A happy Sunday to you.
I was chatting with my now beardless friend Gianni Di Poce last week when he posed an interesting question…
Can you get a market plunge without tech names?
On its face, this seems absurd. But maybe it's not.
As Gianni discussed in his Wave Windows webinar last week (which I highly recommend you check out), markets don't go straight up or down.
They operate in cycles within cycles…like inception.
This isn't some hocus pocus or Elliot Wave discussion. Just an acknowledgement that:
- Seasonality patterns exist
- Markets can and do decouple
- You can take advantage of them
Despite a crappy end to last week's trading, tech stocks don't look too shabby.
Part of this is relates to what Professor Bierman said about software stocks: You can't die jumping out of a first floor window.
The IGV software ETF made a rather nice rebound last week. And although semiconductor stocks (SMH) closed near their lows, they don't look too bad.
So, how is it possible the market could still crash?
From a private credit crisis to war in the Middle East, there's no shortage of catalysts that could send tickers into a tailspin.
But that doesn't mean EVERYTHING goes down the same way.
Sure, correlation goes to 1 when broad-based selling takes hold. However, the rebounds aren't always equal.
Just look at how equities performed in the back half of 2020. Amazon jumped long before bank stocks caught a bid.
So, there's no reason that tech stocks can't find a bottom now, while the rest of the market has yet to take that step off the ledge.
The average CNBC viewer might not be able to tell the difference.
But savvy TheoTRADERs can.
Jordan Schneir
Editorial Director, TheoTRADE
Don Kaufman: Wall Street PhDs Missed by 151,000 jobs (and your 401k paid for it)
You know what happened to me this morning? I'm sitting here, coffee in hand, waiting for the jobs number like every other trader on the planet.
And these geniuses - and I mean GENIUSES with PhDs from fancy schools - these guys are forecasting 59,000 new jobs.
Fifty-nine thousand. They put that number out there like they actually know something.
Then 8:30 hits. The number comes out. Negative 92,000.
They said UP 59,000. Reality was DOWN 92,000. That's 151,000 jobs OFF.
You want to know how bad that is? If you were playing darts and aiming for the bullseye, you didn't just miss the board - you threw the dart backwards and hit the guy behind you.
I've been doing this for thirty years, okay? And I'm telling you right now, I could ask ChatGPT what the jobs number's gonna be, and it would give me a better forecast than these morons at Bloomberg and Goldman Sachs.
At least ChatGPT would say "I don't know" instead of pretending it has a crystal ball.
CLICK HERE to continue reading Don's article.
Brandon Chapman: Your Market Gains Are a Mirage
The S&P 500 is up roughly a thousand points over the last year.
So how is it possible to have bought and held through all that and STILL lose money?
One word: inflation.
And there's an easy way to understand this I want to show you today.
You see, measured against gold, the S&P 500 has lost 33% of its purchasing power since August.
The index has gone sideways in price while gold has ripped higher, and the gap between the two tells you what the nominal price chart does not.
A weakening dollar inflates the number on your screen. It creates the appearance of gains that do not exist in real terms.
In fact, Ghost Prints Surveillance Console has been flagging institutional call buying in GLD for weeks.
Gold was up 1.4% today while the S&P 500 sold off 75 points. The flow confirms what the ratio already showed.
The SPY/GLD ratio measures the real value of the market. And it's the key to understanding whether you're ACTUALLY making money.
Here's how it works.
CLICK HERE to continue reading Brandon's article.
Gianni Di Poce: The Fed Just Got Trapped. Here's What Comes Next.
The Fed just walked into a trap it cannot escape.
Naturally, everyone expects markets to crater.
But what if they're all wrong? Allow me to elaborate.
Surging oil prices have slammed the door on rate cuts while the labor market crumbles underneath.
Crude oil closed last Friday at $67.29.
Five days later, it pushed toward $95. That is a bigger move in a shorter window than the entire Ukrainian conflict produced.
In the same week, the economy shed over 90,000 jobs.
Normally, that kind of weakness hands the Fed a green light to cut. Not this time. You cannot ease monetary policy with energy prices spiraling out of control.
Most traders see chaos.
I see the setup forming for the best NASDAQ buying opportunity of 2026.
Here's how you can take advantage of it.
CLICK HERE to continue reading Gianni's article.
Jeff Bierman: Time is at Hand
Marcus Aurelius once told his people that a time would come when they would have forgotten everything. And a time would come when all would have forgotten them.
I put that quote on screen Thursday morning because the market needs to hear it right now.
The market does not need urgency right now. It needs reflection.
The S&P 500 has gone from a 4,800 handle to 7,000. That is a 30% move in a single year.
Now it pulls back 4%, and traders are lining up to buy the dip as if the whole correction is already over.
I have been doing this for 39 years. I have lost more money than most of you will ever see trying to buy dips like this one.
It gave me gray hair and vitiligo. It took years of pain before I learned one truth.
When the weekly MACD bends and goes waterfall, you are never getting out.
The Genesis Cog Scanner identifies when these weekly cycles roll over while the daily charts still look calm.
This weekend, I want to explain why this moment calls for patience instead of panic.
CLICK HERE to continue reading Jeff's article.
Blake Young: Your Gas Pump Is Telling You What to Trade
I filled up my truck last week and noticed the price had jumped again.
Most people see that higher number and feel defeated. They grumble, they pay, they drive away.
I looked at the same number and saw a trade signal.
On Thursday, crude oil broke through the $78 level I had been watching for weeks and pushed to $81. I told traders in our session that the crude-versus-copper divergence was flashing stagflation.
Rising costs. Falling demand.
The worst combination for consumers.
Then Friday happened.
Crude blew past $90 a barrel. The economy lost 92,000 jobs.
The Dow dropped nearly 500 points. Everything I warned about on Thursday arrived 24 hours later.
The trade I am about to lay out is still on the table. It matters more now than it did two days ago.
CLICK HERE to continue reading Blake's article.
Tony Rago: Map It Before Monday
Tuesday morning, the NQ opened into a firestorm.
Yet, I managed to avoid any serious pain. And it's a lesson I want to share with you today.
The VIX was above 25, and the overnight range had already carved out 641 handles.
Bars on the five-minute chart were printing 100 points each. I walked in with a plan anyway.
Before I touched a button, I had already mapped the session. If the 24,633 level converts to support, we go to 24,750.
If 24,750 holds, we go to 24,812. If we can get and stay above 24,833, the macro chart opens up even further.
Three conditional statements. That was the entire roadmap for a session where most traders were paralyzed by the size of the bars.
"If you guys have listened to me for any amount of time, you know that I'm a if X then Y kind of guy."
That approach produced the best trade of my week. It also kept me solvent on two days where the NQ tried its hardest to shake everybody loose.
Here's how I did it.
CLICK HERE to continue reading Tony's article.
