The CMRF Score

Where this fits. The headline metric of every report. CMRF tells you, in one number, whether the market is in a regime that rewards aggressive long entries or one that rewards sitting on hands. Every other section of the morning report stacks on top of it.

What CMRF stands for

CMRF is short for Composite Market Regime Framework. It's a scoring system that takes five different things about the market — trend, breadth, momentum, sentiment, structure — and combines them into a single number, plus a color label.

The composite score tells you the overall read. The color label tells you what to do about it.

What the five components measure

Each component captures a different angle on the same question: is the market healthy for swing-long trades right now?

• Trend — Are the major US indexes (SPY for the S&P 500, QQQ for the Nasdaq 100, IWM for the Russell 2000) above their key moving averages, and are those averages sloping up? An uptrend on the indexes is the most basic precondition.
• Breadth — Is the rally broad-based, or is it carried by a handful of names? When 70% of S&P stocks are above their 50-day average, the rally has participation. When only 40% are, it's narrow and fragile.
• Momentum — How fast is the market moving and how is the move sustained? Strong directional moves with follow-through suggest the regime has staying power; choppy back-and-forth suggests it doesn't.
• Sentiment — How are traders feeling? Surveys, the volatility index (VIX), put/call ratios. Extreme sentiment in either direction is informative; calm and balanced is constructive.
• Structure — Are key technical levels holding? Has the market broken below recent support or failed at recent resistance? Structure breaks early-warn the trend.

Each component gets a score from −2 to +2. The composite is the sum, so the total range is roughly −10 to +10.

What the score means in practice

| Composite | Regime | What it signals | |---|---|---| | +7 to +10 | 🟢 GRÜN+ | Strong thrust regime. Press long entries, full size. Rare — appears two to four times per year. | | +4 to +6 | 🟢 GRÜN | Constructive. Normal sizing, take the setups that pass the filters. | | 0 to +3 | 🟡 GELB | Caution. Reduce size, gate new entries to A+ setups only. | | −3 to −1 | 🟠 GELB-ROT | Deteriorating. Defensive. Mostly cash. | | −10 to −4 | 🔴 ROT | Hostile to longs. No new long entries. Manage existing positions defensively. |

The regime is the most consequential number in the report. Every other section — which strategies are live, what size to take, what stops apply — is downstream of it.

Why a composite instead of just one number

Any single market indicator can be wrong for weeks at a time. Trend can lag — the indexes can still be above their 200-day MAs while breadth is collapsing. Sentiment can spike to extreme bullish levels at major tops. Each component, alone, gives a noisy signal.

The composite cleans the signal up. It takes a read across five independent angles and combines them. When they agree, the composite is strong (positive or negative); when they disagree, the composite is muted — which is itself useful, because it says "the market is in transition, slow down."

The point isn't precision. The point is that one number condenses what would otherwise be five separate judgments into one decision-ready answer.

How to read it in the reports

In the daily report, the CMRF score sits at the top alongside the regime color. The five components are listed individually, so you can see which way each is leaning. If the composite is +4 but trend is +2, breadth is −1, momentum is +1, sentiment is +1, structure is +1 — that's a constructive regime that's quietly losing breadth, which often precedes a top.

In the weekly report, the CMRF read is forward-looking: this is what we expect for the coming five sessions. The components show which things would have to change to flip the regime up or down.

In the close report, the CMRF is the morning's read carried forward — the close doesn't recompute it. Instead, the close tags story stocks against the current regime so you know whether late-session moves confirm or contradict it.

What it isn't

CMRF is a swing-trader's regime read. It's optimized for the timeframe of holding positions for days to weeks. It doesn't say anything about intraday moves, day-trading edge, or long-term investment decisions. A GRÜN+ regime can still have a brutal intraday drawdown; a ROT regime can still produce big single-day rallies.

It also doesn't predict the market. CMRF is a read of current conditions, not a forecast. When the regime flips, the report flips with it — it doesn't pretend to have called the change in advance.

How to use it

Open the daily report. Look at the regime color first. That tells you whether to be aggressive, neutral, or defensive today. Look at the composite score — if it's near a regime boundary (e.g., +4, near the GELB-GRÜN edge), the regime is fragile and could flip. Look at the component breakdown — which signals are pulling which way? That tells you what to watch.

The whole rest of the report — what setups appeared, what risk level applies, what to watch tomorrow — is the system applying those defaults to today's specific candidates. The regime is the lens; the report is the view through it.