The Week Ahead 2/1/25
Hello All,
I hope you’re all enjoying the weekend and getting some time away from the screens & wishing you all a successful ‘26 ahead.
Looking back at this past week, despite the lack of economic data & relatively uneventful FOMC meeting midweek, the bigger ‘theme’ of the week was a continued rotation toward Tech over Small-caps & Cyclicals which were the initial best performing groups the first 2-weeks into the year before then more recently capital started shifting back toward tech. Having said that, the other ‘event’ which drove action in the latter part of the week was the selection of Warsh as the new Fed Chair in which the indices reacted only slightly negative but the ‘real’ pain came amongst the precious metals & commodity complex in which historic records were set in respect to declines.
With that being said, despite the violent action in commodities all week & large factor rotations, it ended up being a relatively quieter week for the indices with Spooz having been the ‘best’ performer on the week, having closed higher by 37bps, whereas Small-caps were the ‘worst’ performing of the indices on the week, having closed lower by 200bps.
- Economic Data for the Coming Week:
In regard to economic data into the upcoming week, the most important event is the January Jobs report on Friday but besides that, we just have scattered labor & economic data throughout the week & nothing necessarily out of the ordinary:
- 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 188.18% return whilst in the same period, the Q’s have returned 76.48% / Spooz has returned 65.60% / Dow has returned 51.34% & Small-caps have returned 48.21%, so nice outperformance against all the indices whilst having a 81.6% win rate, averaging a 28.10% return on realized gains / winners & a 15.25% 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.
And just to be clear, NOTHING is changing with Substack. It’ll stay exactly what it’s always been since we originally launched in the Summer of ‘23: where I share the thinking, research, & select trades behind my personal PA, along with ongoing commentary across all markets.
For those who may have missed, we published our ‘2026 Outlook’ which has a plethora of coverage on a wide range of topics / themes as ‘26 kicks off after coming off a strong ‘25 & for those whom would like to go back & read the report, I included it just below:
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, looking back at this past week, again, FOMC was rather uneventful as Powell more so reiterated the same messaging from the December FOMC with the only difference essentially being the economy improved & the tension between risks (Inflation & Labor) are now much more balanced & the only other ‘event’ of significance was the announcement of Warsh as the new Fed Chair on this past Friday.
With that being said, we made it through the first month of ‘26 & as shown below, the top performing group & or sectors YTD were mostly contained to cyclicals:
Energy
Materials
Staples (Defensive / Non-cyclical)
Industrials
Real Estate
In regard to country specific performance, Latin America led the way as the best performing group (4 out of the top 6):
South Korea
Turkey
Peru
Colombia
Brazil
Chile
YTD Factor Performance:
Spin-offs
Small-caps
Small-cap Value
High Dividend
Small-cap Growth
Mid-caps
And finally, YTD Commodity Performance:
Silver
Natural Gas
Crude
Gasoline
Gold
Wheat
It’s been a wild start to the year to say the least & on that note, action within the indices more recently has been choppier & even despite the indices essentially all sitting near their highs, we’ve seen a correction underneath the hood take place as just 46% of stocks currently remain above the 20D which is nearly starting to encroach oversold territory:
On a more broader timeframe however, it’s a much more balanced signal as there is still 58% of stocks sitting above the 50D which is a more neutral signal rather than overbought & or oversold (Peak in last 5-years was December ‘23 near 85% following Powell’s initial signal that the Fed was ready to move toward a rate-cut cycle):
And the Fear-Greed index underscores the point above (Overbought working back to Neutral & shorter-term encroaching Oversold) as the index sits just barely within ‘Greed’ territory (Most of recent uplift due to outperformance amongst Tech & Mag-7) :
And finally, before we jump into the remainder of the week ahead, from a positioning standpoint, not much has necessarily changed per DB in which positioning still remains modestly overweight (62nd percentile) although still remains far from stretched comparatively to prior peaks which still emphasizes a market filled with reluctancy & upside complacency in terms of increasing length:
