The Week Ahead 8/9/26
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, the big driver of the week-to-date gains was driven by the easing of tensions within the Middle East, as the U.S. once again refrained from igniting a larger-scale escalation. On top of that, markets essentially endured an ‘everything’ rally, in which the Mag-7 were bid along with Semiconductors & lastly SaaS, thus leading to the Q’s being the best performing of the indices on the week, having closed higher by just over 500bps, whereas the Dow was the ‘worst’ performing of the indices, although it still managed to close higher by just under 300bps.
- Economic Data for the Coming Week:
In regard to economic data heading into the upcoming week, the biggest upcoming event will be Wednesday’s CPI report, along with Retail Sales on Friday, but otherwise, it should generally be a quieter week ahead as volumes continue to remain dry within the Summer months.
- 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 197.93% return whilst in the same period, the Q’s have returned 105.67% / Spooz has returned 86.04% / Dow has returned 68.23% & Small-caps have returned 72.85%, so nice outperformance against all the indices whilst having a 80.8% 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, the general characterization of the week was a broader rotation back to Growth-oriented factors, or in other words, a generally more risk-on tape, whereas in respect to the worst performing factors, Value-oriented groups / Lower-volatility were among the worst performers.
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, as we highlighted earlier, the big news of this past week, thus ultimately leading to a breakout to new highs within the indices, was the fact that the U.S. refrained yet again from a larger-scale escalation against Iran after having issued threats of an escalation for 3 consecutive weeks in a row. So, this ultimately ended up leading to an ‘everything’ rally amongst the indices, which in turn led to the % of Stocks Above the 20D to jump higher, having finished off the week near 64%, which isn’t necessarily an ‘extreme’ overbought signal, but is starting to encroach that way in the shorter-term.
And similar can be said on a broader timeframe too, although somewhat to a lesser extent, but in the medium-term, the % of stocks above the 50D jumped higher toward 61%, which again, isn’t necessarily an ‘extreme’ overbought reading, although it is generally starting to encroach into ‘overbought’ territory.
That said, with the indices having finally broken out of this recent consolidation onward to new highs, along with this past week being characterized by an ‘everything’ rally, we did finally see the Fear-Greed Index move upward into ‘Greed’ territory.
Historical context of the Fear-Greed Index overlaid with the S&P:
