Market digest: what moved this week
It was a clean, strong week — a nice change of pace after the whipsaw action of the prior few.
Stocks rallied hard. The S&P 500 gained 3.6%, the Nasdaq jumped 5.2%, and the Dow added 3% — the S&P’s best week since April, closing Friday at a fresh record high.
The catalyst was a surprise jobs report. July payrolls showed a loss of 23,000 jobs, well below expectations. Weak as that sounds on its face, markets read it as cooling the odds of an aggressive Fed rate hike — Treasury yields fell on the news.
Tech carried the tape. Major tech earnings and continued strength in AI-adjacent names added fuel on top of the rate relief.
Oil stayed choppy, with crude sliding as markets weighed potential Middle East developments alongside supply adjustments.
SPY itself moved from $747.03 at last Friday’s close to $773.26 this Friday — a +3.5% week, right in line with the broader tape, and a new high along the way.
Where the signal stands
The Patala signal remained a BUY all week. No drama, no whipsaw — just a system riding a trend that’s now been intact for over four months.
Look at the last 8 weeks: the panic dip in late July, the snapback into month-end, and then this week’s clean push to new highs. The signal has been green the entire time — a continuous BUY since April 2, now 127 days running.
Here’s the full year for context — the February SELL that sidestepped the March drawdown, the April re-entry near the lows, and the long hold since, now sitting at a new high:
Why the “boring” weeks matter too
Last week’s letter was about the system holding through panic. This week is the other half of the story: the system doesn’t need good news to justify staying in, and it doesn’t chase good news to get more aggressive either. It just keeps reading price behavior.
A soft jobs report, a Fed-relief rally, a record close — none of that changes what the model does. It was a BUY before the jobs report and it’s a BUY after it. The signal isn’t reacting to headlines in either direction, which is exactly the point: out of 158 daily zones, only 11 trigger a SELL, and nothing about this week’s action came close to tripping that wire.
Guidance for the week ahead
The signal is a BUY, so the system says stay invested — same message as it’s been since April.
Next scheduled signal update: Saturday, August 15, 6:00 PM ET, right on the usual weekly clock. Between now and then, the plan doesn’t change based on headlines, earnings surprises, or how good the tape feels after a week like this one. That’s the discipline.
As always: this is not investment advice, and I’m not telling you what to do with your money. What I can tell you is what the discipline of the system calls for — follow the signal, don’t front-run the next update, and don’t let a great week talk you into “adding more” outside the plan any more than a terrible week should talk you into bailing. The whole 26-year edge comes from doing what the signal says and nothing more.
The bigger picture: this is what “staying invested” looks like over time
Here’s the signal on SPY over the last 10 years — green means invested, red means in cash.
Find 2020. Find the 2022 bear market. The red bands cluster exactly where the real damage happened — and notice how much green there is everywhere else, including the push to new highs on the right edge of the chart this week. The system spends most of its life invested, riding the trend, stepping aside only for genuine danger.
The last 10 flips
Full transparency, as always — every confirmed flip, with the SPY move captured or avoided during each:
A few honest observations:
The current BUY has held since April 2 — 127 days now — and is up +17.91%. That number keeps growing, and it’s the clearest illustration of why the long holds are where the system makes its money.
The whipsaws are in there too — the 1-day SELL in Feb 2025 and the 0-day flip a week earlier are right there in the table. We publish every confirmed flip, wins and losses both.
This week isn’t in the table because the signal didn’t flip — same as last week. The best weeks for a timing system are often the ones where it does nothing at all, whether the market is panicking or celebrating.
Full update next weekend.
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Disclaimer: This is not investment advice or a recommendation, and I am not a registered investment adviser. This publication is for informational and educational purposes only. The signal reflects a backtested and now live-tracked quantitative model; past performance, backtested or live, does not guarantee future results. Markets involve risk, including loss of capital. Consult a qualified financial adviser before investing. You are solely responsible for your own decisions.