Vol. III · No. 177|Monday, August 31, 2026

Golden Terminal

Monday Trader’s Brief 30-Second Read · Cash Open 9:30 ET · First Session After Warsh

Overnight into Monday: the S&P is off about 0.2% through the SPY premarket proxy at the pre-dawn pull, with the Nasdaq proxy down roughly 0.1%, a quiet-to-slightly-red open. The one mover is energy: crude jumped over the weekend on the first US-Iran exchange of fire in a month, with Brent topping $90, and the energy tile is bid about 1.4% premarket. Every tile and verdict below is Friday’s completed close, the session that carried Chair Warsh’s Jackson Hole keynote, and the basis for every momentum reading in this issue; the premarket figures are this morning’s drift, and by rule never move a completed-bar verdict.

Warsh took away the hand-holding. In his first Jackson Hole keynote as Fed Chair on Friday, Kevin Warsh called inflation “concerning,” said the economy is at full employment, and flatly refused to give markets forward guidance: “We should not indulge a regime in which market participants are looking primarily to the Fed for their next trade.” The read was hawkish, and by Monday the futures market was pricing roughly a 60% chance of a September rate hike, up from about one-in-three a week ago.

The market sold its hedges. The first reaction was to dump the safe-haven trade: gold fell 3.2% and silver 4.4% through their ETF proxies, the dollar firmed 0.6%, and the volatility gauge ticked up 1.4%. A hawkish Fed and a firmer dollar are exactly what knock the metals down, and Friday they did.

And the leadership finally broadened. Here is the part that matters more than the flat index: the money rotated out of the crowded AI and chip trade, with Nvidia giving back 4.6% of Thursday’s pop and the semis broadly lower, and into Financials, Communication Services, the consumer names, and energy. Roster breadth flipped from Thursday’s 17-up, 56-down to Friday’s 40-up, 32-down. For the first time in weeks, the momentum board lit up green.

The board went two-green. Financials and Communication Services both turned green, the first green lights on the equal-weight board in weeks. Energy, Consumer Staples, and Consumer Discretionary lifted to neutral. Technology slipped the other way, from neutral to red, as the chips cooled. The market-risk gauge off the S&P held neutral. Net: two green, three yellow, six red, a real improvement from Friday morning’s zero-green board.

Monday opens on oil. The weekend’s news is the Strait of Hormuz, where the US and Iran traded fire for the first time in a month and sent Brent past $90. Energy is the one group bid premarket. The index itself is quiet ahead of a heavy data week that ends Friday with the August jobs report, the last major reading before the September 16 Fed meeting.

XLF▲ XLC▲ XLE▬ XLP▬ XLY▬ XLK▼ XLV▼ XLB▼ XLRE▼ XLI▼ XLU▼

The most important thing the new Federal Reserve Chairman said on Friday was not about interest rates. It was about you. Standing at the Jackson Hole podium for the first time as Chair, Kevin Warsh told the assembled economists that markets should stop treating the central bank as a tip sheet: “We should not indulge a regime in which market participants are looking primarily to the Fed for their next trade.” Then he called inflation “concerning,” noted the economy is running at full employment, and declined, as he has all summer, to promise anybody anything. It was the clearest hawkish signal he has sent, and the market heard it. By this morning the futures were pricing roughly a 60% chance of a rate hike at the September 16 meeting, up from about one-in-three only a week ago.

A market told it will get no more hand-holding did the logical thing: it sold the trades that depend on a friendly Fed. Gold fell 3.2% on the day and silver 4.4%, the sharpest one-day drops in the precious metals in weeks, while the dollar firmed and the volatility gauge ticked higher. Nothing dumps gold faster than a central banker who sounds serious about inflation and a currency that gets stronger because of it. The safe-haven crowd headed for the exits, and the exits were narrow.

But here is the part the cable coverage mostly missed, because it does not fit in a headline about the index. Underneath a nearly flat tape, the S&P slipped just 0.23% and the Nasdaq 0.52%, the leadership of this market quietly changed hands. The money came out of the crowded corner it has hidden in all summer, the AI and semiconductor trade, and spread out. Nvidia gave back 4.6% of the giant pop it made Thursday, Applied Materials fell 4.3%, and the rest of the chips came with them. In their place, the banks caught a bid, the communication names rose, Amazon jumped nearly 4%, Netflix and McDonald’s and Nike all climbed, and the oil-services names led energy higher. Friday was not a down day dressed up as flat. It was a rotation.

The momentum board the model reads made the rotation official. For the first time in weeks there are green lights on it: Financials turned green, its reading vaulting from plus 41.6 to plus 86.9 above its trailing average, and Communication Services turned green even harder, from plus 30.7 to plus 124.1, the strongest single reading on the whole board. Energy, Consumer Staples, and Consumer Discretionary all climbed off red to neutral. The board that showed zero green lights on Friday morning shows two of them this morning, with three more sitting at neutral. And breadth, the number that actually tells you whether a rally has a foundation, confirmed it: where Thursday only 17 of 73 roster names finished higher, Friday 40 of them did. That is the difference between a market carried by two boats and a market where the whole harbor lifts a little.

Not everything improved, and the exception is the tell. Technology, the group that carried the index by itself on Thursday, slipped from neutral all the way back to red as the chips cooled, its reading falling from plus 55.8 to plus 26.9 under its own average. And the two purest interest-rate plays on the board, Utilities and Real Estate, stayed red, because a Fed that just got more hawkish means a long bond that stays firm, and the ten-year is sitting at 4.67% with the 30-year above 5.1%. So this is not a green light to chase everything. It is a market swapping one kind of leadership for another under a Fed that just told it to grow up, with an oil shock landing on top of it this morning. A broadening is healthier than a narrowing. But a broadening into a hawkish Fed, a firming dollar, a jobs report on Friday, and September, historically the worst month of the year for stocks, is a broadening that still has to prove it can hold.

Brad Hoppmann

Filed from Taintsville, Florida · Pop. < 1,000‘Taint in the Beltway, ‘taint in any backwards corrupt city: just a Florida man with a sharp pencil and a long memory of expensive lessons.

What to Watch: Whether the New Green Lights Hold, the Long Bond After a Hawkish Warsh, and the Jobs Report Friday The question this week is whether Friday’s rotation was a one-day reaction or the start of a broadening. Watch whether Financials and Communication Services keep their new green lights and whether the three neutral sectors, Energy, Staples, and Consumer Discretionary, can climb the rest of the way. Watch the long bond: with a September hike now near a coin flip, the ten-year at 4.67% and the 30-year above 5.1%, the rate-sensitive groups, Utilities and Real Estate, have no relief until the curve settles. Watch energy this morning on the Hormuz headlines and Brent above $90. And mark Friday: the August employment report is the last big data point before the September 16 meeting, and after Warsh took forward guidance off the table, the numbers matter more, not less.

“The index barely moved Friday. Underneath it, the market swapped the two boats it had been riding for a whole harbor that finally lifted together.”

Early Earnings Update: One roster name reports in the next seven days, a chipmaker landing Wednesday. Its own stock-momentum reading improved to a green light for a third straight session, but the two lights around it split this session: the market-risk gauge held neutral while its sector rolled from neutral to red, so no full alignment has formed. The analyst price-target consensus still sits far above the current price, and the estimate trend into the print is flat, so nothing directional has locked in. Full sector read below.

The Full Sector Read

The complete sector-by-sector breakdown, rotation snapshot, and validation data continue below, open to every reader.

The Politicized Spreadsheet of America

CCI(20) Verdict: GREEN, as of Friday’s close · XLF (current +86.9 vs. prior +41.6, 20-day average +85.4) · session +0.38%

GREEN as of Friday’s close, upgraded from red. Premarket drift is slightly negative at about -0.2%, well inside the band that never moves the light. The banks cleared both their prior session and their trailing average in one move.

Financials turned green in a single session, its momentum jumping to plus 86.9 from plus 41.6 and clearing a trailing average near plus 85, with the sector up 0.38% on a day the index fell. This is the group that lost its light only a few sessions ago; Friday it took it back and skipped straight past yellow to green. There is a clean logic to it: a Fed that sounds ready to keep rates higher for longer is a Fed that keeps the banks’ lending margins wide, and the money that left the chips found a home in the balance sheets that actually benefit from a hawkish turn.

The strength was broad, not one name. Bank of America rose 1.9%, JPMorgan added 1.0%, and the card networks and the money-center anchor all firmed, with only Goldman Sachs giving a little back. When a sector turns green on a broad basis on a down day for the index, it is the tape telling you where the next dollar wants to go. Financials had been the quiet ballast under this board for months; Friday it stopped being ballast and started being leadership.

JPMorgan JPM: the money-center bellwether rose 1.0% and is up 10.9% on the year, leading the sector back to a green light.

Visa V: firmed 0.5% and holds a 9.1% year-to-date gain, a steady compounder joining the bid.

Mastercard MA: added 0.6% and is up 4.3% on the year.

Berkshire Hathaway BRK.B: firmed 0.3% and sits 0.8% higher year-to-date, the sector’s conservative keel.

The Signal Layer of the Economy

CCI(20) Verdict: GREEN, as of Friday’s close · XLC (current +124.1 vs. prior +30.7, 20-day average +66.1) · session +1.42%

GREEN as of Friday’s close, upgraded from red. There is no premarket trade in the ETF yet at the pre-dawn pull, so no drift figure applies. The reading vaulted above both its prior session and its trailing average, the strongest single momentum print on the board.

Communication Services did not just turn green, it printed the highest momentum reading on the entire eleven-sector board, vaulting to plus 124.1 from plus 30.7 and blowing past a trailing average near plus 66, with the sector up 1.42% on the day. This is the sector that lost its light only a few sessions ago and sits dead last on the year, down 4.4%; Friday it led the tape. That combination, worst-on-the-year and strongest momentum today, is the signature of a group being bought precisely because it was left behind, and the money rotating out of expensive tech found it.

The bid ran through the growth names that had been abandoned. Netflix rose 2.4%, AT&T 2.3%, Verizon 1.4%, Alphabet 1.7%, Meta 1.2%, and Disney 1.2%, a clean sweep higher across content, search, and telecom. When a whole sector rises together rather than on one name, and it is a sector the market spent the summer selling, the rotation is real and it is broad. The consensus spent months calling these names the losers of the AI trade; Friday the tape started to disagree.

Alphabet GOOGL: the search-and-cloud giant rose 1.7% and holds a 9.4% year-to-date gain, leading the sector’s green.

Meta Platforms META: rose 1.2% but remains down 12.8% on the year, a deep laggard catching a rotation bid.

Netflix NFLX: rose 2.4% and sits 13.2% lower year-to-date, one of the year’s deepest names finding buyers.

AT&T T: rose 2.3% and is up 4.9% on the year, a dividend-paying telecom leading the move.

The Fuel Under Everything

CCI(20) Verdict: YELLOW, as of Friday’s close · XLE (current +47.8 vs. prior +41.3, 20-day average +97.6) · session +0.63%

YELLOW as of Friday’s close, upgraded from red. Premarket drift is strongly positive at about +1.4% on the weekend Hormuz headlines, running with the improving light rather than against it, so no contradiction flag applies. The reading rose above its prior session but stays below a still-high trailing average.

Energy climbed off red to neutral, its momentum firming to plus 47.8 from plus 41.3 while sitting well below a trailing average near plus 98, with the sector up 0.63% on the day. This remains the number-one sector on the year, up 40.2%, and its momentum reading is repairing one session at a time after two crude crashes broke it. The light is neutral rather than green only because the trailing average is still so far above the current print, a legacy of how strong this group was all summer.

The oilfield names led again. Schlumberger rose 4.2%, the standout, with Phillips 66 up 1.8%, Marathon Petroleum up 1.5%, and Chevron up 1.1%. And this morning the group has a fresh catalyst: over the weekend the US and Iran exchanged fire near the Strait of Hormuz for the first time in a month, sending Brent above $90 and WTI toward the mid-80s, and the energy ETF is bid about 1.4% premarket. A sector whose momentum was already turning up now has a geopolitical bid under it, which is exactly the setup that can push a neutral light back to green.

ExxonMobil XOM: the integrated major firmed 0.2% and holds a 30.5% year-to-date gain, the sector’s anchor.

Chevron CVX: rose 1.1% and sits 32.7% higher year-to-date, a steady integrated major catching the crude bid.

ConocoPhillips COP: rose 0.6% and is up 39.2% on the year, a producer levered to the Hormuz headlines.

Phillips 66 PSX: rose 1.8% and holds an 89.2% year-to-date gain, a refiner near the top of the leaderboard.

The Aisles the Market Is Circling Back To

CCI(20) Verdict: YELLOW, as of Friday’s close · XLP (current -15.8 vs. prior -22.7, 20-day average +32.4) · session +0.43%

YELLOW as of Friday’s close, upgraded from red. Premarket drift is essentially flat. The reading firmed above its prior session but stays below its trailing average, a partial recovery rather than a full turn.

Staples lifted off red to neutral, its momentum firming to minus 15.8 from minus 22.7 while still sitting below a trailing average near plus 32, with the sector up 0.43% on the day. Only a session ago this was the deepest one-day momentum drop on the board as the money walked out of the defensive aisles; Friday a little of it walked back in. The reading is still negative in absolute terms, so this is a recovery in progress, not a completed one.

The bid was quiet and broad. PepsiCo rose 1.0%, Costco 1.2%, Coca-Cola 0.7%, and Philip Morris 0.7%, the same names that were sold hard the day before catching a modest bid. On a day the Fed turned hawkish and the rate-sensitive groups struggled, a little money finding its way back to the steady cash-flow names is not a surprise. Whether it holds depends on whether the rotation broadens or narrows back to a handful of leaders.

Costco COST: the membership-warehouse compounder rose 1.2% and holds a 9.8% year-to-date gain.

Walmart WMT: firmed 0.5% but remains down 7.5% on the year after its recent guidance reset.

Procter & Gamble PG: rose 0.5% and is up 0.5% on the year, the household-products anchor.

PepsiCo PEP: rose 1.0% and sits 1.5% lower year-to-date, a name working back from a soft stretch.

The Consumer’s Wallet, One Level Up

CCI(20) Verdict: YELLOW, as of Friday’s close · XLY (current -86.3 vs. prior -150.2, 20-day average +42.4) · session +1.15%

YELLOW as of Friday’s close, upgraded from red. Premarket drift is essentially flat. The reading jumped sharply off its prior session, though it remains well below a still-positive trailing average.

Consumer Discretionary made the biggest single-session momentum jump on the board, its reading vaulting to minus 86.3 from minus 150.2, which had been the weakest print on the entire board a day earlier, with the sector up 1.15% on the day. It is still red in absolute terms, sitting well below a trailing average near plus 42, so the light is neutral rather than green, but a swing of more than sixty CCI points off the bottom is the sharpest kind of oversold bounce. When the most beaten-down group on the board leads on a rotation day, the money is casting a wide net.

The bounce came from the megacaps and the beaten-down names together. Amazon rose 4.0%, the standout, with Nike up 3.0%, McDonald’s up 1.9%, and Starbucks up 0.6%, a mix of the giant and the deep laggards catching a bid. Only Tesla, on its own story, gave ground. When Amazon leads the consumer group higher and Nike, one of the year’s worst names, jumps 3%, the rotation is reaching into the corners of the market that had been given up for dead.

Amazon AMZN: the retail-and-cloud giant rose 4.0% and is up 15.2% on the year, leading the sector’s bounce.

Home Depot HD: firmed 0.5% and is down 3.9% year-to-date, a housing-linked bellwether stabilizing.

McDonald’s MCD: rose 1.9% and sits 13.2% lower on the year, a defensive-consumer name catching a bid.

Tesla TSLA: eased 1.7% and remains down 23.8% year-to-date, the group’s one decliner on its own story.

The Engines of the Modern Economy

CCI(20) Verdict: RED, as of Friday’s close · XLK (current +26.9 vs. prior +55.8, 20-day average +60.3) · session -1.55%

RED as of Friday’s close, downgraded from yellow. Premarket drift is essentially flat at about -0.1%. The reading fell below both its prior session and its trailing average as the chips gave back Thursday’s pop.

Technology slipped from neutral to red, its momentum falling to plus 26.9 from plus 55.8 and dropping under a trailing average near plus 60, with the sector down 1.55%, the weakest of the eleven on the day. This is the group that single-handedly lifted the index Thursday on the Nvidia and Salesforce beats; Friday the money that had crowded in walked out. A sector that gives back its light the session after it carried the whole market is the clearest evidence of the rotation: the leadership did not disappear, it moved.

The give-back was led by the semis. Nvidia fell 4.6%, handing back more than half of Thursday’s 8.7% surge, Applied Materials fell 4.3%, Texas Instruments 3.0%, and Advanced Micro Devices 2.3%, the chip complex broadly lower while the mega-cap software names held. Microsoft actually rose 1.7% and Apple 1.6%, so the weakness was concentrated in the most crowded, highest-beta corner of the sector, the chips, which is exactly the corner a rotation sells first.

Nvidia NVDA: the marquee chip name fell 4.6%, handing back more than half of Thursday’s 8.7% pop; it is up 14.6% on the year.

Microsoft MSFT: rose 1.7% and is up 6.0% on the year, a mega-cap that held while the chips fell.

Apple AAPL: rose 1.6% and holds a 17.4% year-to-date gain, steady while the semis sold off.

Broadcom AVGO: eased 0.7% and is up 4.5% on the year, the roster’s lone name reporting this week, on Wednesday.

The Machinery of Living Longer

CCI(20) Verdict: RED, as of Friday’s close · XLV (current +37.3 vs. prior +59.6, 20-day average +108.0) · session -0.24%

RED as of Friday’s close, held. Premarket drift is essentially flat. The reading kept cooling below both its prior session and a high trailing average for a third straight session.

Health Care held red for a third session, its momentum easing to plus 37.3 from plus 59.6 and now far below a trailing average near plus 108, with the sector down 0.24% on the day. This was the defensive leader of the summer, and it has steadily surrendered that lead: the reading is still positive but falling every session, and a group that bleeds momentum while the rest of the market rotates is one the crowd is quietly stepping away from.

The session itself was mixed rather than ugly. Intuitive Surgical rose 1.5% and Johnson & Johnson 0.9%, while Merck eased 0.8% and AbbVie 1.0%. That is a group treading water, not collapsing, but the trailing average is so far above the current reading that even a flat session keeps the light red. Health Care is where the summer’s defensive money hid, and Friday’s rotation into Financials and Communications is money that is no longer hiding.

Eli Lilly LLY: the obesity-drug leader eased 0.1% and holds a 9.1% year-to-date gain.

Johnson & Johnson JNJ: rose 0.9% and is up 29.6% year-to-date, one of the roster’s strongest large-cap defensives.

UnitedHealth UNH: eased 0.5% and holds an 18.8% year-to-date gain.

AbbVie ABBV: fell 1.0% and is up 11.7% on the year, an immunology leader easing back.

The Bedrock of Prices and Supply

CCI(20) Verdict: RED, as of Friday’s close · XLB (current +67.6 vs. prior +73.5, 20-day average +94.7) · session -0.09%

RED as of Friday’s close, held. Premarket drift is essentially flat. The reading eased below both its prior session and its trailing average, a slow cool rather than a sharp drop.

Materials held red, its momentum easing to plus 67.6 from plus 73.5 and sitting under a trailing average near plus 95, with the sector essentially flat, down 0.09% on the day. The reading is still positive in absolute terms, but it has been drifting lower for several sessions, and a group that cannot rejoin the rotation on a day breadth broadens is a group the money is passing over.

The internals told the day’s macro story in miniature. Air Products rose 0.9% and Linde 0.9%, the steady industrial-gas names holding, while Newmont fell 3.3% as the gold-mining name took the brunt of the precious-metals selloff, and Freeport-McMoRan eased 2.5% with the industrial metals. When the gold miner drops more than three percent on the same day gold falls over three, the sector is wearing the hawkish-Fed trade on its sleeve.

Linde LIN: the industrial-gas giant rose 0.9% and is up 14.8% on the year, the sector’s ballast.

Air Products APD: rose 0.9% and holds a 25.6% year-to-date gain.

Sherwin-Williams SHW: eased 0.1% and is up 6.7% year-to-date, a coatings name that tracks housing demand.

Ecolab ECL: rose 0.3% and holds a 9.8% year-to-date gain.

The Ground Beneath the Towers

CCI(20) Verdict: RED, as of Friday’s close · XLRE (current -93.3 vs. prior -49.0, 20-day average -36.1) · session -0.40%

RED as of Friday’s close, held and deepened. There is no premarket trade in the ETF yet at the pre-dawn pull, so no drift figure applies. The reading fell further below both its prior session and a still-negative trailing average as the long bond firmed.

Real Estate deepened its red, its momentum falling to minus 93.3 from minus 49.0 and dropping below a trailing average near minus 36, with the sector off 0.40% on the day. This is the purest rate-sensitive group on the board after Utilities, and a Fed that just got more hawkish is a direct headwind: the ten-year sits at 4.67% and the 30-year above 5.1%, and every uptick in the long bond works against the bond-substitute income plays.

The give-back ran through the highest-multiple names. Iron Mountain fell 4.3% and Equinix 3.0%, the two data-center-linked REITs that had ridden the AI build-out, taking the brunt as the AI trade cooled, while the cell-tower and self-storage names held quieter. When the pieces of this sector levered to both AI and rates are the ones falling hardest, the group is caught between the two crosswinds that defined Friday: a cooling AI trade and a firming curve.

Equinix EQIX: the data-center REIT fell 3.0% and is up 36.3% year-to-date, pressured as the AI trade cooled.

Prologis PLD: the industrial-warehouse REIT eased 0.8% and holds a 10.1% year-to-date gain.

Simon Property SPG: the mall REIT eased 0.2% and sits 16.3% higher on the year.

Public Storage PSA: the self-storage name rose 0.7% and holds a 21.0% year-to-date gain.

The Backbone of Getting Things Made and Moved

CCI(20) Verdict: RED, as of Friday’s close · XLI (current -131.0 vs. prior -103.4, 20-day average +32.2) · session -0.93%

RED as of Friday’s close, held and deepened. Premarket drift is essentially flat at about -0.3%. The reading fell further below both its prior session and a still-positive trailing average.

Industrials deepened their red, momentum sliding to minus 131.0 from minus 103.4 and now far below a trailing average near plus 32, with the sector down 0.93% on the day. On a day money rotated broadly across the board, the cyclicals were the group it skipped, and the reading is now one of the two weakest on the board. A cyclical sector that keeps falling while breadth broadens is telling you the rotation is into rate-sensitive value and beaten-down growth, not into the machinery of the real economy.

The weakness was led by the heavy names. Caterpillar fell 2.1% and Honeywell 1.3%, the machinery and diversified-industrial names giving ground, while Deere bucked the trend up 1.2% on its own post-earnings strength and Union Pacific held roughly flat. When the biggest cyclical bellwether on the board falls 2% on a rotation day, the message is that the market’s renewed appetite for risk is not extending to the industrial economy.

Union Pacific UNP: the rail bellwether was roughly flat, down 0.1%, and holds a 32.9% year-to-date gain.

Honeywell HON: fell 1.3% and is up 11.1% year-to-date, a diversified industrial under pressure.

United Parcel Service UPS: eased 0.3% and holds a 6.1% year-to-date gain.

Boeing BA: was roughly flat, unchanged on the day, and is down 3.8% on the year, still a special situation of its own.

The Bond Market Wearing a Hard Hat

CCI(20) Verdict: RED, as of Friday’s close · XLU (current -135.9 vs. prior -105.4, 20-day average -102.8) · session -1.04%

RED as of Friday’s close, downgraded from yellow. Premarket drift is negative at about -0.7%, running with the light rather than against it, so no contradiction flag applies. The reading fell below both its prior session and its trailing average.

Utilities gave up the last neutral read it had been clinging to, its momentum falling to minus 135.9 from minus 105.4 and dropping below a trailing average near minus 103, with the sector down 1.04% on the day. This was one of only two sectors holding a yellow light on Friday morning; by the close it had gone red. The cause is not a mystery: Utilities are the purest interest-rate proxy on the board, and a Fed Chair who just sounded hawkish about inflation is a Fed Chair who keeps the long bond firm, which is a direct weight on the group.

The pressure ran through the higher-beta power names. NRG Energy fell 2.9% and Vistra 2.0%, the merchant-power and AI-electricity favorites leading the give-back, while the regulated utilities held quieter, with Duke and American Electric Power off less than a percent. When the deepest rate proxy on the board loses its last neutral light the same session a hawkish Fed firms the curve, the two are telling the same story, and the story is that rate relief is not coming this month.

NextEra Energy NEE: the regulated-utility bellwether fell 1.9% and is up 1.7% on the year, pressured by the firm long bond.

Southern Co SO: eased 0.9% and holds a 1.2% year-to-date gain, a steady regulated name.

Duke Energy DUK: eased 0.5% and is up 2.6% on the year.

American Electric Power AEP: eased 0.3% and holds a 6.0% year-to-date gain.

Eleven sector ETFs ranked by year-to-date return through Friday’s close, with each one’s current momentum verdict alongside. Read the two columns against each other: the year’s leaders by return, Energy and Technology, are not the momentum leaders this morning. Financials and Communication Services, near the bottom of the year’s table, carry the only two green lights, the signature of a rotation into what has lagged.

Breadth check: eight of the eleven sector ETFs closed above their 50-day moving average Friday, up from seven; Industrials, Real Estate, and Utilities sit below. Inside the roster, 40 of the 72 names finished higher and 32 lower, a clear broadening from Thursday’s 17-up, 56-down, and the strongest breadth session in more than a week.

The consensus narrative this morning says a hawkish Warsh is a threat to stocks and the tech rally looks vulnerable. The completed tape says that is half the story. Yes, the chips cooled and Technology lost its light. But the money did not leave the market, it moved: Financials and Communication Services turned green, breadth more than doubled, and the board went from zero green lights to two. A hawkish Fed did not break the market Friday. It rotated it. Whether that rotation broadens or narrows back is this week’s question, and Friday’s jobs report gets a vote.

August 31 through September 7, 2026. Roster names in bold; times are BMO (before the open) or AMC (after the close). One roster name reports in the window: Broadcom (AVGO), confirmed on the earnings calendar for Wednesday after the close.

August 31 through September 7, 2026. All times Eastern. A jobs week, capped by Friday’s August employment report, the last major reading before the September 16 Fed meeting.

Live Friday close, roster names, year-to-date from the January 2 open.

The leaderboard barely moved, but the momentum above it did. Micron still tops the year up 216.1% and Marathon Petroleum sits second up 126.5%, both in sectors, Technology and Energy, that were not Friday’s momentum leaders. The green lights this morning belong to Financials and Communication Services, which sit near the bottom of the year’s table. That gap, the year’s winners cooling while the year’s laggards catch the momentum bid, is the whole rotation in one glance.

Dear reader, there is a difference between a market that falls and a market that turns, and Friday it turned. The index barely moved, down a quarter of a percent, and a casual glance at the headline number would tell you nothing happened. But underneath that stillness the market did something it had not done in weeks: it stopped leaning on the same two or three names and spread its weight around. The money came out of the crowded AI and chip trade, where it had huddled all summer, and went looking for what had been left behind, the banks, the beaten-down communication names, the deep-discount consumer stocks. Two green lights appeared on a board that had shown none the morning before, and the number of stocks actually rising more than doubled. That is a healthier market than the one-name melt-up it replaced, and it is worth saying so plainly, because this letter spent last week warning that a rally two names wide is a fragile thing. Friday it got wider. But do not mistake a broadening for an all-clear. This rotation happened because Kevin Warsh, in his first Jackson Hole keynote as Fed Chair, told markets he will not be their guide and that inflation still worries him, and the futures now put a September rate hike near a coin flip. The money that rotated into the banks rotated there precisely because it expects rates to stay high, and the same force that lifted the banks pressed the rate-sensitive groups, Utilities and Real Estate, deeper into red. On top of that, the Strait of Hormuz lit up again over the weekend and sent oil past $90, and the calendar turns to September, the month that has treated stock investors worse than any other on the historical record, with a jobs report waiting on Friday. So take the good news for what it is: the market got broader and breadth got better, and that matters. Just remember the ground it broadened onto. A rotation into value under a hawkish Fed with an oil shock and the year’s worst month ahead is a market that has grown up in a hurry, and grown-up markets do not get their hand held. Warsh made that much clear. The honest read is that the bench got deeper Friday, which is genuinely good, and the game also got harder, which is genuinely true, and both of those things can be so at the same time.

The Daily Update reads the tape one session at a time. Supercycle Trader steps back to the multi-year clock underneath it: the debasement cycle, the liquidity tide, and the handful of assets that hold their value while the government keeps the refinancing machine running. If a hawkish Fed knocking down gold one Friday has you wondering what actually holds its value across a full cycle rather than a single session, that is the terrain Supercycle Trader lives on.

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Every directional and magnitude claim above, checked against the live tape. No “trust me, bro”: these are the numbers that pay for your subscription. All August 28 cash-close prices pulled from live market data; Treasury yields from the Federal Reserve series (latest published print August 27). Crude oil and precious metals reconciled against USO, GLD, and SLV ETF proxies (futures contracts not entitled on the current data plan).

CCI engine validated 12 of 12: each instrument’s prior-session (8/27) CCI reproduces Issue 176’s published current values before use (SPY +28.49, XLK +55.80, XLF +41.60, XLC +30.72, XLI -103.43, XLE +41.32, XLP -22.74, XLU -105.44, XLB +73.45, XLV +59.56, XLY -150.19, XLRE -49.02; trailing averages SPY +83.63, XLK +56.27). Broadcom’s stock CCI validated 2 of 2 (prior-session 8/27 -72.14 and 8/26 -116.65 reproduce the prior desk exactly).

Two material claims are stated as fact this issue, each triangulated across at least two independent feeds. Chair Warsh’s hawkish Jackson Hole keynote (Friday 8/28, his first as Fed Chair) is confirmed across The Washington Post, CNN, CNBC, and the Federal Reserve Board’s own posted text, with the quote (“we should not indulge a regime in which market participants are looking primarily to the Fed for their next trade”) and the “concerning” inflation characterization matched across outlets, plus WSJ and Barron’s reporting Monday-morning market pricing of roughly a 60% chance of a September hike; the Friday tape (gold, silver, dollar, and the sector rotation) corroborates the reaction. The US-Iran exchange of fire near the Strait of Hormuz and Brent crude above $90 is confirmed across MarketWatch, The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, and FXEmpire in Monday pre-open coverage. The Nvidia and Salesforce beat-and-raise reports (Wednesday 8/26) were triangulated and tape-confirmed in the prior two issues and are referenced here as prior context. Broadcom’s Wednesday 9/2 report is confirmed on the FMP earnings calendar (epsEstimated $3.22, revenueEstimated ~$29.24B, lastUpdated 8/31). The premarket-drift and session figures throughout are live tape.

Crude oil, gold, and silver futures contracts are not entitled on the current data plan. The Radar uses USO, GLD, and SLV ETF proxies as the live-tape stand-in. ETF NAV can drift from underlying spot pricing intraday and over time; the directional and magnitude reads remain reliable on a session-over-session basis. Bigdata.com was not called this run; the story confirmations above rest on the FMP news and calendar feeds, independent web cross-checks (WaPo, CNN, CNBC, Fed.gov, WSJ, Barron’s, MarketWatch, Reuters, FXEmpire), and the live tape.

Disclaimer. The Daily Update is a general-circulation editorial publication and does not provide personalized investment advice. Any signals, ratings, or commentary on specific sectors, stocks, or options reflect the output of the Radar’s proprietary models and are provided for informational and educational purposes only. The Radar does not know the financial circumstances of any individual subscriber. Subscribers should consult their own qualified financial advisor before making any investment decision. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Synthetic, projected, or estimated data is labeled with the [SYN] highlight or with phrasing such as “est.” The author may hold positions in securities mentioned. The Daily Update relies on the publisher’s exemption from the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 (Lowe v. SEC, 472 U.S. 181 (1985)) and operates as a regular publication with impersonal content.

The Daily Update · Issue 177 · Volume III · Filed from Taintsville, Florida · August 31, 2026