Fed blackout blocks all four, valid US 500 short left untraded

The evening review covered all four instruments and published nothing. The binding constraint is the Fed: the policy statement and the new projections land at 18:00 UTC, the press conference at 18:30, and the macro rule bars any entry inside the [T-4h, T+30min] window. At 16:45 UTC that puts us at T-1h15m. Two names would otherwise have qualified. US 500 traded at 7610.30 against a 20-day average of 7668.93, 0.95 ATR14 below it (ATR14 = 61.64 points), a clean short inside the 0.50-1.50 band. Gold at 4389.90 sits 1.09 ATR14 under its 4508.35 average (ATR14 = 108.63). Both were stopped by the calendar, not by the chart. US Tech 100 failed on its own merits, only 0.39 ATR14 from its 29307.06 average against a 0.50 floor. US 30 failed the other way, 2.02 ATR14 below its average against a 1.50 ceiling. The arithmetic agrees: an idea closing before 18:00 would leave 0.9 of 6.5 session hours, capping the target at 0.38 ATR while a 1.5 reward-to-risk needs 0.75. VIX at 16.80, down 2.33%, was never the obstacle.