A streaming engine employed in a digital data processor specifies a fixed read only data stream. Once fetched data elements in the data stream are disposed in lanes in a stream head register in the fixed order. Some lanes may be invalid, for example when the number of remaining data elements are less than the number of lanes in the stream head register. The streaming engine automatically produces a valid data word stored in a stream valid register indicating lanes holding valid data. The data in the stream valid register may be automatically stored in a predicate register or otherwise made available. This data can be used to control vector SIMD operations or may be combined with other predicate register data.