A quiet signal appeared while SPY quietly slipped

Today's market and our positions

SPY dropped 1.10% today and closed near $764.57. Our book barely moved. That's not luck — that's exactly what a relative strength portfolio is built to do when the index gets wobbly. Seventy-nine days in, the system sits at +8.7% against SPY's flat line over the same window, and not a single position closed today. Quiet afternoon. But quiet looks a lot different when the chart underneath it looks like ours.

What our open trades are doing

TEAM is doing the heavy lifting right now. Three Relative Strength Engine entries — days 44, 43, and 22 — are up 24%, 23%, and 19% respectively. At $222.11, TEAM is one of those positions you want to stay boring and just keep climbing. So far, it has. HURN is right behind it. Entered on day 24 at $158.90, it's sitting at $193.35 — that's +21.7%, with an alpha of +21.7% against SPY over the same stretch. HURN has been quietly doing its job while louder names get the attention. HTFL shows up in three spots: days 23, 11, and 10. All three are sitting in the +9% to +10% range. The day-10 entry is actually the strongest on alpha — +11.9% over SPY during that window. Smaller-dollar name, but it's more than earning its place in the book. RNG is the newest name in the group, entered on days 15 and 16 — up +3.8% and +4.5% respectively. Early days, but the alpha numbers already look solid at +5.1% and +6.2%, especially since SPY has given back more than 1.7% since those entries. Then there's CRNX. Fourteen separate Relative Strength Engine entries, some going back 79 days, all showing +0.00% absolute return. That sounds bad until you check the alpha column — most of those positions are beating SPY by 0.5% to 1.8% each, because the stock has essentially flatlined while the index has been sliding. Not exciting. Not losing, either. The distinction matters.

Today's closed trades, post-mortem

No trades closed today. Nothing to post-mortem. The book sat still and let SPY do its thing — which, on a day like this, was exactly the right outcome.

What could change by tomorrow's open

The main thing to watch is whether TEAM holds above recent support if we get another red day on the index. A single 1%+ SPY drop didn't move the needle today — but two or three of those in a row will test every name in here. CRNX is the other one to keep an eye on. Fourteen entries and zero absolute gain is a defensible story as long as the stock holds. The moment it starts sliding while SPY stabilizes, that story gets harder to tell. And RNG deserves a watchful eye too — it's only been in the book two weeks, and we haven't seen how it handles a rough stretch yet.

What we're watching tomorrow

Tomorrow morning the engines run their usual scans. After a down day on SPY, relative strength names either prove they deserve the label or they don't. We'll find out soon enough which way CRNX tips.