Are you positioned correctly for the next market move?
The MOTR Risk Gauge, built on principles that have guided investors through bull and bear markets for over 35 years, provides unbiased clarity in a noisy investment landscape. Here’s where it stands for the upcoming month…
September 1st, 2026 – For the first time in over 5 years, the MOTR Risk Gauge has achieved ‘Risk On.’ There can be a lot of questions derived from that statement alone, so let’s break down what it means and, almost equally as important, what it does not mean.
During this Bull Market that began in 2023, following the release of ChatGPT, which preceded the explosive growth and CAPEX spending from the hyperscalers, the MOTR Risk Gauge has oscillated between varying levels of ‘Risk On’ and ‘Mixed’. Even at its weakest, it never pulled the Long-Term time frame below the top half of ‘Mixed’. Therefore, we always stayed net long, but it also never reached ‘Risk On’ across all time frames, which would signal a broadening market and that finding shorts will be increasingly difficult. Throughout all of this, we have been able to pick off shorts when the Risk Gauge signals Overbought ‘Mixed’, and then cover those shorts and get long when we get Oversold ‘Mixed’.
However, the August development where the market broadened has allowed the Medium-Term (Monthly) time frame to achieve ‘Risk On.’ With the month-end reading ending as such, we have officially achieved a ‘Risk On’ reading across all time frames heading into September. To be very clear, this does not mean the market is just going to blast off from here. But what it does mean is that the structure and internals of the market are strong enough that, if we get weakness, and that is very likely considering how historically weak Septembers are, we should be buying that weakness.
The broadening out that we referred to included last month’s huge rally in Software, the return of Precious Metals, Biotech dominance, and even a rally in Capital Markets off the back of crypto improving. The next area we would have our eye on, now that the Risk Gauge is ‘Risk On,’ is Consumer Discretionary. The sector is quite washed out, with no MOTR Group ranked above 20, and Retail and Consumer Services being 26th and 27th, respectively, out of 28.
With all this being said, the Risk Gauge is designed to help inform you on what to do with Oversold and Overbought conditions. In this case, being ‘Risk On’ heading into September means we should be looking to buy any weakness we get. As always, we will be monitoring the U.S. Risk Gauge each week, along with the individual Gauges for each of the 11 sectors. If you want to start a free trial and receive those updates in your inbox every Monday, sign up (HERE).
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