The Week Ahead 3/8/26
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.
This past week was an eventful one geopolitically as the U.S. joined alongside Israel in attacking Iran. It was a fairly choppy week up until the latter part, when oil began to aggressively rise from around 70/bbl to finish the week above 90/bbl.
As a result, Small-caps ended up being the worst performing of the indices, closing lower by just over 400bps, as markets began to price in a combination of inflation shock fears alongside concerns around demand destruction and slowing growth stemming from the rapid rise in crude. On the other side, the Q’s ended up being the ‘best’ performing of the indices on the week, although they still closed lower by just over 120bps, with the relative outperformance largely driven by a rotation away from value & back toward growth.
- Economic Data for the Coming Week:
In regard to economic data into the upcoming week, aside from geopolitical concerns, the most important datapoint will be the PCE report on Friday, which has become somewhat of a sensitive point for markets given the prior report suggested that progress on disinflation may be starting to stall. Beyond that, we will also get CPI #’s on Tuesday, along with a few other scattered economic datapoints throughout the week.
- 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 174.88% return whilst in the same period, the Q’s have returned 70.20% / Spooz has returned 60.91% / Dow has returned 47.25% & Small-caps have returned 43.21%, so nice outperformance against all the indices whilst having a 81.7% win rate, averaging a 28.11% return on realized gains / winners & a 15.49% 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, to take a look back at this past week, to surprise, Growth ended up outperforming Value on the week as the spread between the two groups closed at just over 280bps:
And another look in respect to factor performance, but on the week Growth was the best performing group, followed by Low Volatility, while Momentum was the worst performing factor, followed by Small Caps, Value and High Dividend.
So, war is bullish Growth?
Well, while energy for example has likely partially benefited from the cyclical rebound as the economy has undergone a re-acceleration over the past two months, the 26%+ performance on the year has, in our view, been largely attributed to the anticipation of conflict in the Middle East, which has also contributed to the broader Value over Growth outperformance. Although groups like Industrials and Materials have also benefited from the cyclical rebound, energy remains the clear standout and best performing sector on the year, largely tied to geopolitical risk pricing.
With that being said, despite the outperformance of Value over Growth on the year, since early February, Growth has essentially been flat while Value is nearly negative. If we were to see any sort of resolution within the Middle East that leads to de-escalation and lower crude prices, even if the war does not officially end, the gap between Growth and Value would likely narrow significantly. A reduction in geopolitical risk should bring back a more risk-on appetite for Growth, rather than investors crowding into defensive sectors within Value.
Moving along, following the weakness on the week, we’ve finally encroached into oversold territory, with just 32% of stocks remaining above the 20D. Looking back historically, readings can occasionally fall into the single digits during more extreme washouts, but generally speaking levels within the 15–30% range tend to signal that the market is becoming increasingly oversold, although not quite at full washout levels.
And a similar point can be made on a broader timeframe, as roughly 37% of stocks remain above the 50D, which is around where the reading bottomed in late November ‘25 following the rate-cut tantrum. While this is still far from extreme or full washout levels of oversold, it is certainly at least within oversold territory.
And continuing on that note, even with the S&P sitting just 4% below all-time highs, the underlying dispersion over the past few months, along with rolling blowups across a wide range of sectors, has pushed markets into ‘fear’ territory, nearly on the verge of ‘extreme fear.’
