Hello All,
Hope you’re all enjoying the weekend & have been able to get some time away from the screens.
Jumping straight into it, this past week was a whippy one, with markets generally remaining quiet leading up to the Midterms. Following the election results, the indices initially fell by roughly 2% in the overnight session before reversing course and recovering all of those losses. However, the following day brought the worst session of the year for the major indices, with the Nasdaq suffering its largest single-day decline since Covid, closing lower by nearly 7%.
Ultimately, the Nasdaq finished the week down 5%, making it the worst performing of the major indices, whereas the Dow held up relatively well, finishing lower by just under 100bps on the week and outperforming its peers, largely thanks to its more defensive composition.
- Economic Data for the Coming Week:
Looking ahead into the upcoming week, it’s a relatively important one, with CPI #’s taking place on Tuesday as well as PPI #’s on Friday, as the lingering question remains, especially following Friday’s hotter-than-expected jobs report, of how much the Fed ultimately hikes & whether or not a hiking cycle is warranted.
- STD Channels on Indices for Perspective: Weekly TF
- SPY
- QQQ
- IWM
- DJIA
Since starting this Substack back in June of ‘23, between individual names / tactical trades / baskets, we have netted a 197.74% return whilst in the same period, the Q’s have returned 86.83% / Spooz has returned 77.34% / Dow has returned 60.22% & Small-caps have returned 57.27%, so nice outperformance against all the indices whilst having a 79.8% win rate, averaging a 27.14% return on realized gains / winners & a 15.14% loss on realized losses / losers.
Looking forward to the future & continued success through ‘26.
And for anyone who wants to follow an actively managed portfolio in real time:
I’ve joined Plutus as the cleanest, day-to-day way to track an actively managed portfolio in real time. It’s a live dashboard that’s broader, more diversified, actively managed by me, & updated continuously.
The Eliant Flagship is published on RunPlutus.
Once your Plutus account is approved, you’ll have the option to allocate right away. If you do, it’s straightforward: create an account, link your brokerage (Available only for IBKR at this time), & select the Eliant Flagship (or any of the baskets I’ve built). Your money stays in your account, and trades, position changes, and rebalances are replicated automatically so there’s nothing manual to manage. The idea is to make it easier to access an actively managed portfolio run by me without the overhead of traditional fund structures or high minimums, whilst you keep full custody of your assets & I stay focused on research, positioning, and portfolio construction.
Earlier in 2024, we launched a series titled Educational Pieces, covering a wide range of topics, many of which were suggested directly by you all (4-Part Series).
For those who may have missed the first installment, it covered topics including:
General background / knowledge on all option strategies
In-depth talk on risk / reversals & how to go about expressing / utilizing them
Options Structuring
When to used naked calls / puts vs. spreads
Choosing expiration dates
Identifying key pivots / supports / resistance zones
General briefing on stock gaps
What to look for in regards to fundamentals
Implementing fundamental / macro / technicals into a trade
Hedging
Creating risk/reward setups
Taking profits / managing losses
Overall Process
Book recommendations
A link to the original Educational Piece can be found here .
Given the positive feedback and how useful many of you found the first installment, we followed up with Educational Piece: Part Deux earlier in 2025 & for those who may have missed, a link to the piece can be found here & we then went on to release Educational Piece: Part Trois which can be found here.
And finally, the most recent installment, Educational Piece: Part Quatre, can be found here.
‘Risk management is the silent prerequisite for compounding & true wealth is built not by chasing the highest returns but by ensuring the survival necessary to realize them.’
Before we jump into the week ahead, this past week was yet another example of participants rotating toward Value-oriented / Lower-volatility groups, which ended up being the best-performing factors on the week, whereas Growth-oriented groups remained out of favor, which, considering the Nasdaq closed lower on the week by 5%, isn’t necessarily much of a surprise.
And in regard to the specific factors and or ‘baskets’ we’ve built on Plutus, here are the best performers within the last week:
Whereas on the flip side, the worst performing baskets within the last week have been:
Moving along, despite the continued whippy volatility, the % of stocks above the 20D still sits generally within neutral territory, having closed out this past week at 47%, again, mostly due to the pickup in participation under the hood, whereas the ‘generals,’ such as Tech, have been more of a drag on the underlying indices as ‘everything’ else rallies and or has remained relatively strong by comparison.
And on a broader timeframe, the % of stocks above the 50D sits at 42%, which is still slightly within oversold territory, although certainly not as extreme as a few weeks back & is now slowly beginning to encroach back into neutral territory, of course, assuming the recent pickup in breadth / upside participation actually sticks.
Nevertheless, in looking at the Fear & Greed Index, it currently sits within ‘Extreme Fear’ territory, which, following last week’s decline, with Spooz having broken lower along with the Nasdaq being off its highs by 15%, isn’t necessarily much of a surprise, even if we’ve generally started to see upside participation slowly start to pick up under the hood.
Historical context of the Fear-Greed Index overlaid with the S&P:
