The Week Ahead 5/17/26
Hello All,
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, on the headline index level, it was a relatively quieter week with the majority of the major indices closing roughly flat, excluding Small Caps, which finished lower by just over 230bps.
That said, the week was largely characterized by a couple of sharp momentum unwinds and more importantly, a pickup in bond volatility into the latter half of the week, which ultimately pared back the weekly gains, leading most indices to finish essentially unchanged overall, again, excluding Small Caps.
- Economic Data for the Coming Week:
In regard to economic data into the upcoming week, excluding geopolitics, it’s a fairly quiet week ahead with just FOMC minutes on Wednesday, a nothingburger, & then just a few minor datapoints into the latter half of the week, but otherwise, a fairly quiet week ahead on the economic data front.
- 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 192.06% return whilst in the same period, the Q’s have returned 101.44% / Spooz has returned 71.14% / Dow has returned 53.89% & Small-caps have returned 58.73%, so nice outperformance against all the indices whilst having a 81.9% win rate, averaging a 29.34% 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, looking back at this past week, the headline indices again mostly closed relatively unchanged, excluding Small Caps, but in regard to specific factor performance, Low-Volatility along with Growth were among the best performing groups, whereas Small-Cap Value and Private Equity ranked among the worst-performing factors 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, with both the Spooz & the Nasdaq making yet another new ATH this past week, the majority of the recent gains have remained heavily concentrated within Tech & as a result, the % of stocks trading above the 20D has fallen all the way back toward 34%, after being near 80% roughly a month ago, all while the headline indices have continued pushing higher. Essentially, this suggests that under the hood, breadth and overall upside participation have deteriorated fairly rapidly, meaning the market’s continued march to new highs has become increasingly narrow.
That said, on a broader timeframe, the picture remains a bit more neutral, with roughly 49% of stocks still trading above the 50D, comparatively to the much weaker shorter-term signals mentioned above, which are now beginning to encroach on oversold territory.
And although Spooz & the Q’s made 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,’ & is even starting to work back toward ‘Neutral’ territory:
Historical context of the Fear-Greed Index overlaid with the S&P:
