*909 combinations. 69.3% beat SPY. The signal is consistent — and it works in both directions.*

---

Twenty-seven weeks of live tracking. The backtest has now tested **909 combinations** of portfolio rules, streak lengths, and holding periods of up to 25 weeks.

The headline: **69.3% of all combinations generate positive average alpha vs SPY.** That is not a cherry-picked result — it includes every universe (Top 10, Top 20, Bottom 20), every streak length from 2 to 25 weeks, and every holding period from 1 to 25 weeks. The majority of combinations, across the full parameter space, outperform the benchmark.

---

## The Three Best Historical Portfolios

**Top 3 average return: +56.69% · Top 3 average alpha: +47.20% · SPY over same period: +9.48%**

All three top portfolios are Top 10, held between 15 and 16 weeks. The streak levels range from 2 to 3 — earlier entries than the streak 4-6 cluster that dominated earlier in the backtest.

**#1 — Top 10 · Streak 2 · Hold 16 weeks**

Return: +58.28% · Alpha: **+48.51%** · 17 stocks · Win rate: 52.9%

The new record alpha in the full dataset. 17 stocks across multiple entries, with MU (+193.67%), DELL (+183.87%), MRVL (+172.32%) and WDC (+138.39%) carrying the portfolio. Win rate of 52.9% — meaning this result is not driven by uniform outperformance but by a skewed distribution where the winners are very large.

**#2 — Top 10 · Streak 3 · Hold 15 weeks**

Return: +57.01% · Alpha: **+48.02%** · 14 stocks · Win rate: 57.1%

14 stocks with a slightly higher win rate than #1. MU (+211.28%) and WDC (+179.63%) lead. Includes Oil & Gas E&P exposure alongside the usual Tech and Basic Materials split.

**#3 — Top 10 · Streak 3 · Hold 16 weeks**

Return: +54.77% · Alpha: **+45.08%** · 13 stocks · Win rate: 61.5%

The highest win rate of the three. 61.5% of positions beat SPY over the 16-week holding period — a result that is harder to dismiss as being driven purely by outliers.

---

## What the Win Rate Tells You

The top 3 portfolios show win rates between 52.9% and 61.5%. This matters more than it might seem.

A portfolio with a 50% win rate and a very high average return is being driven by a few extreme outperformers — the average looks good but the experience of holding would be uncomfortable. A portfolio with a 61.5% win rate means that in 8 out of 13 positions, the stock beat SPY. That is a more robust signal, not just a statistical artifact of one or two extraordinary names.

As streak length extends to 17-19 weeks in the Top 10, win rates climb further — Top 10 Streak 2 at 19 weeks shows a **64.3% win rate** with +41.3% alpha. More time for the composite score to be recognized by the market.

---

## The Signal Works in Both Directions

The Bottom 20 — the 20 lowest-ranked stocks in the NorthMark index each week — shows the flip side of the composite score.

Bottom 20 Streak 14 at 1-3 weeks: **-9.14% alpha, 15.4% win rate.** Stocks that have been in the bottom of the ranking for 14 consecutive weeks show a strong negative signal in the short term — only 15.4% beat SPY in the first week, generating -9.14% average alpha.

This validation is important. The composite score does not just identify outperformers — it also identifies underperformers. The same model that finds MU and WDC before their recoveries also identifies the persistent laggards. **A system that only worked at the top of the distribution would be much less credible than one that works at both ends.**

---

## The Backtest Landscape — What 909 Combinations Show

*(See attached image — Backtest Landscape)*

The full heatmap reveals patterns that are not visible when looking at individual portfolios:

**The optimal holding window is 15-19 weeks for Top 10 entries.** Alpha grows from week 8 through approximately week 17-18, then starts to compress. This is the clearest evidence yet of an optimal holding horizon — the signal is not indefinitely compounding.

**Short streak + long hold = strong signal.** The best combinations in the dataset are streak 2-3 in the Top 10 held for 15-19 weeks. Not streak 6-8 as earlier analysis suggested. The model activates earlier than expected — you do not need six weeks of top-ranking validation before the alpha materializes.

**Very long streaks (15+) in the Top 10 show negative alpha at medium holding periods.** Stocks that have been in the Top 10 for 15 or more consecutive weeks do not show meaningful short-term momentum advantage — and in some combinations show negative alpha. This has a practical implication for the current streaks.

---

## Current Portfolios — Live Performance

*(See attached image — Current Portfolios)*

The three historical portfolios continue to be tracked beyond their optimal holding periods:

**Portfolio #1 — Top 10 · Streak 2 · 25 weeks held**

Current return: +24.72% · Current alpha: +12.90%

MU still leading at +120.75%, WDC at +61.32%. Gold names have partially recovered — NEM now at +2.86%, B at -4.33%. AEM remains the biggest drag at -13.39%.

**Portfolio #2 — Top 10 · Streak 3 · 24 weeks held**

Current return: +34.39% · Current alpha: +21.23%

The strongest live performance of the three at this holding period. MU +133.99%, WDC +66.18%. Notably, NEM and B are now slightly positive — the Gold rotation that was dragging these portfolios has partially reversed.

**Portfolio #3 — Top 10 · Streak 3 · 24 weeks held**

Current return: +34.39% · Current alpha: +21.23%

Same composition and period as #2. The consistent live alpha of +21% at 24 weeks, well past the theoretical optimal window, suggests the portfolios are holding their gains rather than fully reverting.

---

## Current Streaks — August 30, 2026

**B, NEM, FSLR, TSM** — 27 consecutive weeks in the Top 10.

**MU** — streak 23. Score 69.97.

**WDC** — streak 18. Score 71.94.

One important note: the backtest landscape shows that very long streaks (15+) do not produce strong forward alpha in the short term. B, NEM, FSLR, and TSM at 27 weeks have been validated consistently — but their signal value as **new entries** at these streak lengths is limited by the data. The composite score still considers them high-quality, but the streak-based momentum signal is most powerful at streak 2-5, not streak 27.

**New entries this week:** LYG, AEM, CFG, EQT (all at streak 1) — worth watching for future signal development.

---

## The Honest Summary at Week 27

After 27 weeks and 909 tested combinations, the three most durable conclusions are:

**The entry point matters more than persistence.** Streak 2-3 beats streak 6-8 in the full dataset. You do not need to wait for extended validation before the signal is real.

**The holding window has an upper bound.** Alpha peaks around 16-18 weeks for Top 10 entries, then compresses. This is not a failure of the model — it is the market catching up to what the composite score identified.

**The signal is bilateral.** Bottom 20 streak 14 shows -9.14% alpha with a 15.4% win rate. The same model that finds the winners also finds the persistent laggards. That symmetry is the most credible evidence that NorthMark is measuring something real.

---

*NorthMark ranks 453 stocks weekly using a composite score across Growth, Valuation, Quality, and Momentum. 27 weeks of tracking · 909 combinations tested · Max holding period: 25 weeks. All backtest prices sourced from Yahoo Finance adjusted close. Benchmark: SPY. Returns are equal-weighted and exclude transaction costs. Past results do not guarantee future returns. This is not investment advice.*

The NorthMark Top 25 has been updated.

This week, SanDisk (SNDK) returns to the #1 position with a NorthMark Score of 80.7, narrowly ahead of Micron Technology (MU) at 80.5 and Barrick Mining (B) at 78.4.

NVIDIA (NVDA) makes a notable move into the #4 position with a score of 74.4, while Newmont (NEM) completes the Top 5 at 73.8.

Technology remains the dominant sector at the top of the ranking, accounting for 6 of the Top 10 positions and 12 of the Top 25.

NorthMark ranks stocks systematically across four dimensions:

Growth · Valuation · Quality · Momentum

But a high score in a single week is only the starting point.

Our research increasingly focuses on persistence: which companies can remain among the highest-ranked stocks week after week, and whether that persistence translates into stronger forward returns.

That is where the ranking becomes a testable investment signal rather than simply a weekly leaderboard.

Updated: August 28, 2026
Source: NorthMark Research

#StockMarket #Investing #QuantInvesting #EquityResearch #StockRanking #FactorInvesting #NorthMark

Executive Summary

July delivered another step in the right direction for inflation.

Headline inflation increased just 0.1% month-over-month, while annual CPI slowed from 3.5% to 3.4%. Core inflation rose 0.2% during the month and eased to 2.5% year-over-year.

At first glance, the message is straightforward.

Inflation continues to cool.

But the underlying picture remains more complicated.

The sharp energy-driven decline that defined June was not repeated, yet annual inflation still moved lower. That makes July important: disinflation continued even without another major collapse in energy prices.

The Federal Reserve is getting closer to the inflation environment it wants.

It just isn’t there yet.

The Numbers That Matter

IndicatorJulyPreviousCPI MoM+0.1%-0.4%CPI YoY3.4%3.5%Core CPI MoM+0.2%0.0%Core CPI YoY2.5%2.6%

The Story Behind The Headline

June’s inflation improvement had a clear protagonist:

Energy.

July tells a different story.

The dramatic energy decline was not repeated, but headline inflation still increased only modestly and the annual rate continued moving lower.

That distinction matters.

A sustainable disinflation trend cannot depend indefinitely on falling gasoline prices. Eventually, underlying categories need to cooperate.

July provides another indication that inflationary pressure is gradually becoming less intense across the economy.

Inflation isn’t gone.

But the direction continues to improve.

Shelter Remains The Key

Shelter remains one of the most important variables in the inflation story.

Housing carries an enormous weight in the CPI calculation and has been one of the most persistent sources of inflation throughout the cycle.

June provided an encouraging signal when shelter increased just 0.1%, its smallest monthly increase since early 2021.

The question now is whether that moderation can persist.

If shelter inflation continues cooling, the path toward lower core inflation becomes considerably easier.

If it accelerates again, progress toward the Fed’s target could stall.

For investors, shelter remains one of the most important components to watch in the coming months.

Why Core Inflation Matters More

Headline inflation gets the headlines.

Core inflation tells us more about persistence.

Core CPI increased 0.2% in July, after being unchanged in June.

That might appear like a deterioration.

But the annual rate still declined from 2.6% to 2.5%.

This is an important distinction.

Monthly inflation will rarely fall in a straight line. What matters is whether the underlying trend continues moving toward price stability.

For now, it does.

The Federal Reserve still needs additional confirmation, but the inflation problem increasingly looks like one of persistence rather than acceleration.

Winners and Losers Inside the Report

Areas Providing Relief

• Lower annual headline inflation

• Lower annual core inflation

• Continued moderation in underlying price pressures

• Reduced inflation breadth

• Improving shelter trend

Areas Still Worth Watching

• Shelter

• Services inflation

• Food prices

• Energy volatility

• Month-to-month core inflation

What It Means For Investors

If the current disinflation trend continues:

• Treasury yields face less upward pressure as expectations for additional monetary tightening decline.

• Growth stocks benefit because lower expected interest rates increase the present value of future cash flows.

• Consumer discretionary companies benefit if slower inflation translates into improving real purchasing power.

• Rate-sensitive sectors become increasingly attractive if markets begin pricing the end of restrictive monetary policy.

• Valuation multiples receive support as the probability of materially higher discount rates declines.

But there is an important difference between inflation falling and inflation being defeated.

At 3.4% headline CPI, inflation remains above the Federal Reserve’s long-term objective.

The direction is favorable.

The destination has not yet been reached.

NorthMark Take

Markets focus on whether inflation beats expectations.

Investors should focus on whether the inflation regime is changing.

June delivered a dramatic headline improvement driven largely by energy.

July delivered something potentially more important:

continuation.

Headline inflation moved lower.

Core inflation moved lower.

And the improvement continued without another extraordinary decline in energy prices.

That makes the June-July sequence more meaningful than either report viewed in isolation.

The inflation problem is gradually shifting from one of broad acceleration to one of persistent pockets of pressure.

For the Federal Reserve, that reduces the urgency to tighten further.

For investors, it changes the question.

The debate is becoming less about:

“How high will rates go?”

And increasingly about:

“How long will they stay restrictive?”

That is a meaningful change in the macro regime.

But one that still needs confirmation.

Week 25 adds another layer of evidence to the NorthMark live backtest.

Across 768 combinations of ranking position, persistence and holding period, 64.2% currently produce positive average alpha versus SPY.

The strongest historical portfolios remain concentrated in the Top 10, with the three leading strategies averaging:

+64.76% return
+54.86% alpha
vs. +9.90% for SPY

The strongest individual result currently comes from Top 10 · Streak 3 · 15-week hold, with a +65.41% average return and +55.87% alpha.

But perhaps the most important observation is not the absolute return.

After 25 weeks of live tracking, the same general pattern continues to appear: stocks that reach the highest ranks and persist there have historically produced the strongest results.

At the same time, the current portfolios remain ahead of SPY, although by considerably smaller margins than the historical averages.

That distinction matters.

The objective of this experiment isn’t to find the best-looking backtest. It’s to determine whether the signal survives forward in time.

Week 25: it still does.

The NorthMark Top 25 has been updated for the week of August 16, 2026.

Micron Technology (MU) takes the #1 position with a NorthMark Score of 80.4, followed by Barrick Mining (B) at 78.3 and SanDisk (SNDK) at 78.2.

Technology continues to dominate the upper end of the ranking, with MU, SNDK, TSM, WDC, FSLR and NVDA all appearing inside the Top 8.

This week’s Top 25 reflects NorthMark’s systematic assessment across four dimensions:

Growth · Valuation · Quality · Momentum

The ranking is updated weekly across our equity universe to identify companies where multiple fundamental and market signals are aligning.

The important question isn’t only who ranks highest today, but who can remain there over time.

That persistence is what we track next.

NorthMark Research | Weekly Quantitative Equity Ranking
Updated: August 16, 2026

#Investing #StockMarket #QuantInvesting #EquityResearch #StockRanking #ValueInvesting #GrowthStocks #NorthMark

For much of the post-pandemic period, the U.S. labor market seemed remarkably difficult to break.

Interest rates rose. Inflation surged. Financial conditions tightened. Growth repeatedly threatened to slow.

Yet employment kept expanding.

July may represent a meaningful change in that story.

The U.S. economy lost 23,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in July, while the unemployment rate edged down to 4.1%. At first glance, those two numbers appear contradictory.

They aren’t.

The deeper message from the July employment report is that the labor market is not collapsing — but its capacity to generate new jobs has deteriorated considerably.

And perhaps more importantly, previous estimates now suggest that the slowdown started earlier than we thought.

The Headline

The July numbers can be summarized quickly:

IndicatorJuly 2026Nonfarm Payrolls-23KUnemployment Rate4.1%Labor Force Participation61.4%Employment/Population58.9%Average Hourly Earnings$37.62Wage Growth YoY+3.2%Average Workweek34.3 hours

But the headline payroll number alone understates what happened.

The three-month average increase in nonfarm payrolls has fallen to only 20,000 jobs per month. Private payrolls increased by 30,000 in July, while government employment fell by 53,000.

That is no longer a labor market creating jobs at anything close to the pace investors became accustomed to during the previous expansion.

1. The Real Story Is in the Revisions

Monthly employment numbers are estimates.

And estimates change.

May payroll growth was originally reported at +129,000. It has now been revised down to +63,000.

June was originally reported at +57,000. It has now been revised down to only +20,000.

Combined, May and June employment was therefore 103,000 jobs lower than previously reported.

That changes the interpretation of July.

A single month of -23,000 jobs could easily be statistical noise.

But:

May: +63K
June: +20K
July: -23K

tells a different story.

The issue is no longer one weak employment report.

It is a trend.

The chart on page 1 of the BLS report makes that deterioration particularly visible: after several strong payroll prints earlier in 2026, monthly employment growth has progressively moved toward zero and finally turned negative in July.

2. Unemployment Fell — But Not for the Best Reason

Normally, falling unemployment is good news.

July requires a closer look.

The unemployment rate declined from 4.2% to 4.1%, while the number of unemployed workers fell by approximately 178,000 to 6.9 million.

But employment itself also fell.

The household survey shows:

Employment: -87,000
Labor force: -264,000
Not in labor force: +381,000

The unemployment rate therefore declined partly because fewer people were participating in the labor market.

Labor-force participation fell another 0.1 percentage point to 61.4%.

More importantly, participation has declined 0.7 percentage point since January, while the employment-to-population ratio has fallen 0.5 percentage point to 58.9%.

That distinction matters.

A falling unemployment rate driven by strong hiring is bullish.

A falling unemployment rate accompanied by declining employment and shrinking participation is considerably less reassuring.

3. Where Are the Jobs?

The weakness wasn’t evenly distributed.

Major July employment changes

SectorJobsGovernment-53KLeisure & Hospitality-40KRetail Trade-19KFinancial Activities-14KConstruction+22KHealth Care & Social Assistance+23KProfessional & Business Services+18KInformation+11KTransportation & Warehousing+10K

One of the largest declines came from local government education, which lost approximately 50,000 jobs.

Retail lost another 19,000.

Financial activities continued a longer deterioration, losing approximately 14,000 jobs in July. Employment in the sector is now 121,000 below its May 2025 peak.

Health care once again provided an important source of employment growth.

But even here there is a warning.

Health-care employment increased by approximately 22,000, compared with an average monthly gain of 36,000 during the previous 12 months.

Even one of the strongest structural engines of U.S. employment creation is slowing.

4. The Private Economy Has Not Stopped Hiring

There is an important nuance.

The headline -23,000 payroll number makes July look slightly worse than the underlying private economy.

Private payroll employment actually increased by approximately:

+30,000

Government employment declined by roughly:

-53,000

Meanwhile, goods-producing employment increased by approximately 25,000, including +22,000 in construction.

So this is not yet a broad-based contraction across American businesses.

The more accurate description is:

Hiring has become extremely weak and increasingly concentrated.

That is very different from saying the economy is already experiencing a generalized employment collapse.

5. Wages Are Still Holding Up

This is where the picture becomes more complicated for the Federal Reserve.

Average hourly earnings reached $37.62, increasing just two cents during July.

But wages remain 3.2% higher than a year ago.

Average hourly earnings for production and nonsupervisory workers reached $32.40.

The average private-sector workweek remained unchanged at 34.3 hours.

So far, weakening employment demand has not translated into a dramatic collapse in wage growth.

That creates an unusual combination:

Hiring ↓

Participation ↓

Payroll momentum ↓

but

Wages +3.2% YoY

For monetary policy, that distinction matters enormously.

6. Is This the Beginning of a Recession?

Not necessarily.

There is an important difference between a labor market that is weakening and one that is breaking.

July provides considerable evidence for the first.

It does not yet conclusively demonstrate the second.

The unemployment rate remains only 4.1%. Permanent job losers were roughly unchanged at 1.7 million. Part-time employment for economic reasons remained around 4.8 million. Long-term unemployment actually edged lower to approximately 1.8 million.

There is therefore no obvious sign yet of the self-reinforcing employment deterioration normally associated with a recession:

layoffs → lower income → weaker consumption → lower corporate revenue → more layoffs.

But the margin for error is narrowing.

When payroll creation approaches zero, relatively small economic shocks can push employment into contraction.

7. The NorthMark Lens

For investors, employment matters because it connects several of the most important variables in financial markets:

Employment → Income → Consumption → Corporate Earnings

and simultaneously:

Employment → Wages → Inflation → Federal Reserve → Interest Rates → Valuations

July changes both sides of that equation.

Slower employment growth increases downside risk to consumption and eventually corporate earnings.

At the same time, a weaker labor market gives monetary policy more reason to become accommodative — provided inflation allows it.

This is why weak employment data can initially be bullish for equities.

Lower expected rates increase the present value of future cash flows.

But there is a limit.

If employment weakness becomes economic contraction, the earnings effect eventually overwhelms the valuation benefit.

The market therefore needs something very specific:

Weak enough to reduce monetary pressure.

Not weak enough to destroy earnings.

July moved the economy closer to that boundary.

8. What We Are Watching Next

The next employment reports become considerably more important.

Three indicators deserve particular attention.

Payroll revisions. Another round of large downward revisions would suggest that the labor market is weaker than the headline monthly releases initially indicate.

Labor-force participation. The decline from the beginning of the year deserves attention. Continued deterioration could make the unemployment rate look artificially resilient.

Breadth of employment. Health care has been doing a disproportionate amount of the work. A healthy expansion normally produces employment across a wider range of industries.

There is also another unusually important event ahead.

The BLS will publish its preliminary annual benchmark revision on August 28, comparing establishment-survey estimates with the more comprehensive Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages.

Given the magnitude of recent revisions, that release deserves close attention.

Final Take

July’s employment report is not a recession signal by itself.

But it is a warning.

The most important number is arguably not -23,000.

It is +20,000 — the average monthly payroll gain over the latest three months.

An economy that was once creating hundreds of thousands of jobs each month is now operating close to employment stall speed.

At the same time, unemployment remains relatively low and wages continue growing above 3%.

That leaves the U.S. economy in an increasingly narrow corridor between two risks:

inflation that remains too persistent for aggressive easing,

and

employment growth that may be becoming too weak for restrictive policy.

For investors, the question has therefore changed.

It is no longer simply:

Is the labor market strong?

The better question is:

How much further can it slow before weakness becomes contraction?

That is the line NorthMark will be watching.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — The Employment Situation, July 2026. The report was released on August 7, 2026.

Week 26 adds another data point to the NorthMark live backtest — and the strongest historical signals continue to come from the Top 10.

Across 702 tested combinations, 65.2% currently generate positive average alpha versus the S&P 500.

The strongest signal in the landscape is now:

Top 10 · Streak 3 · 15-week hold
Portfolio return: +71.31%
Alpha vs. SPY: +61.67%

The three best historical portfolios now average a +68.56% return and +58.54% alpha, compared with an average +10.01% SPY return over their corresponding periods.

There is also an important pattern beneath the headline numbers: persistence matters. Stocks that repeatedly remain among NorthMark’s highest-ranked names have generated substantially stronger historical results than many of the weaker-ranking cohorts.

This is precisely what the live backtest is designed to test: not whether one weekly ranking works, but whether ranking strength + persistence + holding period can identify a repeatable investment signal.

26 weeks in, the evidence is becoming more interesting. The test continues.

NorthMark Research — Updated August 9, 2026

The NorthMark Ranking analyzes a broad universe of stocks using a proprietary quantitative framework built around four factors: Growth, Valuation, Quality, and Momentum.

Each company receives a composite NorthMark Score designed to identify stocks combining strong fundamentals, attractive valuations, business quality, and favorable market trends.

This week’s Top 25 represents the highest-ranked eligible stocks in the NorthMark universe as of August 9, 2026.

SNDK leads this week’s ranking with a NorthMark Score of 80.9, followed by MU at 80.2 and B at 78.5.

The ranking is updated weekly, allowing us to track not only who leads, but also which companies are gaining or losing strength over time.

NorthMark is an independent quantitative equity research project. Rankings are for research and informational purposes and are not investment recommendations.

Source: NorthMark Research