Fletcher Friday Report: August 14, 2026

I saw a lot of green in the market this week — how about you? Welcome back to the Fletcher Friday Report. As always, we're taking a look at how Fletcher, my rules-based investing system, stacks up against the S&P 500. Fletcher delivers simple monthly buy, hold, and sell signals to subscribers, and each week I like to check in on the numbers together. Let's get into it.

A Quiet Week in the Broader Market

Before we dig into specifics, a quick word on the market at large. I've said before that I don't follow the general market too closely, though I do check in from time to time. This week felt a little quieter than last — less buzz overall. Maybe we're settling into what some call the "summer slump."

August and September have historically been softer months for trading — lower volumes, more people on vacation, that sort of thing. There's actually a well-documented pattern called the September effect, with research tracing back to the 1920s pointing to September as historically the weakest trading month of the year. I couldn't tell you exactly why, and it's not something I'm banking on one way or the other, but it's an interesting data point.

How Does Fletcher Hold Up Across the Calendar?

That got me wondering how Fletcher itself performs across different months, so I did some digging.

Backtesting to 2018, Fletcher's strongest months have been November and May. On the flip side, its weakest month has been March — and if you're wondering whether that's a coincidence, take a guess what happened in March of 2020. Add in the trade wars of 2024–2025 and the 2020 shutdown, and March has had plenty working against it. Rounding out the weaker months are October and December, which I find notable since they bookend the strong months of November and May.

This Week's Numbers

I know I harp on this every week, but time really is our friend here — short time periods just aren't good gauges of performance. To add a bit more perspective, I'm going to start including a 12-month trailing number each week, alongside our usual weekly, monthly, and year-to-date figures.

Here's where things stand:

• This week: Fletcher up almost 11%, while the S&P was essentially flat, gaining less than half a percent
• Month to date: Fletcher up nearly 14%, versus the S&P at around 2.5%
• Year to date: Fletcher at 152%, versus the S&P at around 14%
• 12-month trailing: Fletcher at 394% (I didn't pull an exact S&P figure, but I know it's nowhere near that — somewhere in the 20s)

On FOMO and Discipline

Every week tends to bring a recurring theme in conversations with subscribers — maybe that's just my own bias shining through — but this week it was all about FOMO, the fear of missing out. It ties back to something I talk about often: how I lean on Fletcher to keep my discipline in check so I'm not trading reactively or emotionally.

Fear does creep in for me sometimes, especially when prices are pulling back and sentiment turns negative. But I'm getting better at letting Fletcher do its job and just sitting with it rather than reacting.

A Note on Volatility

That said, there are a few things about Fletcher that keep me paying close attention to what's happening in the market — chief among them, volatility. Fletcher is volatile by design, because it goes where the growth is (or where it believes the growth is), and growth tends to come hand in hand with volatility. It's another argument in favor of thinking long-term rather than getting caught up in the short-term swings.

With that in mind, I took a look at Fletcher's worst single-month signal, using live data from 2026 combined with backtesting all the way to 2018. The worst signal came in at negative 40% in a month, while the best signal was a striking positive 142%. That's a big spread, and it says a lot about the volatility we're working with.

Here's the part that caught my attention: both of those extremes happened in 2026 — meaning this wasn't backtested data, but live results.

What's Next

As I've mentioned before, I love data, and I'm currently working on some additional data to share with you down the road. I don't want to get too far ahead of myself with specifics just yet — I'd rather make sure I can actually deliver what I'm hoping to before I say too much. So stay tuned.

That's it for this week. August is shaping up to be an exciting month — hope you'd agree. To learn more about Fletcher Signals, head over to FletcherInvestor.com. Have a great week, and I'll see you back here next Friday.