Every half hour resolved before 10:00, and none of the five hours reached a rail

The week at a glance

Every number here is transcribed from the capture of that window. Nothing is inferred and nothing is computed after the fact.

Regime is the table's tag, which measures this box against the whole history; the tag printed on the box itself measures it against the last five sessions, so the two can legitimately differ, though none of this week's ten boxes did: every window landed in the same bucket on both rulers. Mult is an output of that regime, never a setting, and every window here reads auto. Every three-way share set on this page sums to 100. Charts this week are 5-minute, so an outcome time is the bar in which the rail was crossed and is good to the bar. The session close is the 16:55 ET bar; the five windows that reached neither rail are scored to that bar, and none of the five hits printed on it. Both red folder USD releases are marked against their day: ISM Manufacturing at 10:00 ET on Tuesday, the bar on which the hour's box closed and five minutes after the half hour's rail was reached, and non-farm payrolls at 08:30 ET on Friday, thirty minutes before the box opened.

Morning by morning

The 30 minute window on the left, the 60 minute on the right. Click any chart to enlarge.

Monday 31 August

Friday's half-hour cell fired long again and price fell; the hour's short call reached nothing all day

30m Atlas mode ✗ · 60m Atlas mode, no target hit

The half hour drew 48 / 25 / 27 from 306 sessions, the cell Friday 28 August's half hour drew when the long call paid on the 09:55 bar. Monday it drew the same call, an 11.9 point target on Friday and a 14.9 point one here, and price went down instead, through the lower rail on the 09:55 bar. Same cell, same call, one each way, three days apart.

The hour drew 13 / 53 / 34 from 203 sessions for the fourth time on the gold record. Monday 10 August it fired short and price went up; Thursday 13 and Friday 28 August it fired short and price went down. Here it fired short with a 16.7 point target and price did neither. The box itself was the fall, from about 4499 to 4466, and the rest of the day sat inside it: 4466.8 to 4505.0 after the box, against rails at 4449.65 and 4516.25, to the 16:55 bar.

That is the first of five hours this week that reached no rail by the close, and the only one of the five that came no closer than eleven points to either. Its unresolved share was 34, a third of the cell, and the three earlier draws all resolved; a cell that has resolved when it was drawn does not tell you it will resolve.

• 30m box14.9 pt · compressed
• 60m box33.3 pt · normal
• 30m three-way48 / 25 / 27
• 60m three-way13 / 53 / 34
• 30m modeAtlas, long
• 60m modeAtlas, short
• Outcome30m down rail ~09:55 · 60m no target
• Durationsdisagreed

Tuesday 1 September

The half hour's abstain resolved before ISM printed; the hour's 72% lean stopped 2.8 points short

30m abstained and its rail landed · 60m Atlas mode, no target hit🔴 ISM Manufacturing PMI · 10:00 ET

The half hour drew 55 / 42 / 3 from 293 sessions, the cell Wednesday 26 August drew. It abstained then at 57% of the decided share and resolved up; it abstained here on the same share and resolved up, on the 09:55 bar, five minutes before the ISM print. The box was an expanded one, a 32.5 point fall and recovery, so the target at a quarter was 8.1 points.

The hour was a 42.6 point expanded box that closed on the ISM bar, and it read 72 / 12 / 16 from 211 sessions, 85% of the decided share, so Atlas mode fired long with a 10.7 point target at the quarter multiple. Price was already near the rail when the box closed: the post-box high was 4424.4 against a rail at 4427.15, 2.8 points short, and the afternoon then sold off to 4368.8, about five and a half points above the lower rail. Neither rail, to the 16:55 bar.

This is the first of three hours this week that stopped about three points from the upper rail. There is no scoring for nearly; the window is scored to the 16:55 bar on whether a rail printed, and none did. A 16% unresolved share is a small branch, and this was in it.

• 30m box32.5 pt · expanded
• 60m box42.6 pt · expanded
• 30m three-way55 / 42 / 3
• 60m three-way72 / 12 / 16
• 30m modeabstain, direction gate
• 60m modeAtlas, long
• Outcome30m up rail ~09:55 · 60m no target
• Durationsagreed

Wednesday 2 September

The half hour's long call paid on the first bar; the hour drew Tuesday's cell and missed its rail by three points

30m Atlas mode ✓ · 60m Atlas mode, no target hit

Gold rose about twenty-eight points in the half hour and the table read it as 81 / 16 / 3 from 226 sessions, a new cell for the record and, at 83% of the decided share, well over the gate. Atlas mode fired long with a 7.1 point target at the quarter multiple, and the first bar after the box closed went through the rail. The snip is one bar later than the others because the study finalises the box on the bar after it closes.

The hour kept climbing to a 56.1 point box, the widest on the gold record until Friday, and drew 72 / 12 / 16 from 211 sessions, which is Tuesday's hour cell. Tuesday it fired long and the post-box high stopped 2.8 points short. Wednesday it fired long with a 14 point target, price spiked to 4444.5 just after the box closed, against a rail at 4447.52, three points short, and price then spent the afternoon between about 4411 and 4438.

Two draws of a 72% cell, two unreached rails, both by about three points. The 16% branch has now taken both, which is not what the cell says will usually happen and is not evidence that it will not. The half hour and the hour agreed on direction both days; only the half hour resolved.

• 30m box28.3 pt · expanded
• 60m box56.1 pt · expanded
• 30m three-way81 / 16 / 3
• 60m three-way72 / 12 / 16
• 30m target7.1 pt at ×0.25
• 60m target14.0 pt at ×0.25
• Outcome30m up rail ~09:30 · 60m no target
• Durationsagreed

Thursday 3 September

The half hour's short paid on the 09:45 bar; the hour drew 24 / 44 / 32 a third time and reached nothing

30m Atlas mode ✓ · 60m Atlas mode, no target hit

The half hour was a 19.3 point normal box, the only normal half hour of the week, and it read 25 / 66 / 9 from 259 sessions: 72% of the decided share, 91% of comparable sessions resolving. Atlas mode fired short with a 9.7 point target at a half multiple, and the 09:45 bar fell through the rail. The tick printed at 4510.12, inside that candle's body, so on the snip it is hidden behind the candle; the table's tick against the down target is what shows it.

The hour drew 24 / 44 / 32 from 262 sessions, the cell that fired short on Tuesday 25 and Thursday 27 August and was wrong both times. Here it fired short again with a 20.3 point target. Price rallied instead, to 4558.6 against an upper rail at 4563.95, and then drifted to 4503.8 against a lower rail at 4482.95. Neither, to the 16:55 bar. Three draws of this cell: up, up, no target.

A 44% call that has now gone 0 for 3 is worth stating plainly and then leaving alone. The cell says 44 of 68 decided sessions went down, which is 65%, and 32 of 100 decided nothing. Three sessions cannot contradict that; they can only be recorded against it, and they are.

• 30m box19.3 pt · normal
• 60m box40.5 pt · normal
• 30m three-way25 / 66 / 9
• 60m three-way24 / 44 / 32
• 30m modeAtlas, short
• 60m modeAtlas, short
• Outcome30m down rail ~09:45 · 60m no target
• Durationsagreed

Friday 4 September

NFP at 08:30, a 70 point hour box, and the quarter multiple paid on the half hour

30m Atlas mode ✓ · 60m abstained one point short of the gate, no target hit🔴 Non-farm payrolls · 08:30 ET

Non-farm payrolls, average hourly earnings and the unemployment rate printed at 08:30 ET, thirty minutes before the box opened, and gold ran through the whole hour. The half hour's box was 49.4 points, the hour's 70 points, the widest of the forty on the gold record. Both were tagged expanded and the ladder cut both to a quarter, putting the targets 12.3 and 17.5 points out.

The half hour read 81 / 16 / 3 from 226 sessions, Wednesday's cell, and Atlas mode fired long. Price paused for two bars after the box and the 09:45 bar went through the rail. Two draws of this cell, two hits, both before 09:50.

The hour read 51 / 33 / 16 from 288 sessions, which is 61% of the decided share against a gate of 62, so it abstained by a point. The lean was up and the post-box high was 4496.4 against a rail at 4499.5, 3.1 points short, before the afternoon ranged between 4458.5 and the mid 4480s. That is the third hour of the week to stop about three points under its upper rail, and the fifth to reach neither.

• 30m box49.4 pt · expanded
• 60m box70.0 pt · expanded
• 30m three-way81 / 16 / 3
• 60m three-way51 / 33 / 16
• 30m modeAtlas, long
• 60m modeabstain, direction gate
• Outcome30m up rail ~09:45 · 60m no target
• Durationsagreed

What the week actually showed

• The half hours resolved and the hours did not. All five 30 minute windows reached a rail by the 09:55 bar, one of them on the first bar after the box. None of the five hours reached a rail by the 16:55 bar, and three of those five stopped about three points under the upper one: Tuesday by 2.8, Wednesday by 3, Friday by 3.1. There is no score for nearly. The unresolved shares on those three were 16, 16 and 16, and the other two, Thursday's and Monday's, were 32 and 34.
• Atlas mode fired eight times, landed three of the four that resolved, and four of its calls went unresolved. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday's half hours all paid; Monday's half hour fired long on Friday 28 August's cell and price went the other way. The four unresolved calls were all hours. A week where the indicator declined nothing on the hour and the market declined everything is worth keeping on the record exactly as it is.
• Six cells repeated, two of them inside the week, and two now carry a plain pattern. The 72 / 12 / 16 hour cell fired long on Tuesday and Wednesday and stopped short of its rail both times. The 24 / 44 / 32 hour cell has now fired short on 25 August, 27 August and 3 September and gone up, up and nowhere. The 13 / 53 / 34 hour cell is one wrong, two right and one unresolved across four draws. On the half hour, 81 / 16 / 3 paid twice this week and 55 / 42 / 3 has abstained twice and resolved up twice. None of that is a trend; it is what the record holds.
• NFP expanded both boxes and the ladder did what it is for. Friday's hour box was 70 points, the widest of the forty on the gold record, and the half hour's was 49.4. Both went to a quarter, the half hour's 12.3 point target was reached on the 09:45 bar, and the hour's abstained one point short of the direction gate and then stopped 3.1 points short of its rail. A 17.5 point target on a 70 point box is the ladder saying the same thing it said on 19 August: an expanded box gets a nearer rail, not a wider one.
• Forty races over four weeks: thirty-one reached a rail, the favoured rail won twenty of those, Atlas mode fired twenty-four times and was right on twelve of the eighteen that resolved. These are published because the record has to accumulate somewhere, and they remain far too few to mean anything. The place to judge calibration is still the indicator's own realised versus expected rows, which sat between 66% and 79% against a 66% to 75% expectation across this week's captures, with every z between -0.4 and +1.2.