The Week Ahead 8/2/26
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, it was quite a chaotic one, mostly driven by the continued deleveraging amongst the Momentum / AI Factor, which in turn translated to a bit of a spike in correlations, escalating the selloff across all of the indexes rather than being solely confined to the Nasdaq.
That said, on the week, Spooz ended up being the best performer, closing higher by just over 100bps, whereas Small-caps were the worst-performing index, essentially finishing the week flat.
- Economic Data for the Coming Week:
In regard to economic data heading into the upcoming week, the biggest upcoming event will be Friday’s jobs report but otherwise, we just have some minor and sporadic labor and economic data scattered throughout the week, so it should be a quieter one all around, excluding any surprise developments in reference to geopolitics.
- 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 186.91% return whilst in the same period, the Q’s have returned 95.71% / Spooz has returned 79.73% / Dow has returned 63.46% & Small-caps have returned 66.91%, so nice outperformance against all the indices whilst having a 80.7% win rate, averaging a 30.49% 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, looking back at this past week, it was another week yet again characterized by the recent momentum unwind, which did end up staging quite the rebound off the lows, but ultimately ended up closing firmly within negative territory and as the worst-performing factor on the week whereas on the opposing side, Value-oriented groups were the best-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
3. AI Full-Stack Infrastructure
4. Mission Critical Security Stack
Whereas on the flip side, the worst performing baskets year-to-date have been:
Moving along, although volatility at the headline index level, excluding the Q’s, was tame for the entirety of July given the underlying dispersion within the indices, featuring both record single-stock volatility & tame index volatility, the volatility among single stocks translated to quite a bit of damage under-the-hood but this occurred mostly in relation to tech, which in turn has led the % of stocks above the 20D to fall toward 45%, which isn’t necessarily an oversold or overbought signal, but instead a more neutral signal.
And similar can be said on a broader timeframe too, as the % of stocks above the 50D is starting to roll over, although it does still remain at 51% & firmly within neutral territory.
That said, despite the indices sitting just off their highs, with Spooz specifically being less than 200bps from all-time highs, the Fear & Greed Index still sits within ‘Fear’ territory, which again emphasizes that markets remain far from true euphoria or the type of positioning extremes typically associated with major and or interim tops.
Historical context of the Fear-Greed Index overlaid with the S&P:
