10-28	—	—	Raised	+5.2%
Novartis NVS · T1	Health Care	10-28	—	—	Raised	+2.1%
O'Reilly Automotive, Inc. ORLY · T1	Consumer Discretionary	10-28	—	—	Raised	-3.2%
SK hynix SKHYNIX · T1	Technology	10-28	—	—	Not given	n/a
T-Mobile US, Inc. TMUS · T1	Communication Services	10-28	—	—	Raised	+0.3%
Bristol Myers Squibb BMY · T2	Health Care	10-29	—	—	Cut	+0.0%
EMCOR Group EME · T1	Industrials	10-29	—	—	Raised	+5.2%
Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. ICE · T1	Financials	10-29	—	—	Not given	+5.8%
L3Harris Technologies, Inc. LHX · T1	Industrials	10-29	—	—	Raised	+6.8%

Met 24 reporters · stack-ranked by surprise magnitude, biggest first

Company	Sector	Date	EPS actual vs est (surprise)	Revenue surprise	Guidance	Stock since print
Comcast CMCSA · T2	Communication Services	10-22	1.07 vs 0.98 (+9.2%)	—	Not given	-0.3%
Robinhood Markets, Inc. HOOD · T1	Financials	10-27	0.51 vs 0.55 (-7.3%)	—	Not given	-3.3%
Domino's Pizza DPZ · T2	Consumer Discretionary	10-13	4.60 vs 4.36 (+5.5%)	—	Not given	-1.0%
PayPal PYPL · T2	Financials	10-27	1.45 vs 1.31 (+10.7%)	-1.5%	Raised	+4.1%
ServiceNow, Inc. NOW · T1	Technology	10-28	1.00 vs 1.02 (-2.0%)	—	Raised	-25.5%
Wells Fargo WFC · T1	Financials	10-13	1.87 vs 1.85 (+1.1%)	—	Not given	+2.0%
State Street STT · T2	Financials	10-14	3.69 vs 3.67 (+0.5%)	—	Not given	+0.5%
PNC Financial PNC · T2	Financials	10-15	—	-0.2%	Raised	+7.3%
Charles Schwab SCHW · T2	Financials	10-15	1.69 vs 1.69 (+0.0%)	—	Not given	-7.3%
Cleveland-Cliffs CLF · T2	Materials	10-19	—	—	Not given	+15.9%
Fifth Third Bancorp FITB · T2	Financials	10-19	—	—	Not given	+8.1%
Abbott Laboratories ABT · T1	Health Care	10-21	—	—	Maintained	+1.5%
Packaging Corp PKG · T2	Materials	10-21	—	—	Not given	+5.9%
Tesla TSLA · T2	Consumer Discretionary	10-21	—	—	Not given	+4.8%
Blackstone, Inc. BX · T1	Financials	10-22	—	—	Not given	+9.2%
Spotify Technology SA SPOT · T1	Communication Services	10-22	—	—	Raised	+5.6%
Ecolab, Inc. ECL · T1	Materials	10-27	—	—	Maintained	+3.3%
HSBC Holdings HSBC · T1	Financials	10-27	—	—	Maintained	-5.0%
Illinois Tool Works ITW · T2	Industrials	10-27	—	—	Not given	+1.0%
Invesco IVZ · T2	Financials	10-27	—	—	Not given	+1.8%
PACCAR PCAR · T2	Industrials	10-27	—	—	Not given	-1.9%
Boston Scientific BSX · T1	Health Care	10-28	—	—	Cut	-7.2%
Lennox International LII · T2	Industrials	10-28	—	—	Cut	-9.0%
UBS Group UBS · T1	Financials	10-28	—	—	Not given	+2.7%

Misses 20 reporters · stack-ranked by surprise magnitude, biggest first

Company	Sector	Date	EPS actual vs est (surprise)	Revenue surprise	Guidance	Stock since print
Las Vegas Sands LVS · T2	Consumer Discretionary	10-21	0.54 vs 0.73 (-26.0%)	—	Not given	-1.8%
Carvana Co. CVNA · T1	Consumer Discretionary	10-28	0.39 vs 0.44 (-11.4%)	—	Raised	+15.7%
D.R. Horton, Inc. DHI · T1	Consumer Discretionary	10-29	2.67 vs 3.00 (-11.0%)	—	Cut	-0.1%
Cheniere Energy, Inc. LNG · T1	Energy	10-29	3.62 vs 4.06 (-10.8%)	—	Raised	+5.5%
Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. CMG · T1	Consumer Discretionary	10-28	0.27 vs 0.29 (-6.9%)	—	Maintained	+8.3%
Rollins ROL · T2	Industrials	10-21	0.34 vs 0.35 (-2.9%)	—	Not given	+1.5%
Interactive Brokers IBKR · T2	Financials	10-15	0.67 vs 0.68 (-1.5%)	—	Not given	-3.7%
Waste Management, Inc. WM · T1	Industrials	10-27	2.15 vs 2.18 (-1.4%)	—	Maintained	-2.8%
Progressive PGR · T2	Financials	10-14	4.37 vs 4.42 (-1.1%)	—	Not given	+2.5%
The Sherwin-Williams Co. SHW · T1	Materials	10-27	3.63 vs 3.65 (-0.5%)	—	Maintained	-2.1%
Alphabet, Inc. GOOGL · T1	Communication Services	10-28	—	-0.5%	Maintained	-12.3%
United Airlines UAL · T2	Industrials	10-20	—	-0.1%	Not given	+8.4%
JPMorgan Chase & Co. JPM · T1	Financials	10-13	—	—	Not given	+2.8%
Bank of America Corp. BAC · T1	Financials	10-14	—	—	Raised	-4.3%
Crown Castle CCI · T2	Real Estate	10-21	—	—	Not given	+12.4%
Globe Life GL · T2	Financials	10-21	—	—	Cut	-5.7%
JetBlue Airways JBLU · T1	Industrials	10-26	—	—	Cut	n/a
The Boeing Co. BA · T1	Industrials	10-27	—	—	Maintained	-7.7%
Xylem XYL · T1	Industrials	10-27	—	—	Cut	-17.7%
MGM Resorts International MGM · T1	Consumer Discretionary	10-28	—	—	Not given	+2.2%

Coverage & method

Census: 265 US-listed companies with market cap ≥ $5B reported Oct 13–29 (pre-market cutoff) — 161 graded (60.8%), 104 ungraded; the tracked 310-name universe covers 105 of them (39.6%). Biggest reporters outside the tracked universe: WFC, LIN, C, KLAC, T, STX, WDC, VLO, FTNT, BMY
Two evidence tiers, never blended silently: Tier 1 (T1) = desk verdicts from the earnings radar’s written summaries (78 reporters); Tier 2 (T2) = summary-level grades from reported-vs-consensus coverage (88). Totals above show the combined figure with the tier split in the first bullet
Magnitude: the average of EPS surprise % and revenue surprise % vs consensus (desk figures for Tier 1, reported surprises for Tier 2; where only one leg is published, the magnitude is that leg). Quantified for 84 of 166 graded reporters — the rest list at the foot of their group, by date. Bucket membership follows the desk/source verdict; a mixed (met) print can carry one leg outside ±2%
Stock since print: price return from the pre-print close to the 2026-10-29 close — for pre-market (BMO) prints the anchor is the prior close; for after-close (AMC) prints it is the report-day close, so the first close inside the window is the first close that could react. Computed for 162 of 166 reporters (4 release slots unconfirmed, 1 non-US listing)
Sector read rule: GOOD = beat rate ≥60% and guidance balance ≥0 · BAD = beat rate ≤40%, or a negative guidance balance with misses the plurality · otherwise NEUTRAL. Trend compares Oct 13–21 vs Oct 22–29 and needs ≥3 graded reporters in each half
Blended EPS growth reference: FactSet via BloFin at Oct 16 (~9% of the S&P 500 reported): blended earnings growth +29.0%, 84% beat rate at that early point — labeled early-window, not a headline gauge
As of: classifications through the Thu Oct 29 morning radar (Wed after-close + Thu pre-market); the ledger grows with each radar run and the reaction column refreshes nightly. Full per-company audit: research notes, earnings-season-scoreboard-2026-10-29

Style Factors · Saul Rosenberg, Style Factor Strategist

The right part of the pond to fish in.

Saul reads which style factors are leading and which are lagging, tracked through the ETFs that hold them.

The read Saul’s conclusion, up front · October 28, 2026 close

Dividend leads the month at +7.1% and Freedom-weighted EM trails at −6.9% — 15 of the 32 trackers rose in a month the S&P 500 (SPY) returned +0.9%. The AI-power basket is the leak: 6 of its seven trackers sit in the month’s worst twelve.

TOP 3 — leading the month

Dividend (HDV) +7.1% — positive at every horizon — +6.1% (3M), +14.4% (6M), +29.4% (12M)
Dividend (SCHD) +6.3% — positive at every horizon — +5.7% (3M), +13.9% (6M), +34.5% (12M)
MLP & energy infrastructure (MLPX) +5.7% — positive at every horizon — +0.9% (3M), +5.2% (6M), +33.2% (12M)

WORST 3 — trailing the month

Freedom-weighted EM (FRDM) −6.9% — still the twelve-month leader at +39.8% — leadership unwinding from the top
Emerging markets (GEM) −5.6% — −0.9% over three months, +16.8% over twelve
Emerging markets (EEM) −5.5% — −0.9% over three months, +16.3% over twelve

Leader-to-laggard spread on the month: 14.0 points (HDV +7.1% vs FRDM −6.9%)

Factor Leadership Strength Score: 72 / 100 · Strong

Where the returns are coming from 1-month total returns, best to worst · October 28, 2026 close

Fish here:

Dividend (HDV +7.1% — the best tracker on the tab this month)
Dividend (SCHD +6.3%)
MLP & energy infrastructure (MLPX +5.7%)
Low volatility (USMV +5.1%)
Value (IVE +3.8%)
Large-cap equal weight (RSP +3.7%)
Health care (PINK +3.4%)
International low-vol high dividend (LVHI +1.6%)
Mid-cap (IJH +1.3%)
S&P 500 premium income (GPIX +1.1%)
US infrastructure development (PAVE +0.5%)
Small-cap (IWM +0.5%)
Mega-cap, S&P 100 (OEF +0.3%)
Quality + Value + Momentum (QLC +0.0%)
The only trackers up over the month — in a month the S&P 500 (SPY) rose 0.9%

Do not fish here, for now:

AI power basket — 6 of its seven trackers are in the month’s worst twelve
Growth (IVW −1.4%)
Technology (XLK −1.8%)
Speculative growth (ARKK −3.5%)
High beta (SPHB −4.0%)
Momentum — US (SPMO −4.2%)
Industrial renaissance (AIRR −4.3%)
Smart grid (GRID −4.6%)
AI enablers & adopters (ALAI −4.9%)
Energy transformation (PWRD −5.3%)
Emerging markets (EEM −5.5%)
Emerging markets (GEM −5.6%)
Freedom-weighted EM (FRDM −6.9% — now the worst tracker on the tab)

Potential emerging momentum Bottoming on volume · October 28, 2026 close

What identifies it — all four, or it is not on the list:

1 · Down over one month — 108 of the 300 brands are in the washed-out pool 2 · Up over both the last two weeks and the last week — 19 names have turned 3 · Last five sessions’ volume at least 1.15× the prior twenty sessions’ pace — 85 of the 300 are running hot 4 · Close at least 2% off its ten-day low — SKHY clears it at +25.1%

Firing now — confirmed emerging momentum:

SPHB (High beta) — factor tracker firing on all four: −4.0% on the month, +0.3% over two weeks, volume 1.24×, close +6.3% off its ten-day low
VRT (Vertiv Holdings Co.) — all four legs: −0.5% on the month, +9.0% over two weeks, volume 1.91×, close +25.0% off its ten-day low
SKHY (SK hynix, Inc.) — all four legs: −9.5% on the month, +11.6% over two weeks, volume 1.49×, close +25.1% off its ten-day low

Show all the screen data

Volume at the lows (factor trackers):

Factor trackers: 1 pass all four — SPHB (−4.0%)
Volume is running hot instead — HDV 2.28×; LVHI 1.62×; GRID 1.60×; IVW 1.41×; USMV 1.38× — GRID, IVW at their lows, HDV, LVHI, USMV on strength
2 trackers have turned on price — ARKK (+0.8%), XLK (+1.3%) — they join the list only when volume confirms

The pass, name by name:

Across the 300 brands, 2 names pass all four at Wednesday’s close — VRT (−0.5% on the month, +9.0% over two weeks, volume 1.91×, close +25.0% off its ten-day low); SKHY (−9.5% on the month, +11.6% over two weeks, volume 1.49×, close +25.1% off its ten-day low)

Turned, volume not yet confirming:

17 names are down over one month and up over both the last two weeks and the last week — BLDR +10.6% (1.01×), RKT +9.9% (0.86×), KKR +8.7% (0.78×), DRPRY +7.7% (0.98×), MU +7.6% (0.99×)
They join the list only when volume confirms

Volume at fresh lows:

12 names are making fresh three-week closing lows on at least 1.15× volume — SAFRY 2.69×, BA 2.17×, LPLA 2.03×, META 1.77×, NU 1.61×
A bottom needs the price turn to follow — watch, do not chase

Screen: 300-brand universe and the 32 factor trackers, adjusted closes and share volume, Yahoo Finance daily data, October 28, 2026 close. The four legs: one-month return negative (calendar month, adjusted); up over both the last ten and last five sessions; five-session volume at least 1.15× the prior twenty sessions; close at least 2% off its ten-day closing low. Climax lows are fresh fifteen-session closing lows on the same volume test. A screen is a starting list, not a recommendation. For informational purposes only. This is not financial advice. Please do your own research.

The factor map Total returns, dividends reinvested · October 28, 2026 close

Style factor	ETF	1 Month	3 Months	6 Months	12 Months
Reference — S&P 500, cap-weighted	SPY	+0.9%	+3.6%	+9.1%	+13.6%
Reference — Nasdaq 100	QQQ	−1.5%	+5.6%	+10.6%	+15.2%
Size — Mega-cap, S&P 500 Top 50	XLG	−0.3%	+4.8%	+5.2%	+6.4%
Size — Mega-cap, S&P 100	OEF	+0.3%	+4.3%	+9.6%	+11.8%
Size — Large-cap, equal-weighted	RSP	+3.7%	+1.5%	+9.1%	+16.0%
Size — Mid-cap	IJH	+1.3%	−2.3%	+2.3%	+13.2%
Size — Small-cap	IWM	+0.5%	−3.2%	+3.2%	+14.1%
Style — Value	IVE	+3.8%	+3.7%	+9.5%	+15.4%
Style — Growth	IVW	−1.4%	+3.7%	+8.7%	+12.1%
Momentum — US	SPMO	−4.2%	+0.9%	+11.8%	+18.4%
Quality — US	SPHQ	−0.3%	−0.4%	+6.0%	+14.1%
Multi-factor — Quality + Value + Momentum	QLC	+0.0%	+1.2%	+7.9%	+15.2%
Speculative / low quality	ARKK	−3.5%	+20.9%	+14.1%	−3.5%
High beta	SPHB	−4.0%	+3.5%	+10.1%	+26.5%
Dividend	SCHD	+6.3%	+5.7%	+13.9%	+34.5%
Low volatility	USMV	+5.1%	+5.4%	+10.4%	+10.8%
International — Developed ex-U.S.	EFA	−1.3%	−1.8%	+4.3%	+12.1%
International — Emerging markets	EEM	−5.5%	−0.9%	+1.4%	+16.3%
International — Developed ex-U.S. (reference point)	FNDF	−0.9%	+0.1%	+6.8%	+26.1%
International — Emerging markets (reference point)	GEM	−5.6%	−0.9%	+2.0%	+16.8%
Portfolio — International low-vol high dividend	LVHI	+1.6%	+1.4%	+8.2%	+27.1%
Portfolio — High dividend, US	HDV	+7.1%	+6.1%	+14.4%	+29.4%
Portfolio — S&P 500 premium income (covered-call overlay)	GPIX	+1.1%	+3.7%	+9.2%	+14.7%
Portfolio — MLP & energy infrastructure	MLPX	+5.7%	+0.9%	+5.2%	+33.2%
AI power basket — Smart grid infrastructure	GRID	−4.6%	−5.4%	−8.1%	+7.9%
AI power basket — Energy transformation	PWRD	−5.3%	−7.9%	−8.2%	−1.9%
AI power basket — Technology (also the site’s Tech sector ETF)	XLK	−1.8%	+9.1%	+21.3%	+27.2%
AI power basket — Emerging markets, freedom-weighted (trades like the AI basket — see below)	FRDM	−6.9%	+1.3%	+6.2%	+39.8%
AI power basket — AI enablers & adopters	ALAI	−4.9%	+2.5%	+12.5%	+15.8%
AI power basket — US infrastructure development	PAVE	+0.5%	−5.4%	−4.1%	+11.4%
AI power basket — American industrial renaissance	AIRR	−4.3%	−15.2%	−19.7%	−0.2%
Health care stability — Health care, actively managed	PINK	+3.4%	+3.4%	+16.8%	+20.3%

Source: Saul’s Factor Map, October 28, 2026. For informational purposes only. This is not financial advice. Please do your own research.

Selection · The investment process · October 26, 2026 snapshot — the tilt, technicals and style answers refresh nightly

Selection: the investment process.

The tilt — the summary conclusion

Tilt: quality, dividends, low volatility and value — over high beta, momentum, small cap and emerging markets

Leadership (1-month, blended with 3): HDV +7.6% · SCHD +6.8% · USMV +5.2%

Turn watch: the last two sessions flipped to the technology and AI trade (+3.2% vs +0.2% — FRDM +4.0%), while the five-session window still belongs to quality, defensive and dividend (+0.6% vs +0.1%). A turn is forming, not confirmed — the headline flips only when the challenger takes the 1-month lead.

How the language is set — nightly, from the factor map: the headline tilt names the leading style cluster on a 1-month window blended with 3 months. A challenger leading the last two sessions prints a turn watch; leading the last five sessions confirms a turn in progress; the headline flips only when the challenger takes the 1-month lead. As of the October 28, 2026 close · refreshed after every close.

Overall posture today: YELLOW — stay invested, defensively tilted

Macro: Yellow.
Technicals: Yellow (mixed) — long-term and intermediate green, short term on the line.
Style momentum: Red / defensive.
Long-term rule says stay invested — S&P 500 above its 10-month average
Nothing in this funnel says chase risk today

Q1 · Macro risk — green, yellow, or red?

Answer: YELLOW

Quad: Quad 2 tipping into Quad 3 — Quad 4 dominant across 2027
Fed hawkish — about 90% priced for a hold at the Oct 27–28 meeting; December hike widely expected
10-year at ~4.99%; high-yield spreads 337bp (Amber)
Geopolitics Elevated — Brent at $115.81; core PCE 3.0% year over year
Against that: Recession Watch all-clear; business and credit cycles still Expansion
Yellow, not red — slowing with re-accelerating inflation, not a recession call

Q2 · Technicals — are indexes above the 10-month average?

Answer: YELLOW — long-term and intermediate green; the short term is on the line

Long-term: green — S&P 500 close 7,722.60, 6.8% above its 10-month average of 7,230.78 (month-end closes through September 2026)
The 200-day average sits near 7,299 — the close is above it
Intermediate-term: green — the 50-day average (7,697.01) sits above the 150-day (7,450.91), by 3.3%: the intermediate structure is positive
Short-term: on the line — 1.50 points (−0.02%) below the 25-day average (7,724.10), and above the 50-day (7,697.01): the pullback has stalled at the line — one close above the 25-day flips the short term up
The 10-month rule says stay invested; the short-term tape says do not add risk aggressively
Month-end tripwire: a close below about 7,274 on Friday, October 30 prints the first month-end close below the line — Market in Transition; a second consecutive close below it means a bear market and full defense

Q3 · Style momentum — is it a risk-on tape?

Answer: NO — RED / DEFENSIVE

Green test, as specified: high beta (SPHB) outperforming low volatility (USMV), and discretionary (XLY) beating staples (XLP)
High beta still fails at 1 month: SPHB −4.8% vs USMV +5.2%
And XLY +5.7% vs XLP +6.1% on the site's 1-month sector-ETF set — staples still lead discretionary
Dividend (SCHD +6.8%) and value (IVE +4.3% vs growth IVW −1.5%) confirm it
This step stops the funnel from chasing high beta, even when a 3-year Sharpe table would look tempting — see Q7

Q4 · Where shall we fish? The pairs

1 month is the momentum window
3 months is the confirmation
Where the two disagree, both are shown

Pair	1 month	3 months	Winner
Large (XLG) vs Small (IWM)	−2.5% vs −1.8%	+3.4% vs −4.6%	Large — 3 months is decisive
U.S. (SPY) vs Developed ex-U.S. (EFA)	−0.8% vs −2.5%	+2.7% vs −2.5%	U.S.
U.S. (SPY) vs Emerging (VWO)	−0.8% vs −6.1%	+2.7% vs −3.6%	U.S. — VWO computed from Yahoo adjusted closes; the site’s EEM proxy reads −9.1% at 1 month, same verdict, different magnitude (FTSE vs MSCI index composition)
Value (IWD) vs Growth (IWF)	+2.5% vs −4.2%	+3.0% vs +2.3%	Value — computed from Yahoo adjusted closes; the site’s IVE vs IVW proxies read +2.9% vs −3.7% at 1 month, same verdict
Equal weight (RSP) vs Cap weight (SPY)	+2.9% vs −0.8%	+1.4% vs +2.7%	Equal weight on momentum, cap weight on 3 months — tilt equal weight, do not overcommit

Q4 answer today: U.S., value, large, with an equal-weight tilt.

Q5 · Top 3 sector ponds — 1-month sector-ETF momentum

Pond	1-month ETF	Timeless 10 breadth score	Why it is here
1. Energy (XLE)	+12.25%	95.0	Best 1-month sector and near-perfect Timeless breadth — the Quad 3 trade to harvest, not marry
2. Utilities (XLU)	+7.69%	55.0	Defensive plus AI power demand; breadth improved from 5.0 in September
3. Staples (XLP)	+7.19%	100.0	Perfect Timeless breadth — 10 of 10 green — and the defensive leg of Q3

Q6 · Fish first — stocks in the top ponds

Team picks first: Timeless names with a green Trend, in the top ponds

Energy — green: XOM, CVX, EOG, LNG, SU, CNQ, SHEL, TTE, EQNR (9 of 10; WMB is yellow)
Utilities — green: DUK, SO, AEP, IBDRY (NEE, SRE and NGG are yellow)
Staples — green: COST, WMT, PG, CL, KO, MNST, PM, CART, OR, NESN (10 of 10)
Analyst favs in these ponds: none in the latest public Baird actions.

Q7 · The same funnel for ETF models

Model tilt today: defensive, dividend, value, equal weight, U.S. overweight

Overweight: USMV, SCHD / VIG, IWD, RSP, QLC
Plus XLE, XLU and XLP for the sector ponds
Underweight / avoid now: SPHB, SPMO, ARKK-type high beta and momentum
Also avoid now: IWM small cap, and EEM / VWO emerging markets
The opposite of what a 3-year Sharpe table alone would suggest for momentum — that conflict is intentional
Resolved in favour of the 1-month funnel (Q3–Q5), not the 3-year table

Category	Best in breed (3Y Sharpe)	Sharpe	Sortino	Alpha vs SPY (ann.)	Beta	Funnel fit today
Low volatility	USMV	0.95	1.35	+1.76%	0.47	Wanted
Dividend	VIG	1.09	1.60	+1.06%	0.72	Wanted — SCHD has the higher alpha (+5.00%) on a slightly lower Sharpe (1.05)
Value	IWD	1.28	1.87	+4.27%	0.72	Wanted
Growth	IVW	1.02	1.47	−1.05%	1.23	Watch — growth is losing Q4
Equal weight	RSP	0.94	1.39	−0.21%	0.78	Wanted (tilt, not overcommit — see Q4)
U.S. large / Mega-cap	OEF	1.16	1.69	+0.89%	1.03	Wanted (core)
Developed ex-U.S.	FNDF	1.21	1.76	+6.14%	0.72	Underweight — best in breed, wrong geography today
Emerging markets	GEM	0.81	1.16	+1.10%	0.86	Avoid now
Small cap	IWM	0.67	0.99	−4.91%	1.12	Avoid now
Mid cap	IJH	0.64	0.94	−5.46%	0.99	Watch
U.S. momentum	SPMO	1.22	1.77	+5.26%	1.26	Avoid now — 3-year leader, 1-month loser (−8.1%)
U.S. quality	QUAL	1.03	1.51	−0.81%	0.91	Watch
Multi-factor	QLC	1.26	1.84	+2.25%	0.97	Wanted
High beta	SPHB	0.79	1.12	−5.47%	1.56	Avoid now
Sector — Energy	XLE	0.62	0.84	+5.87%	0.45	Wanted (pond 1)
Sector — Utilities	XLU	0.74	1.05	+6.23%	0.33	Wanted (pond 2)
Sector — Staples	XLP	0.60	0.87	+4.65%	0.19	Wanted (pond 3)
Sector — Technology	XLK	0.94	1.34	−1.53%	1.48	Watch — sector breadth is cooling
Sector — Discretionary	XLY	0.50	0.72	−9.42%	1.16	Watch
Sector — Financials	XLF	1.00	1.42	+3.14%	0.76	Watch — breadth improved, momentum middling
Sector — Communication	XLC	0.74	1.05	−1.91%	0.86	Avoid now
Sector — Industrials	XLI	0.88	1.29	−0.57%	0.89	Avoid now
Sector — Materials	XLB	0.48	0.70	−4.82%	0.77	Watch
Sector — Real Estate	XLRE	0.50	0.71	−0.49%	0.52	Watch
Sector — Health Care	XLV	0.60	0.87	+1.59%	0.44	Wanted — breadth 85, momentum +5.03% at 1 month

Portfolios · The Optimal Portfolio & the Timeless program

Differentiated Portfolios

Different edges, one standard: a dynamic flagship allocation, a core-and-satellites build, global compounders, the hedge funds’ consensus book and the Timeless program — each built its own way, governed by its own selection rules, and tracked in the open every day.

Built by the analyst team. Every name chosen on research, tracked live from entry.

The team’s dynamic flagship — built by Paul from Marco’s regime, Trent’s technicals, Bill’s fixed income and the desks
Voted by Eric, the CIO
Unconstrained by design: it owns what the trends admit, sized to a 5% drawdown focus
The mix itself is the team’s view of the world, stated in positions

Goals & guardrails The rules the portfolio lives by

Dynamic and unconstrained. No equal weights, no sector or country bands — fully diversified or highly concentrated, as the evidence dictates.
The trend gate. Owns only assets in bull trends on both the intermediate term (50-day average above the 150-day) and the long term (price above its 10-month average). The short term is reported on every holding — it never gates. Cash is exempt by nature.
Max drawdown focus: 5%. Sizing and ballast are built so a plausible stress month stays near 5% (this mix stress-tests at ≈4.9%). A focus, never a guarantee.
Return goal: minimum 10% per calendar year, in an all-weather environment — measured at every monthly review, alongside the drawdown focus.
Cash doctrine. Cash above 10% only for real market or world carnage, an anticipated near-term event, or recession. Otherwise cash is dry powder for equities and higher beta — and if the wait stretches, it migrates into better-yielding safe bonds.
Protect and participate. Protection first — with big bets allowed when the team’s confidence is high.
Monthly reviews. A holding that loses intermediate or long-term trend status is out at the review — no exceptions, no averaging down.
The CIO votes. Eric votes the asset mix and the selections. The team proposes, with its closest calls and dissents on the record.

How this portfolio is managed Fully dynamic — the mix can go to extremes when the evidence does

Fully dynamic — no fixed weights. Equities, bonds, alternatives and cash can each run from 0% to 100%. There is no neutral mix to drift back to: 100% equities, 100% bonds or a large cash position are all normal outputs of the process when the evidence calls for them.
What 100% equities takes — technicals: the S&P 500 above its 10-month average with room to spare and its intermediate trend up; breadth strong, with about 65–70% or more of index members above their own 200-day averages and rising; the McClellan Summation Index positive — and no euphoria extreme.
What 100% equities takes — macro: a growth regime (Quad 1, or strong early Quad 2), zero warnings from the Recession Watch’s leading indicators, and the LEI rising.
What 100% equities takes — inflation and rates: core inflation gliding toward target (a three-month pace at or under about 2.5%), the Fed neutral to easing, and the 10-year yield stable or falling.
What 100% equities takes — fundamentals and credit: high-yield spreads under 3% and not widening, earnings revisions positive, and stocks paying at least as much in forward earnings yield as the 10-year Treasury pays in interest.
What 100% equities takes — sentiment: constructive, not euphoric — Fear & Greed under about 75. Fear is fine; greed is the disqualifier.
The graduated line: the first month-end close below the S&P 500’s 10-month average puts the portfolio in Transition — slow down, partial defense, washout signals confirm or dispute. A second consecutive month-end close below flips it maximally defensive, regardless of every other input. The line is the line.
Inflation picks the defensive asset: if inflation is falling (Quad 4), the corner is bonds and duration. If inflation is still rising (Quad 3), the corner is cash and T-bills — bonds do not protect when inflation is the problem.
When it changes — monthly: a full review every month. Paul builds the proposed slate from the desks’ work, the team votes on the record, and Eric, the CIO, decides.
When it changes — off-cycle: only on pre-committed tripwires: the month-end 10-month verdict, an FOMC surprise against what was priced, a confirmed regime flip, high-yield spreads through 5%, or a breadth washout or euphoria extreme.
The contrarian override — the bottoms clause: at a major washout, the portfolio does not wait for the data to turn good. Maximum oversold conditions plus a real catalyst — a central-bank intervention, a policy reversal — plus the first turn from horrendous to merely less bad can take it aggressively back toward equities even while the headline data is still poor. Those are historically the highest-return pivots there are, and they never wait for confirmation.
The override acts in days: that class of trigger gets a special vote within days of printing — never deferred to the monthly review, because a bottom priced in panic does not stay available for a month.
Monitored daily, traded on evidence: the team watches these gauges every day, so a tripwire is never missed. Day-to-day trading lives in the Trading Portfolio — this portfolio moves on reviews and tripwires, not on daily noise.

Please read: The Optimal Portfolio is a hypothetical model portfolio, entered at the Friday, October 23, 2026 close and tracked in the open from there. It does not reflect actual trading or any client’s results. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Performance: since inception · Oct 25, 2026: +0.36% as of indicative · October 29, 2026 12:45 PM ET · 15-min delayed · official at the close — price-only, dividends excluded, weights as published.

Current mix & holdings Inaugural slate · entered October 23, 2026 · reviewed monthly

Equities 46%

Bonds 26%

Alts 11%

Cash 17%

Equities · 46% Bonds · 26% Alternatives · 11% Cash · 17%

The read:

The long-term and intermediate trends are up, so the portfolio participates
The index is short-term down into FOMC week and the October 30 month-end print, so 43% sits in cash, front-end Treasuries and AAA floaters
The largest single equity is energy, the shock’s beneficiary

Holding	Ticker	Class	Weight	Entry (Oct 23, 2026)	Intermediate	Long-term	Short-term	Role in the mix
SPDR Energy	XLE	Equity	10%	69.33	UP +8.0%	UP +23.7%	UP +7.0%	The bet — the shock’s earnings stream; strongest long-term cushion in the sleeve
SPDR Health Care	XLV	Equity	8%	179.28	UP +7.9%	UP +14.9%	UP +4.3%	Defensive growth — participates without the beta
SPDR S&P 500	SPY	Equity	8%	759.97	UP +3.8%	UP +5.9%	DOWN −1.3%	Core market exposure, sized down into a binary week
Schwab Dividend	SCHD	Equity	7%	35.27	UP +4.6%	UP +12.9%	UP +5.3%	Equity ballast — dividend income, beta 0.52
SPDR Staples	XLP	Equity	6%	88.26	UP +1.0%	UP +7.1%	UP +5.2%	Lowest-beta equity (0.19); Quad 3 ballast
SPDR Technology	XLK	Equity	4%	183.23	UP +7.0%	UP +10.7%	DOWN −5.4%	Growth toehold — sized small while its short term is broken
Nasdaq 100	QQQ	Equity	3%	704.40	UP +3.9%	UP +5.2%	DOWN −4.4%	Mega-cap growth toehold
1–3Y Treasury	SHY	Bond	14%	81.50	UP +0.2%	UP +0.6%	UP +0.4%	Primary ballast — front-end yield without duration risk
AAA CLO	JAAA	Bond	12%	50.61	UP +1.0%	UP +2.0%	UP +0.2%	Floating-rate ballast-plus — 1-year max drawdown −0.4%
US Copper Index	CPER	Alternative	6%	39.06	UP +3.6%	UP +4.1%	DOWN −2.2%	The only metal the gate admits — grid and AI-power demand
Broad Commodities	DBC	Alternative	3%	34.10	UP +7.1%	UP +21.3%	UP +3.4%	Inflation-shock hedge
Bitcoin ETF	IBIT	Alternative	2%	45.96	UP +9.7%	UP +9.8%	DOWN −2.8%	Satellite only — capped hard by the drawdown discipline
T-Bills 0–3M	SGOV	Cash	17%	—	Exempt	Exempt	UP	The November fund — ~4.7% carry while the team waits

Intermediate: 50-day average vs 150-day average (gap shown). Long-term: entry close vs its 10-month average. Short-term: close vs its 25-day average. Every non-cash holding passes the gate on computed figures, October 23, 2026. Gold, long-duration Treasuries and the team’s core income funds are all excluded this month — each fails at least one trend test, and the gate does not make exceptions.

Follow along: the monthly Optimal Portfolio report and its episode of The Heat Map podcast carry every change, the CIO’s vote and the reasoning
Tactical trading lives separately, on the Trading tab

Core + Thematic Satellites $1M hypothetical · 70% equities / 30% fixed income · restructured October 29, 2026

Performance: Entered at the Wednesday, October 28, 2026 close — since-inception and today figures publish from the first completed close.

42% Global Core Equity (60% of the equity side) — LOGO at the center, with broad index exposure, fundamental international, quality and dividend tilts, technology/AI and defense-modernization satellites, plus gold and bitcoin lines
10.5% Dividend Equity Income (15% of equities) — a global high-dividend sleeve, quality first, its vehicles chosen by sector look-through
10.5% Timeless 10 (15% of equities) — blue-chip mega brands, technology-oriented, across the important consumption industries
7% Secular Themes (10% of equities) — the megatrend sleeve: technology & AI, technology + power, defense modernization, power-grid modernization, energy, the US industrial renaissance, freedom-oriented emerging markets and monetary debasement — with health care innovation and low-volatility dividends (PINK + SCHD, ~20.6% of the sleeve) as its defensive aging-society ballast. XLK and SHLD sit in this sleeve AND in Global Core — a deliberate thematic double-weight, stated openly
30% fixed income, run as a barbell — 10% Safety & Certainty (a paid-at-par iBonds ladder core — Dec 2028/2030/2034 term corporates — with active satellites around it) and 20% Hybrid Income Opportunities (a flexible, full-spectrum yield engine that chooses curve position and credit-vs-duration risk by regime, with up to 25% in low-volatility dividend equities). Two different tools for one asset class
A dynamic portfolio, not a static allocation: LOGO is active — its exposures are directed by the macro regime, fully cyclical and growth-oriented at times, very defensive at others, and that shape-shifting is why it is the core’s largest line. The income sleeve follows the sectors the team favors and can get very defensive; the Timeless 10 changes least, trimming technology toward staples and health care in a defensive regime. The whole combination will change over time according to the business cycle — that is the benefit of having a dynamic core. The fixed-income models are regime-flexible too: Certainty’s satellites tilt credit against rate exposure around the ladder, and Hybrid moves along the curve and across credit quality as the regime turns

Tracked day by day on the Investor tab as the Current Portfolio, with a monthly review podcast

Hypothetical model portfolio; it does not reflect actual trading or any client’s results. Price-only returns; dividends excluded.

Global Durable Compounders Equal weight · inception October 28, 2026

Performance: Entered at the Wednesday, October 28, 2026 close — since-inception and today figures publish from the first completed close.

Technology — 40%: Cadence Design Systems (CDNS) — the chip-design software duopoly; every advanced chip is designed on its tools · Constellation Software (CSU.TO) — thousands of niche software monopolies under one disciplined roof; compounding since 1995 · Keyence (6861.T) — factory automation sensors at software-like margins, debt-free · SAP (SAP.DE) — the enterprise software backbone of global business, compounding through its cloud transition
Staples + healthcare — 30%: L’Oréal (OR.PA) — the global beauty compounder; staples-classified, still growing like a growth stock · Nestlé (NESN.SW) — the world’s food compounder; the sleep-at-night anchor · Novo Nordisk (NOVO-B.CO) — the metabolic-health franchise: GLP-1 demand with a capacity moat
Discretionary, communication services + financials — 30%: Hermès (RMS.PA) — scarcity-priced luxury; the most durable pricing power in consumer · Tencent (0700.HK) — WeChat’s tollbooth on Chinese digital life: social, gaming, payments, cloud · MSCI (MSCI) — the index tollbooth; gets paid on the growth of global investing itself

Hypothetical model portfolio; it does not reflect actual trading or any client’s results. Price-only returns, each holding measured in its own listing currency; dividends excluded.

★ The elite funds’ favorite stocks

HF Favs 20 Hedge Fund Favorites · Q2 2026 edition, revised October 29, 2026 — 13F positions as of June 30, 2026 · inception October 28, 2026

The hedge fund consensus is still a technology book — 45.6% of it — but a broader one: 25 elite books now feed it, financials carry 13.8%, and health care is on the board for the first time. Tracked live from the October 28, 2026 close.

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Holdings Neutralized weights · entered October 28, 2026

Holding	Ticker	Weight	Funds holding	Today	Since inception · Oct 28, 2026

Price returns only — dividends are not included. Figures refresh with the market (15-minute delayed intraday; official at the close).

Sector weights Where the consensus book sits

Technology 45.6% — eight names; semiconductors alone (NVIDIA, TSMC, Micron, Intel, Applied Materials, Qualcomm) are 30.0%
Financials tripled up: Visa (8.2%) is joined by Nu Holdings (3.5%) and Capital One (2.0%) for 13.8% — and health care is on the board for the first time, Natera at 5.5%
Still nothing defensive: no staples, energy, utilities or real estate — the rest is communication services 17.9%, consumer discretionary 11.1% and industrials 6.1% (SPCX at its capped 5.0% plus Doncasters)

Read the flags before the weights:

SPCX is capped, not crowned: its raw 16.67% average weight — still the list’s largest — is a mechanical artifact of two outsized books: D1 Capital initiated SpaceX at 61.91% of its reported book, and Atreides holds 32.58%. Flagged, not a signal — the overlay caps SPCX at 5%. Doncasters (DPC), a June 2026 IPO in this book, needed no cap: its raw average weight is under 1%
13F caveats: filings arrive up to 45 days after quarter-end and show long positions only — no shorts, and no record of anything the funds have bought or sold since June 30, 2026

Please read: Hedge Fund Favs is a hypothetical model portfolio — the tracked hedge funds’ 13F consensus, entered at the Wednesday, October 28, 2026 close and tracked in the open from there. It does not reflect actual trading or any client’s results. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Momentum Barbell 20 Equal weight · rules-based · inception October 29, 2026

A barbell built by rule, not opinion: the ten most expensive and the ten cheapest stocks in the brand universe — and neither end gets in without earnings momentum behind it. The cheap end is half energy; the expensive end is where the AI complex lives.

Performance: Entered at the Thursday, October 29, 2026 close — since-inception and today figures publish from the first completed close.

Holdings Equal weight · entered October 29, 2026 · valuation & momentum: screener, October 23, 2026

Holding	Ticker	End	Weight	Value %ile	Fwd P/E	Fwd EV/EBITDA	Earnings mom. %ile	Today	Since inception · Oct 29, 2026

Value %ile = the screener’s Value Opportunities percentile (low = expensive). Earnings mom. %ile = the Revision Winners percentile (the gate: 0.50 or better). Forward EV/EBITDA is n/a for Berkshire Hathaway — financials rank on forward P/E inside the composite. SpaceX’s forward P/E (1,076.6×) reflects near-zero forward earnings: read it as “earnings not yet meaningful,” not as a precise price. Price returns only — dividends are not included. Figures refresh with the market (15-minute delayed intraday; official at the close).

Sector weights Where the barbell sits

Energy 25% — five names, every one from the cheap end (Marathon Petroleum, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Suncor, EOG), and every one with an earnings-momentum percentile of 0.73 or higher — the cheapest stocks in the universe whose estimates are rising fastest are refiners and producers
Technology 25% — four from the expensive end (Circle, Cloudflare, Palantir, Datadog) plus Micron, the cheap end’s lone technology name at 5.1× forward earnings
Financials 15% — Robinhood and Berkshire Hathaway at the expensive end, Capital One at the cheap end; the barbell’s two ends agree on almost nothing else

Please read: Momentum Barbell 20 is a hypothetical model portfolio — rules-based, entered at the Thursday, October 29, 2026 close and tracked in the open from there. It does not reflect actual trading or any client’s results. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Portfolios: The Timeless Suite

Portfolios · The Timeless program

The Timeless 25: the best of the best.

Please read: Timeless portfolios are hypothetical model portfolios tracked live from October 23, 2026. Returns are equal-weighted and price-only (dividends excluded; no fees, taxes, or slippage). They do not reflect actual trading or any client’s results. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

About the 5-year lookbacks below Hypothetical backtest

Every portfolio panel on this page — the Timeless 25 and each Timeless 10 — includes a 5-year lookback
Read it for what it is: a hypothetical backtest that applies today’s holdings to the five years from October 22, 2021 to October 23, 2026
It is NOT the live track record — live tracking started October 23, 2026, and the live since-inception returns shown above each lookback are the actual record
The lookback also carries survivorship and look-ahead bias: these holdings were chosen in October 2026 with full knowledge of the past five years, so the exercise flatters the portfolios by construction
Even with that bias, Staples and Real Estate trailed SPY over this window — that is in the panels too, unedited

Portfolio breadth Direction and trend status across all Timeless names · October 26, 2026 close

Portfolio breadth: Improving

Share of Timeless names trending up at the October 26, 2026 close — long-term 70%, intermediate 59%, short-term 62% across the 109 priced names
The picked portfolios run stronger long-term than the full 300 (52%) — leaders were picked on purpose
The Timeless 25's soft spot is intermediate: only 44% up
Direction compares breadth with September 25, 2026

Long-term: price above its 10-month average. Intermediate: the 50-day average above the 150-day average. Short-term: price above its 25-day average. Percentages use the names with enough price history at each horizon — 109 of the 110 unique names (Universal Music Group excluded, as everywhere on this page).

Sector / portfolio	Direction	Long-term % up	Intermediate % up	Short-term % up	Names
All Timeless names (110 unique)	Improving	70%	59%	62%	109
Timeless 25	Improving	60%	44%	60%	25
Consumer Staples — Stan	Improving	100%	70%	100%	10
Utilities — Uma	Improving	40%	10%	80%	10
Financials — Frank	Improving	100%	90%	80%	10
Consumer Discretionary — Dana	Improving	50%	40%	60%	10
Real Estate — Rosa	Improving	50%	30%	40%	10
Communication Services — Carl	Improving	33%	33%	22%	9
Energy — Ethan	Improving	100%	90%	100%	10
Health Care — Hannah	Neutral	90%	80%	90%	10
Materials — Matt	Neutral	90%	90%	40%	10
Technology — Tom	Getting worse	80%	80%	40%	10
Industrials — Ivan	Getting worse	30%	40%	30%	10

The Timeless 25 4% per name · entry October 23, 2026 · next review January 22, 2027

Ticker	Company	Country	Entry price	Current price	Since inception · Oct 23, 2026	Weight	Trend	Long-term	Intermediate	Short-term

The eleven Timeless 10s Tap a desk to see its ten, with entry prices

Investor · Your dashboard · October 28, 2026

Your portfolio, on one page

Everything about your portfolio — what you own, what it did today, where it stands, and what the team is watching next — on one page, refreshed with the market.

Current Portfolio Core + thematic satellites · $1M hypothetical · 70% equities / 30% fixed income · restructured October 29, 2026

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The mix is the return. Decades of evidence say the asset mix — not any single pick — is what ties to long-term returns, so the mix is set first: 70% equities / 30% fixed income, restructured October 29, 2026 (the launch mix was 100% equity for one day; its record does not carry)
Ballast and sizzle. Global Core Equity (42% of the portfolio) is the ballast — broad, quality-tilted, regime-directed. Around it, three equity satellites supply the sizzle: Secular Themes (7%), the Timeless 10 (10.5%) and Dividend Equity Income (10.5%)
A bond barbell, not a bond blob. Safety & Certainty (10%) sits at the paid-at-par end; Hybrid Income Opportunities (20%) at the flexible-yield end — two different tools for one asset class, so the 30% does real work in either rate regime. XLK and SHLD are deliberately double-weighted — they sit in both Global Core and Secular Themes; that is a stated thematic tilt, not an accident

Global Core Equity — 42% of the portfolio · 60% of equities

LOGO is the engine — active and regime-directed. The largest line in the core carries the global consumption themes — consumer spending, business innovation spending and government spending — through the brands that lead them; fully cyclical and growth-oriented when the regime pays for risk, positioned very defensively when it does not
Broad exposure, deliberately tilted: S&P 500 (VOO), Nasdaq-100 (QQQ) and fundamental international developed markets (FNDF), with tilts to technology and AI (XLK), defense modernization (SHLD) and the quality factor (QLC) — the style factor work says quality is the smart pond
Ballast and diversifiers, dynamic: quality, lower-volatility dividends (SCHD), a gold line (GLD) and a bitcoin line (HODL); the core’s allocations move when the regime warrants — more static than LOGO, never frozen

Secular Themes — 7% of the portfolio · 10% of equities

The megatrend satellite — one ETF per big-picture theme: technology & AI (XLK), technology + power transformation (PWRD), defense modernization (SHLD), power-grid modernization (GRID), energy (XLE), the US industrial renaissance (AIRR), freedom-oriented emerging markets (FRDM — Taiwan and South Korea carry its AI supply chain) and monetary debasement (GBUG, active gold & silver miners)
Its own ballast: health care innovation (PINK) also carries the aging-of-society theme, and health care defends — PINK + the low-volatility dividend line (SCHD) together are ~20.6% of the sleeve, the defensive block against the offensive themes
Deliberate overlap: XLK and SHLD also sit in Global Core — the double weight is the point: these are the themes the portfolio leans into hardest

Timeless 10 — 10.5% of the portfolio · 15% of equities

Blue-chip mega brands, technology-oriented, across the important consumption industries
The longest-duration sleeve — it changes the least
Dynamic at the margin: in a defensive regime it would likely trim technology and add consumer staples and health care

Dividend Equity Income — 10.5% of the portfolio · 15% of equities

A global high-dividend portfolio that does not chase yield — quality first, because the style factor map says so
Sector look-through picks the vehicles — chosen for their weight in the sectors the team favors: US high dividend (HDV, VYM), energy infrastructure income (MLPX), international low-volatility high dividend (LVHI), Nasdaq-100 premium income (GPIQ), and a small Treasury park (SHY)
Dynamic: the sleeve follows the sectors the team favors — and can get very defensive if the regime says so

Safety & Certainty — 10% of the portfolio · the ladder end of the barbell

The core is a ladder that pays at par: iBonds Dec term corporate ETFs (2028 · 2030 · 2034) are 58.6% of this sleeve — hold each rung to its date and the principal comes back at par, whatever fixed income does in between
Active satellites sit around the core — an active multi-sector fund (XAGG), AAA floating-rate CLOs (JAAA) and emerging-market debt (XEMD) — tilting credit against interest-rate exposure as the regime turns
The certainty end by design: lower volatility, lower beta, slightly less yield than Hybrid — stability is the job

Hybrid Income Opportunities — 20% of the portfolio · the engine end of the barbell

A flexible yield engine: full-spectrum fixed income that chooses its curve position and its credit-vs-duration risk by regime — credit, including high yield and converts, when the regime pays for it; defensive duration when it does not
Five bond funds plus a low-volatility dividend-equity valve (SCHD + LVHI, 16.2% of the sleeve, capped at 25%) for rate and inflation regimes that are hostile to bonds — the objective is high absolute yield plus total return
The opposite tool from Certainty, on purpose: more yield, more flexibility, likely more turnover

This is a dynamic portfolio, not a static allocation. The allocations are regime-directed and will change over time according to the business cycle — that is the benefit of having a dynamic core. The fixed-income models flex with the regime too: Certainty’s satellites tilt around the ladder, and Hybrid moves along the curve and across credit quality.

Holding	Ticker	Weight	Today	Since inception · Oct 29, 2026

Price returns only — dividends are not included. Figures refresh with the market (15-minute delayed intraday; official at the close).

Please read: Current Portfolio is a hypothetical model portfolio — the example dashboard an investor on this program sees. It is a $1M combination of six sleeves — Global Core Equity (42%), Dividend Equity Income (10.5%), a Timeless 10 (10.5%), Secular Themes (7%), Safety & Certainty (10%) and Hybrid Income Opportunities (20%) — 70% equities, 30% fixed income. It launched Wednesday, October 28, 2026 as a 100% equity mix and was restructured to this 70/30 mix at the Thursday, October 29, 2026 close; tracking runs from the restructure and the launch mix’s one-day record does not carry. It does not reflect actual trading or any client’s results. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

What you own, by pond Sector and country mix of the equity side (70% of the portfolio) — look-through estimate from fund disclosures

Style box — where this portfolio sits, Morningstar-style

What you own, in fixed income The 30% bond bucket — a barbell, broken out

The read: the bond bucket blends to a ~5.4% SEC yield at ~2.9 years of duration — a paid-at-par ladder at one end, a flexible yield engine at the other, and almost no overlap in how the two ends make their money.

Sleeve	Share of portfolio	SEC yield	Duration	Credit character
Safety & Certainty	10%	~5.6%	~3.4 yrs	Investment-grade ladder core (58.6% of the sleeve) + AAA CLOs + active multi-sector + EM debt satellites
Hybrid Income Opportunities	20%	~5.29%	~2.6 yrs (bond sleeve ~3.15)	Full-spectrum credit — ~20% high yield and ~12% EM debt inside the model, plus a 16.2% low-vol dividend-equity valve
The 30% bucket	30%	~5.4%	~2.9 yrs	~37% investment-grade corporates · ~11% Treasury/agency · ~11% AAA securitized · ~13% high yield · ~11% EM debt · ~11% dividend equities · ~8% active multi-sector (approximate)

At the whole-portfolio level the bucket contributes ~1.6 points of yield and ~0.9 years of duration — real income ballast that lets the 70% equity side stay invested through the cycle
Why two models: Certainty is paid at par on a date — its return is known if you hold; Hybrid is managed — its return is earned by moving. Opposite tools for one asset class, so the bucket works in either rate regime
Fund SEC yields as published Oct 2026 (iShares, Eaton Vance, TCW, BlackRock, BondBloxx, Janus Henderson); Certainty’s duration is modeled from fund fact sheets — the full per-model boards live on the Fixed Income tab

Your portfolio, in audio Two recordings — what you own, and how it did

Current Portfolio Design

The components, the asset mix, and what every piece is there for. Timeless by design — re-recorded only when the portfolio’s components change.

The portfolio x-ray — press play.

Monthly Performance

The goal and the tilts — what this portfolio is built to do, and where each sleeve is positioned for the regime
Construction — the funds in the blend, and the job each one does
Winners and detractors — the positions and sleeves that helped, and the ones that hurt, with performance

Hear the format — a demonstration cut: the portfolio’s last 30 days at today’s weights (a hypothetical look-back, not a live record) — press play.

The review a perfect advisor would give every client, every month — short and numbers-first, so nothing about your money is ever a surprise. The first monthly performance summary arrives November 1 — it will replace this demonstration cut.

The view ahead Out the front windshield, not the rearview mirror

Where returns are coming from Which ponds are producing — and which are not

The full factor map lives under Style Factors.

Smart Beta · Rules-based portfolios on the 300-brand universe

Smart Beta

Built by rules, not opinions. Nine formulas run over the 300-brand universe — nobody picks these names.

The read The conclusion, up front · October 28, 2026

Four sessions in, the rules are paying for risk and charging for defense — momentum leads everything, and the defensive mirror trails even its own benchmark

Momentum Leaders is the early leader by both measures: +6.50% since entry (the concentrated 10: +6.92%) against SPMO’s +3.54% — +2.95 pts of excess, +3.37 pts on the 10. The brand-universe build is outrunning the momentum index it follows
Also ahead of their benchmarks: Risk-On (+2.62% vs SPY +0.93% — +1.69 pts), Cash Flow Aristocrats (+1.62 pts over COWZ — earned by falling less: the model is −0.14%, COWZ is −1.76%), Value Leaders (+0.89 pts over IWD) and Dividend Growth Leaders (+0.24 pts over VIG)
The laggard is the mirror image: Risk-Off is −2.19% since entry and −1.64 pts behind USMV — the weakest return and the weakest excess on the tab. Quality Leaders (−0.94 pts vs QLC) is the other clear trailer, and the concentrated 10s of both dividend models lag their indexes (Dividend −1.44 pts, International Dividend −1.23 pts) while their 25s track them
The honest frame: four sessions is the tape talking, not a track record — none of this is evidence the formulas work yet. The first real test is the January 29, 2027 data cut, when every model rebalances on fresh data and the early excess either survives a full quarter or it doesn’t

Each model applies a published index methodology to the team’s 300-brand universe and holds the top 25, plus a concentrated top 10
The Portfolios tab is the analysts’ judgment; this tab is the rules — same universe, no discretion, rebuilt every 90 days
Universe — all nine smart beta portfolios: the Alpha Brands 300 Index constituents
Each model’s own screens set how many of the 300 are eligible for it; that count rides in the model’s heading

Current prices and since-entry returns below are as of indicative · October 29, 2026 12:45 PM ET · 15-min delayed · official at the close (price-only, local currency).

Please read: These are hypothetical model portfolios, entered at the Thursday, October 22, 2026 close and tracked from there. Entry prices are the listing’s local-currency close — the currency is shown next to every price. Operating metrics are from Fiscal.ai, pulled October 24, 2026, stated as Fiscal.ai reports them; they have not been checked against company filings, and each row shows its own metric period. *Forward revenue growth is a calculated figure — Fiscal.ai’s next-fiscal-year revenue estimate against the last reported year — not a Fiscal.ai field. Blank cells mean the data is not available, never zero. These portfolios do not reflect actual trading or any client’s results. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

The nine smart beta portfolios 90-day rebalance · Next data cut January 29, 2027

Model	Concept	Versions
Momentum Leaders	The strongest 12-1 month risk-adjusted momentum in the index, on S&P 500 Momentum (SPMO) rules.	25 + 10
Quality Leaders	The index's highest profitability, efficiency and cash-flow ranks, on Northern Trust Quality (QLC) rules.	25 + 10
Value Leaders	The cheapest names on sector-relative earnings yield, book-to-price and cash-flow-to-EV, on MSCI Enhanced Value (VLUE) rules.	25 + 10
Cash Flow Aristocrats	Non-financials with the highest free-cash-flow yields, plus quality and FCF-growth factors, on COWZ-style rules.	25 + 10
Dividend Leaders	US dividend payers whose free cash flow covers the dividend plus net debt repayment, on a 50/50 SCHD/LVHD blend.	25 + 10
Dividend Growth Leaders	US companies with 10+ straight years of dividend increases, top yielders excluded, on VIG rules.	25 + 10
International Dividend Leaders	Non-US dividend payers ranked on volatility-adjusted yield, on LVHI-style rules, unhedged.	25 + 10
Risk-On	The highest downside beta, cyclicality and momentum in smaller names — built to track risk appetite.	25 + 10
Risk-Off	The lowest downside beta and the most defensive mix in larger names — Risk-On's mirror image.	25 + 10

Source: model construction and Fiscal.ai operating metrics, export of October 24, 2026; entry prices October 22, 2026 close, local currency. Models rebalance every 90 days on data cuts at the end of January, April, July and October. For informational purposes only. This is not financial advice. Please do your own research.

Fixed Income · Bill’s desk

Own the yield. Respect the credit.

The bond market is the smart market — it is driven by math, where equities are driven by stories
Bill owns every fixed-income call on this team: which bond asset classes to own, and through which ETFs
His read carries real weight in every CIO synthesis

Fixed Income Opportunity Bill’s score — yield compensation against risk · October 23, 2026

59 / 100 · Neutral — at the top of the band. This market’s offer is two offers stapled together: one generous, one insulting.

Risk-free yield	82	The risk-free rate pays you to wait — bills and the belly yield 4.2 to 5.0% with no credit risk.
Securitized & floating carry	74	Agency mortgages and AAA CLOs are the best risk-adjusted carry on the board.
Inflation protection	64	Breakevens still price a world where the oil shock fades — protection is not expensive.
Duration value	52	Fairly paid in the belly, hostage-priced at the long end — buyable in stages, not in lunges.
Credit compensation	28	High yield at a 3.40% spread is a benign-world price for a Quad 4 world. The insulting half of the offer.

The yield board U.S. Treasury yields and credit spreads · October 28, 2026 close

Instrument	Yield / spread	Desk note
Fed funds target	3.75–4.00%	After the September 2026 hike. December language is the next trigger.
3-month bill	4.18%	Cash is a position, not an accident.
2-year Treasury	4.67%	Prices a Fed that is not done.
Belly (3–10 yr)	4.87–4.95%	The perch: nearly the 10-year’s yield at half the term-premium exposure.
10-year Treasury	5.05%	Tripwires both ways: 5.40% extends duration, 4.40% harvests it.
30-year Treasury	5.36%	Term premium ~1.1 — the long end is paid, but the marginal buyer is price-sensitive.
Curve (2s10s)	+38 bp	Steepening led by the long end — a supply and term-premium story, not a growth story.
High yield spread (OAS)	3.37%	Cycle-stingy. No broad high yield at this price — in the Hybrid book, credit comes through the flexible multi-sector funds and the emerging-market sleeve, not a dedicated high-yield fund.

Yields: Yahoo Finance Treasury yield indexes with the 2- and 7-year points from the U.S. Treasury daily par curve, October 28, 2026 close. High yield spread: 3.37%, October 26, 2026 (carried desk figure — FRED feed unreachable). This board refreshes with the site’s market updates.

How to read this:

Every spread is measured over US Treasury bonds of similar maturity — the federal government’s risk-free rate
A spread of 1.00% means those corporate bonds pay one percentage point more than Treasuries — investors demand extra yield for default risk
AAA is the highest credit rating (the safest borrowers, the thinnest spread)
BBB is the lowest investment-grade rating (the widest spread before ‘high yield’)

Hybrid Income Opportunities Eric’s model of record · posted October 29, 2026 · entered October 29, 2026 close · blended SEC yield ~5.3% · bond duration ~3.1 yrs

Performance: since inception · Oct 29, 2026: — as of indicative · October 29, 2026 12:45 PM ET · 15-min delayed · official at the close — price-only; bond funds pay income the price return does not capture.

Sleeve	Position	Vehicle	Weight
Flexible multi-sector core	Eaton Vance Income Opportunities	XAGG	25.01%
	TCW Flexible Income	FLXR	23.97%
	iShares Flexible Income Active	BINC	17.93%
AAA securitized — floating rate	Eldridge AAA CLO	CLOX	10.97%
Emerging-market debt	BondBloxx J.P. Morgan USD Emerging Markets 1–10 Year	XEMD	4.97%
Low-vol dividend equities	Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity	SCHD	8.15%
	Franklin International Low Volatility High Dividend	LVHI	8.02%
Cash	U.S. dollar account	—	0.97%

Eric’s model of record (posted October 29, 2026) — it replaces the desk’s October 27 framework build, and tracking restarts at the October 29, 2026 close:

Flexible and dynamic: it ranges across the entire fixed-income spectrum to choose where on the curve to sit, and whether the risk it takes is credit risk or interest-rate risk
Goldilocks regimes: tilt toward credit — high yield and convertible bonds included; economic slowdowns: much more defensive — less credit, much more interest-rate risk (duration)
Up to 25% in low-volatility dividend-paying ETFs for the regimes hostile to bonds — rising interest rates and inflation — when equities tend to do much better than fixed income; the sleeve holds 16.17% today (SCHD + LVHI)
The objective: high absolute yield plus good total return — from being in the right part of fixed income, and adding equities up to 25% when it is prudent
Five fixed-income ETFs — the framework cap — plus the two dividend-equity vehicles and cash: securities 99.03%, cash 0.97%

The model’s numbers — a desk-modeled blend of the funds’ published figures (each fund’s as-of date differs): blended 30-day SEC yield ~5.3% · bond duration ~3.1 yrs (~2.6 yrs across the whole model — the dividend equities carry no bond duration and the AAA CLO sleeve floats). Credit mix, % of the model: Treasury & agency-backed ~17 · AAA securitized ~12 · other investment grade ~26 · high yield ~20 · emerging-market debt ~12 · dividend equities ~16 · cash & other ~−2 net (the flexible funds run small negative cash from unsettled trades and margin; the model’s own cash is +0.97%).

Fund inputs: Eaton Vance fact sheet, September 30, 2026 — XAGG SEC yield 6.47%, duration 3.94 yrs · TCW fact sheet, August 31, 2026 — FLXR 5.52%, 3.54 yrs · BlackRock, September–October 2026 reporting — BINC SEC yield ~5.65%, duration ~3.23 yrs, ~34% below investment grade · BondBloxx, October 28, 2026 — XEMD SEC yield 6.06%, spread duration 3.93 yrs · CLOX SEC yield 4.82% (October 2026) — Eldridge publishes no effective duration for CLOX; its floating-rate AAA CLOs are modeled at ~0 rate duration, stated here rather than estimated silently · SCHD 3.18% and LVHI 3.13% SEC yields (October 2026).

Hypothetical model portfolio; it does not reflect actual trading or any client’s results.

Safety & Certainty Eric’s model of record · posted October 29, 2026 · entered October 29, 2026 close · blended SEC yield ~5.6% · duration ~3.4 yrs

Performance: since inception · Oct 29, 2026: — as of indicative · October 29, 2026 12:45 PM ET · 15-min delayed · official at the close — price-only; bond funds pay income the price return does not capture.

Sleeve	Position	Vehicle	Weight
Ladder core — term corporates	iShares iBonds Dec 2028 Term Corporate	IBDT	17.53%
	iShares iBonds Dec 2030 Term Corporate	IBDV	23.18%
	iShares iBonds Dec 2034 Term Corporate	IBDZ	17.89%
Active multi-sector	Eaton Vance Income Opportunities	XAGG	23.27%
AAA securitized — floating rate	Janus Henderson AAA CLO	JAAA	9.49%
Emerging-market debt	BondBloxx J.P. Morgan USD Emerging Markets 1–10 Year	XEMD	8.04%
Cash	U.S. dollar account	—	0.61%

Eric’s model of record (posted October 29, 2026) — it replaces the desk’s October 27 ladder build, and tracking starts at the October 29, 2026 close:

The core is a ladder built for certainty: defined-maturity investment-grade corporate bonds that mature at par — holders get paid regardless of the fixed-income volatility in between, and each rung is held to its December maturity (2028 · 2030 · 2034)
Active exposures sit around the core — tilting toward more credit or more interest-rate exposure as conditions warrant — but the core itself is certainty and safety
This is the lower-volatility, lower-beta fixed-income option, with slightly less yield than Hybrid Income
The two models are deliberately different tools for one asset class: this one is a paid-at-par ladder core and stability; Hybrid Income is higher yield, more flexibility and likely more turnover, with low-volatility dividend equities that can shift the book toward equity-linked fixed income for total return — together they cover whatever fixed-income environment arrives
Ladder core 58.60% (the three iBonds Dec term corporate ETFs) · active satellites 40.79% (XAGG + JAAA + XEMD) · securities 99.39%, cash 0.61%

The model’s numbers — a desk-modeled blend of the funds’ published figures (each fund’s as-of date differs): blended 30-day SEC yield ~5.6% · duration ~3.4 yrs across the model (the ladder core itself ~3.6 yrs; the AAA CLO sleeve floats, at 0.23 yrs). Credit mix, % of the model: investment-grade corporate ladder 58.60 · active multi-sector 23.27 · AAA securitized 9.49 · emerging-market debt 8.04 · cash 0.61. Inside the ladder (iShares, September 30, 2026): BBB ~55 · A ~36 · AA ~8 · AAA ~0.5 — investment grade throughout.

Fund inputs: iShares fact sheets, September 30, 2026 — IBDT SEC yield 5.00%, effective duration 1.56 yrs · IBDV 5.41%, 3.29 yrs · IBDZ 5.87%, 6.03 yrs · Eaton Vance fact sheet, September 30, 2026 — XAGG SEC yield 6.47%, duration 3.94 yrs · Janus Henderson — JAAA SEC yield 4.52% (September 30, 2026), effective duration 0.23 yrs (October 27, 2026) · BondBloxx, October 28, 2026 — XEMD SEC yield 6.06%, spread duration 3.93 yrs (XEMD enters the duration blend on its published spread duration).

Hypothetical model portfolio; it does not reflect actual trading or any client’s results.

Tripwires Pre-committed — the desk acts on these, not on opinions

HY OAS at 5.00%	The short-duration quality sleeve doubles (SHYG 5% → 10%), funded from JAAA At 6.50%: full credit position — a core slot rotates to a high-yield mandate, and PYLD’s promotion review opens
10-year at 5.40%	With breakeven at or under 2.50: extend aggressively TLT scales up from 10%, funded from the core, duration toward six years
10-year at 4.40%	Harvest: duration profits taken, model back toward three and a half years This desk sells duration strength as willingly as it buys weakness
SHYG kill switch (two-key)	SHYG exits the same day if BB spreads gap through 3.00%, or if triple-C keeps widening (past 13.5%) and BB starts following — dispersion ending is contagion starting Amended October 27, 2026: triple-C alone at 13.56% with BB calm at ~2.05% is the bottom cracking by itself, not contagion
December FOMC	A hike adds to JAAA — floating coupons get paid more — and delays extension one meeting Language that the cycle is done fires Stage 2 extension immediately

The AI credit watch Bill’s board — what the smart market says about the AI build-out · sweep of October 25, 2026

Name	The credit tape	Read
CoreWeave	5-yr CDS ~1,090 bp · bonds 75–83¢ at 15–16.5%	The equity story says sub-one-year paybacks; the bond market charges distressed prices. Both cannot be right.
Oracle	CDS ~322 bp, +178 bp this year	Downgraded to BBB− in July. The AI trade’s weakest investment-grade link.
Meta	5-yr CDS at a record 114.5 bp (Oct 22)	A fortress balance sheet crossing 100 bp is a regime signal, not a Meta problem.
NVIDIA	CDS 101–126 bp at records	Even the tollbooth pays more for protection than it ever has.
The system	CDX IG ~60–62 bp · HY OAS 3.40% · fortress cash above $500B	Stress is name-specific, not systemic — yet. Bill’s flip rule: any three of his seven warning signs, or the fortress names cracking together.

Single-name CDS levels are largely paid-tier data; unsourceable levels are labeled as bond-spread proxies and nothing is estimated. For informational purposes only. This is not financial advice. Please do your own research.

Digital Assets · Nolan’s desk

Above the line — on audit.

Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana all sit above their 10-month moving averages after the big correction — the long-term bull regime is intact on this desk’s board
The short-term tape has not confirmed it: all three majors trade below their 25-day lines
ETF holders sold the October dip rather than buying it
The treasury companies’ equity premium — the flywheel that funded their coin buying — is gone
Nolan’s desk tracks the majors, the treasury companies, the ETF flows and the regulatory file, and calls the regime off one line

Price & regime board Prices refresh with the site’s market updates

How to read the line:

The 10-month moving average is this team’s long-term demarcation in every market it tracks — the same line that runs the S&P 500 call
Above it: bull regime, stay invested
The line adjudicates at the month-end close: a month-end close below it flips the desk’s long-term trend call and portfolios get defensive
The line itself — built from the last ten month-end closes — is shown on each card as the flip level
Crypto trades 24/7, so prices here are the latest available, stamped above; the line moves only when a month ends

The demarcation chart Monthly closes against the 10-month line · 36 months plus the current month

The desk Nolan — Digital Assets · stood up October 27, 2026

52 / 100 · Neutral — the Digital Assets complex, inaugural board, October 27, 2026.

Long-term structure intact on all three majors
Short-term structure broken across the board
Flows split
The treasury complex at discounts but with no forced-selling cascade
Regulation a headline negative (the CLARITY Act is dead for 2026) over a structural positive (the March 2026 commodity classification)
Sentiment neutral — a recovery under audit

Bitcoin	58	Strongest structure of the three: +9.4% over its 10-month line at the inaugural close, dominance 59.4%, the treasury bid intact. Held back by the short-term break and October ETF selling.
Ethereum	45	Weakest of the three: thinnest cushion over its line (+4.7%), four straight weeks of spot ETF outflows — while its treasury companies accumulate and stake at scale.
Solana	48	The highest-beta major: deepest cycle drawdown (−79.5%), sharpest October leg (−20.7%), smallest and most fragile treasury complex.

▶

DIGITAL ASSETS — Bitcoin After the Correction: Long-Term Trend Intact, Short-Term Broken

The desk’s first report, October 27, 2026: the correction measured properly — peak, trough, and which trend lines held — the treasury companies at a discount, and the CLARITY Act’s real status. Hear it on The Heat Map show feed, and find every episode on the Podcasts tab.

The Heat Map · October 2026 · also live on Spotify

17:12

The treasury companies Coins held and the premium gauge · as of October 25–26, 2026 — refreshes with the desk’s weekly board

Company	Coin	Coins held	Approx. value	mNAV	Desk note
Strategy (MSTR)	BTC	848,517	~$67.9B	0.89×	The anchor: ~4.0% of all Bitcoin. Average cost ~$75,446. Last buy 267 BTC on October 25 — at a discount to NAV, issuing equity to buy coins destroys the per-share math, so the buys have shrunk to token size. Enterprise mNAV is 1.16× including debt and preferreds.
Metaplanet (3350.T)	BTC	44,000	~$3.5B	0.59×	The cautionary tale: average cost ~$98,454 is underwater, and October’s ¥52B convertible issue went to repaying BTC-backed loans and buying back shares — deleveraging, not accumulating.
Twenty One (XXI)	BTC	43,514	~$3.5B	0.55×	No accumulation since its December 2025 listing. Tether/iFinex hold 58.8% of the equity and 71% of the vote — the discount here is governance as much as Bitcoin.
Strive (ASST)	BTC	43,000	~$3.4B	1.04×	The exception: +6,182 BTC in the week to October 26 — the week’s only big buyer, and the only top name still at a premium. The one flywheel that still turns.
MARA (MARA)	BTC	35,577	~$2.8B	0.93×	Sold 15,133 BTC in March 2026 to service debt — the miner-treasury that already showed what a discount regime forces.
BitMine (BMNR)	ETH	6,051,933	~$14.3B	0.43×	The Ethereum treasury company of record: 4.95% of all ETH, 99% of the way to its stated 5% goal, ~5.23M ETH staked. Chairman Tom Lee of Fundstrat is the key person to follow on this name — his public calls are standing desk intake. Last week it spent $45.9M buying back its own shares against $24.6M of ETH: at 0.43×, the cheapest ETH it can buy is its own stock.
SharpLink (SBET)	ETH	868,699	~$2.0B	0.74×	The number-two ETH treasury, staking-led, at a discount like the rest of the complex.
Ether Machine (via DYNX)	ETH	496,712	~$1.2B	0.15×	The deepest discount in the complex — a pending-combination vehicle priced as an option, not a treasury.
Forward Industries (FWDI)	SOL	8,501,298	~$859M	UNKNOWN	The largest SOL treasury, as of September 30, 2026 (fiscal Q4 release, October 1): +948,601 SOL in the quarter.
DeFi Development (DFDV)	SOL	~2.39M	~$241M	UNKNOWN	September 14, 2026 disclosure. Launched a $300M preferred program and a SOL-backed credit initiative in September.
Upexi (UPXI)	SOL	2,340,000	~$236M	UNKNOWN	Tracker figure. Acquired its SOL at ~$325M of cost — underwater at today’s price.
Solana Company (HSDT)	SOL	2,300,000	~$232M	UNKNOWN	Tracker figure. Cost ~$455M — deeply underwater; the fragile end of the smallest complex.

mNAV = market cap ÷ the value of coins held — this desk’s core gauge for the treasury names
Above 1.0×, the flywheel works: issue shares at a premium, buy coins, repeat
Below 1.0×, it breaks — and at the inaugural board it is broken nearly everywhere
The top-10 Bitcoin treasuries hold 1,098,290 BTC between them, and they still added on the week, but only at the margin

Sources: Bittery leaderboard (October 26, 2026), company filings and releases (BitMine 8-K, October 26, 2026), The Block Ethereum treasury tracker (October 25–26, 2026), filings-based SOL figures as dated in the notes. SOL mNAV by company is not yet sourceable on a like-for-like basis — it is labeled UNKNOWN, never estimated. Values use reference prices near $80K BTC / $2,356 ETH / $101 SOL at the as-of dates.

Spot ETF flows Week of October 19–23, 2026 · Farside Investors — refreshes with the desk’s weekly board

Bitcoin ETFs — the week

+$301.2M net

Bought early, sold late: +$1,074.7M Monday–Wednesday, then −$773.5M Thursday–Friday as price retreated
October to date is still −$314M

Ethereum ETFs — the week

−$220.7M net

A fourth consecutive weekly outflow — the longest ETH ETF losing streak of the year
Even as ETH treasuries keep accumulating

Solana ETFs — October

~−$68M

A soft month for the newest complex
Morgan Stanley’s MSOL — the first US bank-affiliated spot Solana ETP, with staking — launched July 28, 2026
The leading SOL ETF passed ~$1B of assets in September

The desk’s read (DWF Labs, October 2026):

ETF investors have sold into 7 of the 8 Bitcoin sell-offs of 15% or more since the spot ETFs launched in January 2024 — ETF holders are not the dip buyers they are assumed to be
Flows here are a lagging sentiment gauge, not a bottom signal
This desk will not call a bottom off inflows

Source: Farside Investors via Cointelegraph, October 24–26, 2026; Friday figures provisional at publication.

On the desk’s watch Pre-committed — what fires the next report

Friday, October 30 — month-end closes	The inaugural board’s first adjudication: Bitcoin vs its ~$73.5K line, Ethereum vs ~$2,232, Solana vs ~$93.00, at the October close.
ETF flows, daily	Whether Bitcoin’s late-week selling runs into a second week — and whether Ethereum’s four-week outflow streak breaks.
Treasury mNAV, weekly	Strategy’s gross mNAV vs 1.0×; BitMine vs 0.43×. Any name issuing equity at a premium again is the flywheel returning — the desk’s earliest all-clear.
The regulatory file	The CLARITY Act failed its Senate cloture vote on September 15, 2026 (49–50) and expires with this Congress on January 3, 2027 — JPMorgan sees a possible 2027 return, not a 2026 one. What advances instead: the SEC/CFTC March 2026 joint interpretation (BTC, ETH and SOL classified as digital commodities), the CFTC’s comment window on leveraged retail crypto (open to December 14, 2026), and GENIUS Act stablecoin rules effective by January 18, 2027.

Market structure at the inaugural board: Bitcoin dominance 59.4% of a $2.71T total crypto market; Crypto Fear & Greed at 50 — Neutral (CoinGecko, Cointelegraph, October 26–27, 2026). For informational purposes only. This is not financial advice. Please do your own research.

Trading · Fast Twitch

Fast Twitch: trade only the layups.

A standalone tactical trading portfolio, run by Pete, the team’s prop trader, with Trent’s technical confirmation and Eric’s go-ahead on every trade
It trades only names the team already owns and loves — the Timeless 5, 10 and 25 portfolios
Only when a quality name washes out to a textbook oversold turn
No qualifier, no trade

Please read: Fast Twitch is a hypothetical model trading portfolio, tracked in the open from October 25, 2026. It does not reflect actual trading or any client’s results. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Status Trading Portfolio · October 26, 2026 close

Live — 3 open trades in the $1M hypothetical portfolio

The Trading Portfolio — $1,000,000, hypothetical — opened Monday, October 26, 2026
Basket A, the capitulation basket, booked the first three completed triggers at Monday’s closes — the first qualifiers since the inaugural October 23 scan found none
All three are quality Timeless names washed out to new two-week lows, with momentum no longer confirming the decline
Positions are marked at their entry closes on day one, so performance starts flat by construction; marks update at each close from here

Ticker	Name	Entry · Oct 26 close	Shares	Position value	Trigger at entry
CBRE	CBRE Group	$122.88	1,356.33	$166,665.83	RSI 34.8 vs 33.2 at the prior low · MACD −2.65 vs −4.13 · 28.4% below its 52-week high
MELI	MercadoLibre	$1,668.72	99.87	$166,655.07	RSI 32.5 vs 31.3 · MACD −12.49 vs −48.27 — the strongest divergence of the three · 29.3% below its 52-week high
NFLX	Netflix	$63.90	2,608.24	$166,666.54	RSI 33.5 vs 31.1 · MACD −1.98 vs −2.51 · 44.8% below its 52-week high

Deployed: $499,987.44 in equal thirds. Cash reserve: $500,012.56 — held back for future capitulation triggers.

Next in line — BKNG (Booking Holdings): RSI 35.3, three-tenths above the gate, at a new two-week low with divergence live on both indicators — the first call on the reserve if it completes
Also tracked: APP (RSI 36.1, divergence live but not at a two-week low)
CEG (RSI 40.3, at a new low with divergence live, still above the gate)

Scan method: daily adjusted closes; RSI(14) Wilder; MACD line (12, 26); divergence measured in 10-trading-day blocks against the prior block’s low — the team’s standing divergence definition. All positions are hypothetical paper trades at official session closes.

Basket B — Momentum Pullback Scan only · no positions booked

The complement to capitulation: quality Timeless names in confirmed uptrends — price above the 10-month average, the 50-day above the 150-day
Pulled back to RSI 50–55, the band where uptrends tend to stabilize
Bought on strength’s pause, not on collapse

The first scan, at the October 26, 2026 close, found four qualifiers: VRTX (RSI 51.7), ROST (52.8), SHW (54.4) and NUE (54.5)
None has been bought — Basket B holds no positions
Any funding would come from the cash reserve, and only on Eric’s decision

The trigger All three legs, or no trade

Universe: Timeless 5/10/25 names only — trade what the team already owns and follows, with a bias to adding to names already held.
Oversold: RSI(14) at or under 35.
At the low: price prints a new two-week low.
Divergence: at that low, RSI and MACD both make higher lows than at the prior two-week low — momentum stops confirming the decline.
Process: Pete originates, Trent confirms the technicals, Eric gives the go-ahead. Every approved trade is recorded and tracked on this tab.

Exit discipline Pre-committed at entry — the standing discipline

Identifying oversold quality is the easy half of this trade
Timing the buy — and more importantly the sale — is the hard half, so no Fast Twitch position opens without its exits written down first
Every trade logs its exit plan at entry:

Mean-reversion exit: sell when the oversold condition normalizes — RSI back through roughly 55–60. The trade was the snap-back, not a new long-term holding.
Stop exit: a new closing low with the divergence failing ends the trade — the turn thesis was wrong.
Time stop: about 15 trading days. If the snap-back has not come, the capital goes back to work elsewhere.

Open and closed trades will be listed here with entry and exit prices, dates and the logged exit plan, as they occur.

For informational purposes only. This is not financial advice. Please do your own research.

300 Index · Track the universe

The 300 Index.

A well-researched 300-stock list of leading companies tied to the global consumption theme across consumer spending, business spending, and government spending.

300 breadth Direction and trend status across the whole universe · October 28, 2026 close

300 breadth: Improving

Share of the universe trending up at the October 28, 2026 close — long-term 54%, intermediate 52%, short-term 65%
The short-term trend is the strongest horizon at 65% and the intermediate the weakest at 52%
Direction compares breadth with September 28, 2026

Long-term: price above its 10-month average. Intermediate: the 50-day average above the 150-day average. Short-term: price above its 25-day average. Percentages use the names with enough price history at each horizon — 296 of 300 long-term, 296 intermediate, 300 short-term.

Sector	Direction	Long-term % up	Intermediate % up	Short-term % up	Names
All 300 names	Improving	54%	52%	65%	296
Materials	Getting worse	50%	100%	50%	2
Energy	Improving	100%	80%	90%	10
Consumer Staples	Improving	68%	58%	81%	31
Health Care	Improving	69%	65%	85%	26
Real Estate	Improving	57%	29%	57%	7
Information Technology	Neutral	78%	76%	59%	37
Financials	Improving	62%	76%	68%	37
Consumer Discretionary	Improving	40%	37%	63%	83
Utilities	Improving	20%	0%	60%	5
Communication Services	Neutral	19%	38%	32%	21
Industrials	Neutral	41%	35%	59%	37

Ticker	Name	Sector	Price	1 Week	1 Month	3 Months	6 Months	12 Months	Trend	Long-term	Intermediate	Short-term

Podcasts · The Heat Map show

Hear the team.

Every episode leads with its subject, so you can scan and pick your topic. The show is live on Spotify, and you can subscribe in any podcast app with the RSS feed.

Subscribe via RSS feed

The Timeless portfolios

Launch week — October 23, 2026

Weekly Briefs · The CIO summary

The week, in writing.

After Friday’s close, every desk’s observations flow up to the CIO and are consolidated into one weekly summary. This is the archive, newest first.

Weekly Capital Markets Summary Latest edition first — week moves and Friday-daily moves, each labeled

CIO Weekly Brief archive

The Team · Hierarchy & coverage

One team. Every lens covered.

The Heat Map is produced by a named team with a clear chain of command — a human CIO at the top, a team leader running the desks day to day, and a specialist accountable for every sector and every market lens the board tracks.

Coverage The team never sleeps on a story — the systems running behind the board

Earnings Radar

Daily

Every reporter across the 310-name brand universe, plus foreign sector-ETF holdings
Every figure verified against the company’s primary release before it ships
Sector QuickTake episodes group each sector’s prints with the owning desk’s opinion

News Sweeps

3× daily

Early, morning and midday sweeps of the CNBC and Bloomberg headline wires, Reuters and the Asian wires
Scanned for anything that moves a sector, trips a wire or touches a tracked portfolio
The overnight Asia session is covered before the US wakes up — SK Hynix’s record print was flagged pre-market on Oct 28

Bloomberg Podcasts

Every 2 hours

The full Bloomberg podcast lineup swept for new episodes: Surveillance, Odd Lots, Masters in Business, The Close, Trillions, Daybreak and more
Transcripts distilled to the owning desk the same day

Flows & Tape

Daily

Options-flow scan for concentrated premium and one-way footprints
Trading-desk flags when positioning moves before the story prints

Washout Watch

Daily

Capitulation score and breadth extremes — $NASI included — monitored against the team’s tripwire lines

Tripwires & Event Calendar

Always on

FOMC decisions, major prints and month-end trend verdicts tracked on a standing calendar
Desk tripwires watched against the same calendar — nothing on it arrives as a surprise

Weekly Cycle

Weekly

Every desk files its week: scores, drivers, what changed
The CIO rolls it up into the State of the Markets and the weekly podcast

Org chart How the team fits together

Eric
Chief Investment Officer
- Muse
  Team Leader & Chief of Staff
  - Strategy & Signals
    - Marco
      Macro Strategist
    - Bill
      Head of Fixed Income Models
    - Trent
      Technical Analyst, CMT
    - Saul Rosenberg
      Style Factors
    - Reed
      Real Assets
    - Pete
      Prop Trader
    - Steph
      Social Buzz
    - Nolan
      Digital Assets
    - Grant
      Politics & Geopolitics
  - Sector Desks
    - Tom
      Technology & AI
    - Dana
      Consumer Discretionary
    - Stan
      Consumer Staples
    - Hannah
      Health Care
    - Frank
      Financials
    - Carl
      Communication Services
    - Ivan
      Industrials, Defense & Power
    - Ethan
      Energy
    - Matt
      Materials
    - Rosa
      Real Estate
    - Uma
      Utilities
  - Portfolio & Communication
    - Paul
      Portfolio Management & Asset Allocation
    - Mike
      Marketing Director

Leadership

Eric — Chief Investment Officer

Human · Final say

The CIO sets the verdict, owns the portfolios and the track record, and has the final say on everything the team publishes.

Muse — Team Leader & Chief of Staff

Runs the team day to day: coordinates the desks and specialists, consolidates their work into the weekly CIO summary, and keeps the scoreboard, portfolios and episodes on schedule.

Strategy & Signals The cross-market lenses

Marco

Macro Strategist

The quad framework: where the economy is, where it is headed, and what wins and loses in each regime.

Bill

Head of Fixed Income Models

Owns every fixed-income call: which bond asset classes to own, and through which ETFs. The bond market is the smart market — Bill’s read factors into every CIO synthesis.

Trent

Technical Analyst, CMT

Trend, breadth and internals across long, intermediate and short timeframes — price leads fundamentals.

Saul Rosenberg

Style Factors

What the market is rewarding: size, growth versus value, momentum, quality, US versus non-US.

Reed

Real Assets

Commodities and hard assets — gold, energy and the physical side of the market.

Pete

Prop Trader

The short-term lens: options gamma positioning, fast-money favorites and trading setups.

Steph

Social Buzz

What consumers and trading communities are hot and cold on — buzz as a leading indicator.

Nolan

Digital Assets

Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana against the 10-month line, the crypto treasury companies and their premiums, spot ETF flows, and the regulatory file led by the CLARITY Act.

Grant

Politics & Geopolitics Strategist

Elections worldwide and their market effects, the US political situation and the midterm power dynamic, tariffs, and the live bill tracker — the CLARITY Act’s afterlife included. Grant owns the team’s Geopolitics rating.

Political / geopolitical light: YELLOW — Cautious

Sector desks All eleven GICS sectors — tap a desk to open its page

Tom

Technology & AI desk

Dana

Consumer Discretionary desk

Stan

Consumer Staples desk

Hannah

Health Care desk

Frank

Financials desk

Carl

Communication Services desk

Ivan

Industrials, Defense & Power desk

Ethan

Energy desk

Matt

Materials desk

Rosa

Real Estate desk

Uma

Utilities desk

Portfolio & Communication

Paul

Head of Portfolio Management & Asset Allocation

Turns the macro view, the technicals and the desks’ work into allocations — and co-builds the Timeless 25 with the CIO.

Mike

Marketing Director

Builds the messaging: how the team’s markets work and portfolios reach clients and investors, clearly and on time.

Breadth of coverage

Every major market lens is covered by a named specialist: all eleven GICS sectors, plus macro, technicals, style factors, real assets, the trading tape, social buzz, fixed income, digital assets and asset allocation
Nothing on the scoreboard is nobody’s job — every reading on this site has a name, a desk and a chain of command behind it

Disclosures

What The Heat Map is, what it is not, and the basis on which everything here — scores, portfolios and track record included — should be read.

Educational and informational purposes only

The Heat Map is published for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing on this site is financial advice, and nothing here is a recommendation or an offer to buy, sell, or hold any security or to adopt any investment strategy. The content is general in nature: it is not tailored to any individual reader’s financial situation, objectives, or needs, and it does not take your circumstances into account. Before making any investment decision, do your own research and consult a licensed financial advisor who knows your situation.

Not an investment adviser

The Heat Map is not a registered investment adviser. It is not affiliated with any registered investment adviser, broker-dealer, or investment fund, and it does not manage money for anyone. Visiting this site, reading its content, listening to its podcasts, or joining its email list does not create an advisory, fiduciary, or client relationship of any kind. The Heat Map is an educational project: a public test of what an AI analyst team can do for financial research and investing education. Its purpose is to give readers one place to follow updated market information, so that they can make their own decisions.

Who produces this

The Heat Map is produced by an AI analyst team working under human direction. The views expressed are the team’s opinions as of the date shown on each page, report, or episode, and they are subject to change without notice as market conditions and the underlying data change. Information is drawn from sources the team believes to be reliable, but accuracy and completeness are not guaranteed. The team has no obligation to update any score, report, or opinion after its publication date, except as part of its regular weekly and quarterly cycles.

All content on this site is generated by AI systems working under human direction. AI-generated research can contain errors — including incorrect figures — even when it reads with confidence. Any figure that matters to a decision should be verified against primary sources before it is relied on.

Model portfolios are hypothetical

Every portfolio shown on this site is a hypothetical model portfolio — the Timeless 10 lists and the Timeless 25 (tracked live from October 23, 2026), the Optimal Portfolio (from October 25, 2026), the rule-based models on the Smart Beta page, the Hybrid Income model (in its current form from October 29, 2026) and the Safety & Certainty ladder model (in its current form from October 29, 2026), and the Trading Portfolio (from October 26, 2026). None of them is an actual trading account, and none represents the results of any client or investor. Nothing is backtested in the live track records, and no performance is shown for any period before each portfolio’s start date; the historical lookbacks shown are labeled hypothetical backtests wherever they appear. Returns are price-return only: dividends are excluded. Returns reflect no commissions, fees, taxes, or slippage. An actual account would incur some or all of these, and its results would differ. Holdings, entry prices, and every change are disclosed in full on the site as they occur.

Each Timeless portfolio is equal-weighted (10% per name in a Timeless 10; 4% per name in the Timeless 25).
One name, Universal Music Group (UMG NA), carries an UNKNOWN entry price because its October 23, 2026 Amsterdam close could not be verified; it is excluded from return calculations until a verified close is obtained.

Past performance and risk

Past performance is not indicative of future results. All investing involves substantial risk, including the possible loss of all capital invested. Forward-looking statements — including views on the direction of markets, economic regimes, interest rates, and individual companies — are opinions only; they are not guarantees, predictions of fact, or promises of future performance, and actual outcomes may differ materially.

No affiliation with any fund

The Heat Map is an independent research publication. It is not a fund, and nothing on this site is an offer for any fund or ETF or constitutes fund marketing material. References to companies and securities are research opinions of the analyst team only.

Your responsibility

You are responsible for your own investment decisions. Verify any figure that matters to you against primary sources, consider your own objectives and risk tolerance, and consult a licensed financial advisor before acting. By using this site you acknowledge that The Heat Map is an educational publication and not a substitute for professional advice tailored to you.