Back to trackers

August 2026 · Published

American System Investment Builder — Productive-Capacity Screen vs a Paper Index

Live screen (education only, not advice). Open investments.digitalknowledge.net

A Productive-Capacity Screen vs a Paper Index National signals → business and local execution August 2026 · Published

This tracker is an education screen. It is not financial advice, a recommendation to buy or sell any security, a model portfolio you should copy, or a claim that past tape predicts future returns. Names appear so an operator can see what kind of company the American System filter keeps, parks as Red, or leaves off the list.

Lead: productive plants and yards on U.S. soil · two-gate filter · visa stack · $10,000 equal-weight paper sleeve vs SPYM · Green in the sleeve, Red on the list at $0. Start date does not move when the list grows.


1. Why this tracker exists

The other five trackers score policy: science and capacity, nuclear and quantum, the Federal Reserve, hemisphere security, sovereign workforce. Operators still ask a money question: if I want savings pointed at American productive strength, what does that look like next to a broad index?

Most index products do not ask whether the company makes anything here, or whether standing seats are a citizen pipeline or short-cycle temporary or visa labor used as a standing bench. This tracker does. It publishes a growing screen and a paper sleeve so the filter is visible — not so anyone is told to trade it.

Related trackers:

Screen surface: investments.digitalknowledge.net


2. Definitions (plain English)

  • Screen — a list of issuers that pass a written filter. Not a fund. Not a recommendation. Primary and secondary filters below are how a name gets on the list. They are not the same as the chips on the investments table.
  • Paper sleeve — a $10,000 equal-weight illustration vs SPYM (the same core holding used in the Trump Account default), started 29 July 2026. When a name is marked Green IN, it joins Sleeve Y. Equal-weight restates across current Sleeve Y from that original start. Not a recarve on the add day. Not simulated buys or sells. Numbers compare ideas. They are not an instruction to purchase. Live weights, the name list, and the returns snapshot live at investments.digitalknowledge.net.
  • SPYM — a broad U.S. equity market fund used here only as the benchmark line. We do not treat SPY and SPYM as interchangeable on this page.
  • Green — on the list and in the paper sleeve (Sleeve Y).
  • Green+Watch — on the list with one conversion question open. Sleeve Y or Sleeve N is a separate chip. Steel Dynamics is Green+Watch / Sleeve Y (floor labor unobserved). Deere, Lockheed Martin, and Cummins are Green+Watch / Sleeve N (workforce overlay). Do not read Green+Watch as automatic sleeve membership.
  • Red — on the list as American capability (plants, tools, or lines that matter here) but not in the paper sleeve. Weight = $0 until the overlay converts. Why this name is Red is in that row’s Watch note. Every Red row must have a Watch note. No Watch note, no Red on the public table.
  • Primary filter — does this issuer operate U.S. productive capacity we care about (yards, mills, enrichment, reactors, launch, 300-millimeter semiconductor lines, tools into those lines)? Pass this gate or the name is not on the list.
  • Secondary filter — after elevation: visa stack and whether U.S. operations are workforce-aligned. Operating in the United States is not workforce-neutral. Fail this gate and the name can stay on the list as Red.
  • Visa stack (observed) — public Department of Labor filings we can count: H-1B Labor Condition Applications (the form an employer files before hiring on an H-1B temporary work visa), H-2B / H-2A seasonal and temporary-worker petitions under the named employer and known subsidiaries, and PERM (the labor-certification step toward a green card). Missing data is Unconfirmed, not zero.
  • Floor labor (unobserved / observed) — people on the plant, mill, yard, scrap, or contractor floor whose status is not in the visa-stack filings: Temporary Protected Status (a time-limited humanitarian work authorization), Employment Authorization Documents (work cards issued for several non-immigrant categories), people without lawful status, and contractor crews the issuer does not petition for directly. Employers almost never publish this. Unobserved unless a filing, raid, 10-K, or union record says otherwise. Unobserved is not, by itself, a Red flip.
  • Global Capability Center (GCC) — a standing design, software, or manufacturing book outside the United States used as capacity, not as a sales office. A GCC as the model for core seats is why a firm can have U.S. plants and still fail the secondary filter (the Microsoft-class pattern).
  • Capacity class — one closed label for what this issuer actually makes or launches on U.S. soil (naval yard, enrichment, launch / space, and so on). We use a class so the table can be filtered by kind of capacity, not by a paragraph of marketing. The story behind the class sits in notes, not in the chip.

Lock: every public Red row carries a Watch note. Research owns the fill. Presentation does not invent it. Start date does not move.


3. Key policy and operational signals

Why a screen now. The other trackers already describe an administration that talks capacity, nuclear, yards, launch, and citizen seats. Equity tape often ran ahead of plants coming online. This page does not chase that tape. It asks whether the issuer still fits the filter after the run-up and the giveback.

Two gates, not a vibe.

  1. Elevate only if there is U.S. productive capacity in a class we named.
  2. Put it in the paper sleeve only if the visa stack and Global Capability Center test do not show short-cycle temporary or visa labor as the standing model for core seats.

Visa stack is the Sovereign Workforce pairing on a ticker. Naval yards and launch pads with export-control / clearance seats tend to pass gate two. Analog design benches and Global Capability Centers with hundreds of H-1B Labor Condition Applications in a year fail gate two and stay Red — still listed, because the capacity is real. The Watch note on that row is the public why.

Local pairing (Texas first, then Indiana). Sinton sheet (Steel Dynamics), Starbase / Bastrop / Terafab-area build (SpaceX), Sherman 300-millimeter lines (Texas Instruments, Red until design seats convert — see that row’s Watch note). Fort Wayne / Butler / OmniSource scrap-to-steel is the Indiana pairing. Local pairing means plants and citizen pipelines under the federal signal — not a ticker tip.

4 Sep 2026 list growth. MP Materials, GE Vernova, Freeport-McMoRan, and Cleveland-Cliffs marked Green / Sleeve Y. Deere, Lockheed Martin, and Cummins marked Green+Watch / Sleeve N. Equal-weight restates from 29 July 2026 across twelve Sleeve Y names. The start date did not move.


4. Scorecard

American System Investment Builder — Scorecard

(Refresh when a name changes status, when visa-stack filings move a gate, or when the published table grows.)

DimensionCurrent readingIncomplete looks like
Screen integrityRising — two gates, closed lists, Watch notes required on every Red; 18 names on the guideMood tickers; Red rows with no Watch note; dropping columns instead of encoding Notes
Paper sleeve vs SPYMRising — 12 Sleeve Y × $833.33 from 29 July 2026; last print 26 Aug sleeve $11,167 +11.7% vs SPYM $10,493 +4.9% (+6.8 pp)Publishing prices as advice; mixing SPY and SPYM; putting Red or Watch-N names in the $10,000; moving the start date
Visa stack (observed)Rising — Reds rest on counted H-1B Labor Condition Applications and Global Capability Centers; H-2B Unconfirmed where no petition foundTreating Unconfirmed as zero; H-1B-only filter
Floor laborIncomplete — Unobserved on every row; STLD is Green+Watch / Sleeve Y because scrap and contractor seats are the plausible dark pathInventing mill-floor headcount; flipping Red on suspicion

The paper sleeve, name list, Watch notes, returns snapshot, and filter chips live at investments.digitalknowledge.net. On apex this block is the embedded app. On source it is that link.


5. Hamiltonian / productive-sovereignty readout

Hamilton’s system was never “buy the market.” It was credit and attention pointed at what the country must be able to make. Clay and Lincoln ran the same idea through tariffs and internal improvements. This page is a public version of that filter applied to listed companies: plants and yards first, then whether the seats under those plants are a citizen base or a rented bench.

Red is not a morality play and not a short thesis. Texas Instruments still pours 300-millimeter wafers in Texas. Caterpillar still pours iron and builds power modules here. Applied Materials still sells the tools those lines buy. They stay on the list because the capacity is American System-relevant. They stay out of the paper sleeve because the observed visa stack and, where present, the Global Capability Center say U.S. operations are not workforce-aligned yet. Conversion would be a scorecard event — execution, not a press release.


6. Implications for business and local leaders (next 6–12 months)

  1. Read Red as a workforce design problem, not as “bad stock.” If your firm looks like TXN/CAT/AMAT on visas and a Global Capability Center, you will not pass this screen. That is the point of pairing Sovereign Workforce with this page.
  2. Name the plant, not the ticker. Sinton, Starbase, Butler, Newport News, Portsmouth enrichment, Lynchburg naval nuclear, Mountain Pass, Greenville, Burns Harbor — those are local pairing sites. Workforce boards and schools attach to sites.
  3. Do not confuse tape with throughput. Several of these names already had an optimistic run when the administration named the sector. Plants still take years to show up in revenue. This page tracks the filter, not an entry (long/short).
  4. Paper first. If you use the sleeve at all, use it as a comparison vs SPYM on paper. Personal rules, lot management, and Class A/B structure stay off this tracker.
  5. Watch conversion, do not narrate it early. GDIT aligning to the yard core, Jewett/Canada moving, Applied Materials winning 300-millimeter tool packages into U.S. mega-fabs (including the Terafab-area build) instead of staying Asia-weighted — those are future scorecard lines when they happen.


7. Execution bridge

Policy and screens only matter when they change operating choices.

This tracker does not sell stock picks. It sells the same operating system the modules already teach, with a visible screen attached.


8. Out of scope (explicit)

  • Buy / sell / overweight / underweight instructions.
  • Personal Investment Framework rules, tax lots, and coach Class A/B levels.
  • Copy-trade, white-label partners, or “prove the sleeve.”
  • Treating Unobserved floor labor as a headcount.
  • Treating a snapshot print as a forecast that the sleeve will keep beating SPYM.
  • Moving the 29 July 2026 start when names are added.


9. Signal sources (ongoing pulse)

Standing (confirmations only): @WarClandestine · @PrometheanActn · @TheDebriefing17

This tracker’s weight: DOL H-1B Labor Condition Applications and H-2B / H-2A disclosure files · 10-K / 10-Q geography · NRC / NAVSEA / launch-license and ITAR constraints as why a seat cannot be a visa bench · plant-level pairing (Texas, Indiana, Virginia, Connecticut, Rhode Island yards) · nuclear fuel-cycle and yard signals that change a name’s class.

Confirmations change Status, Sleeve, or visa-stack cells. Hypotheses stay in Notes until they become a closed-list value.


Status: Published 26 Aug 2026. Living scorecard refreshes when visa-stack filings or Watch notes move. List grown 4 Sep 2026. Screen: investments.digitalknowledge.net.

Copyright © 2026 Digital Knowledge / Patriots Locked In and In Control.