The Week Ahead 5/10/26
Hello All,
For starters, to all the Mothers & Wives out there, I hope you all have a fantastic Mother’s Day weekend & know that you’re greatly appreciated. Mothers play a pivotal role & I hope this weekend brings well-deserved recognition and celebration.
Secondly, I hope you’re all enjoying the weekend and getting some time away from the screens & wishing you all a successful remainder of ‘26.
Looking back at this past week, the melt-up in equities, specifically Tech, continued as geopolitical developments remained relatively subdued whilst economic data, for the most part, continued to re-accelerate.
As a result, the lack of negative surprises helped fuel the continued chase higher within equities with the Nasdaq being the best performing of the major indices by quite the margin, closing higher by roughly 550bps on the week, whereas the Dow was among the worst performers, although it still managed to close modestly higher by just over 20bps.
- Economic Data for the Coming Week:
In regard to economic data into the upcoming week, it should be an interesting one given both CPI & PPI #’s are being reported against the backdrop of the war in the background & whether or not we’re starting to see some after-effects filter through, & we also have Retail Sales on Friday as well.
- 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 192.09% return whilst in the same period, the Q’s have returned 102.09% / Spooz has returned 77.01% / Dow has returned 54.12% & Small-caps have returned 62.49%, so nice outperformance against all the indices whilst having a 81.9% win rate, averaging a 29.27% return on realized gains / winners & a 15.73% 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.
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, again, the melt-up amongst equities continued this past week, although the gains were mostly concentrated within Tech, which as shown below in regard to factor performance, Momentum was the best performing group on the week, but besides that, the majority of the other factors closed well within negative territory, with High-Yield along with Low-Volatility being among the worst performing groups on the week.
And in regard to the specific factors and or ‘baskets’ we’ve built on Plutus, here are the best performers year-to-date:
1. Industrial and Auto Analog Recovery
2. Rebuilding U.S. Industrial Sovereignty
Whereas on the flip side, the worst performing baskets year-to-date have been:
Moving along, despite the continued melt-up within equities, again, the majority of the gains have been concentrated within Tech, hence the % of Stocks Above the 20D actually sits within neutral territory, currently at 54% & down from the prior highs of 80%, & the general point here is that participation weakened this past week, leading to a narrower rally within the indices.
Although on a more broader timeframe, still 63% of stocks remain above the 50D, which isn’t necessarily extreme, & more so reflects a market still within neutral territory (Working out of overbought territory):
And although Spooz & the Q’s closed at yet another new all-time-high this past week & have been on a historic run off the late March lows, markets still only remain within ‘Greed’ territory & haven’t quite reached ‘Extreme Greed’:
Historical context of the Fear-Greed Index overlaid with the S&P:
