Ford carries the highest confirmation reading in this scan, twelve across three timeframes, and it is the only instrument on the page the terminal has labelled a coiled spring. Astera Labs has the widest agreement, nine readings across four timeframes, with the cost lines converged at 97%. One is a short and one is a long, and both sit close enough to their own line that an intraday wick proves nothing. Every trigger here is a four-hour close. Everything above them is measured against Nasdaq 29,339.
The Fed's preferred inflation gauge lands this morning at 8:30 Eastern, two days before Kevin Warsh gives his first Jackson Hole keynote as chair. Consensus has core PCE at +0.18% on the month and somewhere between 3.2% and 3.3% on the year, with forecasters split. What gives today's print unusual weight: the market is now pricing roughly a 65% chance the September meeting delivers a quarter-point hike rather than a cut, against a target range of 3.50% to 3.75% held since a 9-3 July vote with three dissents on the hawkish side. A soft core number takes the hike off the table. A hot one puts the long end and every high-volatility name in this scan under pressure at the same time.
Money and risk appetite are switched on, stocks are the leg that is off, and the macro tailwind is exactly zero, so nothing on this page earns extra size for being on the right side of the cycle and every position below is at half or less except one. The caveat worth holding: the index book reads confirming at +7 of 8 with 70.6% of the list above its 200-day line, so the stock leg is switched off on the Nasdaq's bearish read alone rather than on any broad deterioration underneath it.
The index book and the single-name book disagree again, off the same underlying list, and the gap widened overnight. That gap is the argument for the half sizes. Seven stocks in ten hold their 200-day line while the single-name momentum reading sits at roughly zero.
| Metric | Index book | Single-name book | Plain read |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | Confirming +7 / 8 | Neutral +1 / 8 | The index charts have participation behind them. The stock list does not. |
| Short-term momentum | +14.3 | −1.9 | Advancers minus decliners, smoothed. One positive, one just under the line. |
| Above the 50-day | 58.3% | 58.3% | Under six in ten, and flat on the session. |
| Above the 200-day | 70.6% | 70.6% | The strongest number on the page. The long uptrend has not cracked. |
| Trend | +2 | −2 | The two books are moving in opposite directions. |
Six names out of fourteen carry a size this morning. Three of the six have entries that are already qualified, and two of those three sit less than a tenth of a percent from their own cost line. The other eight are in the Watch and Avoid table below, and one of them carries the deepest sample on the page attached to a negative record.
| # | Name | Side | Entry · trigger · get out | Why it is on this list | Size |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | F Ford Motor | Short | 🔒 Members | The entry has already printed inside the window, and it printed almost exactly on the cost line. This is the only instrument in the scan the terminal has flagged as a coiled spring, and the cost lines have converged at 96%. Entry qualified · confirmation 12 across 3 timeframes, the highest here · record +.09R on 129 signals · light AMBER, fading, 9.1-point cushion · compression coiled at 77% · 19 crossings on 12-bar swings | Half |
| 2 | ALAB Astera Labs | Long | 🔒 Members | Widest agreement anywhere in this scan and the only signal tier 3 on the page, with the cost lines converged at 97%. Read the record line before sizing: six finished signals is not a record, it is a start. Entry qualified · signal tier 3 · confirmation 9 across 4 timeframes · record 6 of the 20 signals needed, nothing publishable yet · light UNPROVEN, building sample · convergence active at 97% · range expanded at 65% | Quarter |
| 3 | CECO CECO Environmental | Short | 🔒 Members | Third qualified entry, on a green light and the best record per signal of anything publishable here. Sellers run the most-traded price by 22%, which agrees with the direction for once. Confirmation is the weak part at 2. Entry qualified · signal tier 2 · record +.17R on 120 signals · light GREEN, fading, 10.7-point cushion · confirmation 2 across 3 timeframes · sellers dominant −22% at the most-traded price · range expanded at 43% | Half |
| 4 | BCE BCE Inc | Short | 🔒 Members | The deepest publishable record on the page and the only full size in the brief. The range is wound to 96% and the cost lines have converged at 77%. It has not qualified yet, which is the one thing separating it from the top row. Entry open, cross pending · record +.16R on 144 signals, the deepest here · light GREEN, fading, 17.3-point cushion · confirmation 8 across 2 timeframes · compression building at 96% · 21 crossings on 11-bar swings | Full |
| 5 | GMED Globus Medical | Long | 🔒 Members | Second tightest coil in the scan with the ceiling inside one bar's reach. The record needs reading rather than trusting: +8.31R per signal over 99 finished ones is one or two enormous winners inside an 84-bar window, not a steady edge. Size it off the confirmation score. Entry open, cross pending · record +8.31R on 99 signals, outlier-driven · light GREEN, fading, 54.4-point cushion · confirmation 5 across 1 timeframe · compression building at 91% · 18 crossings on 13-bar swings | Half |
| 6 | RIVN Rivian Automotive | Long | 🔒 Members | Best record per signal of anything with a green light, on the thinnest sample that publishes at all. It also crosses its own cost line every nine bars, which is why this is a quarter and not a half. Entry open, cross pending · record +.22R on 22 signals, just over the floor · light GREEN, holding, 36.7-point cushion · confirmation 3 across 1 timeframe · 26 crossings on 9-bar swings · range expanded at 48% | Quarter |
This is the volume-weighted price institutions paid on the Nasdaq through the current swing, and the index is trading roughly half a percent under it with a bearish read and the range coiled at 90%. The Nasdaq is the only one of the four indices reading bearish, and that alone is why the stock leg of the cycle is switched off while participation underneath is confirming. Reclaim 29,339 on a four-hour close and that leg turns on, the strength score moves, and the red lights on this page start flipping one at a time. Stay under it and the extended indices stay gate-locked no matter how good their compression looks. There is a second reason today's brief is written on four-hour closes rather than touches, and it is on The Board: four instruments are sitting inside seven tenths of a percent of their own cost line this morning, and at that distance an intraday wick through the line carries no information at all.
Enter your Cantillon Research subscriber email to unlock the complete August 26, 2026 brief: all six sized entries with their levels, Ford's coiled-spring trigger and invalidation, the two names sitting a hair outside their ceiling, and all fourteen terminal captures.
Cost line (the anchor) · the volume-weighted price large money actually paid over the current swing. Everything in this brief is measured as distance from it, and that distance is what "deviation" means. Buy near it and you are paying what they paid. Buy far above it and you are paying their profit. Entry window · how far from the cost line a new entry can still be sensibly priced. The width depends on the instrument's own volatility tier: two percent for indices and large caps, three percent for mid-range names, three to five for the high-volatility list. Open means you are inside it and waiting on the cross. Qualified means the cross has already printed inside it. Shut means the move has run and you wait for a pullback or a fresh coil. Every trigger in this brief is a four-hour close, in the trade's direction, never a touch. Compression · how tightly the range has wound, from 0 to 100%. Building means it is loading. Coiled means it is nearly full, and coiled spring is the terminal's own label for the tightest version of it. High compression means the next move should be a big one, says nothing about direction, and never overrides a shut window or a red light. Confirmation · how many independent readings agree, and across how many timeframes. Higher on both counts is better, and two timeframes at 6 beats one timeframe at 8. Convergence · how tightly the separate institutional cost lines have clustered. High convergence means several cohorts of large money paid roughly the same price, so the line underneath is thicker than usual. Signal tier · awarded when the entry cross, the confirmation and the window all line up at once. Three names carry one today and eleven do not. Record · the average result per signal in units of risk, where being stopped out is exactly −1.00. Always published with the number of finished signals behind it, and never published at all below 20 of them. It is in-sample, so read it as a description of the past and not a forecast. Trend light and cushion · green means full size, amber means half, red means no new entry however good the chart looks, and unproven means the sample is still being built. The cushion is how far the light is from changing, and a negative cushion means it has already changed against you.
Readings captured Wednesday 26 August 2026, 07:03–07:25 CEST, from the IVT v14 terminal, on four-hour bars that had not yet closed. That is why every trigger here is a close and not a touch, and it matters more than usual today: four instruments are inside seven tenths of a percent of their own cost line, where an intraday wick carries no information.
Records are in-sample, calculated over the same history the settings were chosen on, so they describe the past and forecast nothing. Index levels come from cash CFD feeds and will differ from your own index or futures contract. Entry prices and window edges are derived from the percentage distances the terminal publishes, so treat them as accurate to the nearest cent or index point. No level here is meant to survive an earnings gap or this morning's inflation print.
Charts are unmodified terminal captures provided for reference, not as entry instructions. Educational content only. Not financial advice. Past results do not predict future ones.