THIS WEEK IN TREND: 21 August 2026

Commodities rallied together, equities paused, and the Barometer completed a round trip the market did not

The TTU Trend Barometer jumped 11 points to 50 percent this week, its largest single week gain of the current sequence and enough to recover 20 of the 22 points lost in the late July collapse. The five week sequence now reads 52, 30, 34, 39 and 50. The 10 day rate of change accelerated to Rising Moderately, a second consecutive positive reading. On the surface, a full recovery in five weeks.

The return figure tells a quieter story. The SG Trend Index improved from 8.80 percent to 9.12 percent year to date, an advance of roughly 0.32 percentage points. A week earlier the Barometer added only 5 points and the year to date figure improved by roughly 1.70. Twice the environment gain this week, a fraction of the return gain.

Breadth explains none of the difference. Exactly 31 of 49 contracts advanced, the same count as the previous week, to the contract. What changed was amplitude. The portfolio average more than doubled from 0.80 percent to 1.97 percent, and the spread from best contract to worst reached 25.94 percentage points. Markets travelled much further without more of them travelling.

The difficulty for a trend following portfolio is where that extra distance was covered. Bitcoin rose 21.86 percent against a decline that has run since the start of the year. Platinum, Silver and Gold recovered inside falls from their February highs without reclaiming those highs. Equity Indices fell 1.87 percent with all seven contracts lower, ending a four week advance from levels still close to recent peaks. Those were the week’s largest numbers, and a portfolio positioned with the prevailing direction was more likely leaning against them than holding them.

The moves that extended something already underway were smaller and fewer. Energy advanced for a second consecutive week, which begins to make last month’s sharp reversal look more like a turn. Sugar resumed the breakout that appeared to stall a week ago, and Cotton pressed the highest level on its chart. Meats declined for a fourth week and the VIX for a fifth.

None of this makes 50 percent the wrong reading. Trend strength measures the persistence available in a market. It does not measure the persistence a portfolio was positioned to receive. This week the gap between those two things was the entire story, and it is worth remembering that rising markets are not automatically good for trend followers and falling markets are not automatically bad. Both directions pay when they persist. Neither pays when they turn.

Top Movers (Up)

Bitcoin (Crypto) +21.86 percent

Platinum (Metals) +7.90 percent

Silver (Metals) +6.79 percent

Crude Oil WTI (Energy) +6.64 percent

Crude Oil Brent (Energy) +6.63 percent

Top Movers (Down)

Nikkei 225 (Equity Indices) -4.08 percent

Nasdaq 100 (Equity Indices) -2.50 percent

Canola (Grains) -2.42 percent

VIX (Volatility Index) -2.14 percent

Russell 2000 (Equity Indices) -1.72 percent

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