Stock market & Crypto Analysis for Week Ending 7/17/26

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Hey everybody, it is Saturday the 18th of July 2026 and this is Brian Shannon from Alphatrends.net. We had some selling this week, pretty ugly for the semis that were down 9%. That of course dragged the NASDAQ with it down 4% and we're starting to see the broader market sell a little bit as well. Banks were rewarded for their good earnings and energy is moving higher on what's going on in Iran. Oil itself, crude, was up 14% this week and Bitcoin up a little bit. I sold most of my position there, I'll talk about that in a little bit if I don't forget by the end of this. Because I'd rather focus on the more important markets, the equities markets. The S&P 500 closed below the 20 and 50 day moving average and more important on an intermediate term time frame, they're below declining 5 day moving average. They broke below this little band of support here and made a lower low and lower high below declining 5 day moving average. As I pointed out to subscribers on Friday morning before I left for the day, it's a well known thing that markets typically do not make a bottom on Friday. Now it doesn't mean Monday might turn higher, but we closed with weakness here even at the end of the day. This purple line here is the daily VWAP from Friday. So while we initially caught a bounce, at the end of the day the average buyer was losing money. It's also below the month to date anchored volume weighted average price. And for the S&P 500, I think it's likely we're going to come down to the anchor from the original ceasefire here. And that would bring it down to about 730. The green line below that on all these charts is the anchor off the year to date low. So going into next week, the S&P 500 is guilty until proven innocent. Don't buy dips and downtrends. Wait for strength after. And I point that out for subscribers all the time, what that means. For the NASDAQ, we broke below the anchor from that purple line here. That's the anchor from the ceasefire. It found buyers once, came close to it here, and we broke below it. So now it's coming down to the anchor off of the year to date low. And same story here. This was on Wednesday. We were below a declining 5-day moving average with lower highs and lower lows. That was actually Thursday. So Thursday, we saw the selling here. We broke below support, short-term support, and below the orange declining 5-day moving average. That was your cue to get out right there from an intermediate-term perspective. Now, when do we get in? We'll see. Next week. I do these updates every single day, as I always point out, for subscribers. But right now, we can look at levels of interest and say, you know, maybe this was, maybe if we take a look at, for instance, a Fibonacci of the year-to-date range. A 38.2% retracement would bring it down to 673, 50% retracement down to 650. And this orange line is the year-to-date anchor, and that's the 200-day moving average. I'm sorry. That's the 50%. This is 61.8. Anyways, the bottom line is we can look at these levels of interest on the downside, but they are not places to do business. You don't, I don't at least, blindly buy at a level of interest. I look at it and say, okay, here's where, right now, we have guilty until proven innocent on the intermediate term. What's the next important level where we might start to stabilize? And then if we stabilize, then what happens? Well, we have a declining 5-day moving average, so it's going to take time for us to say the buyers have regained control. The Russell 2000 held up better, but it's just kind of flat in here still, holding above that rising 50-day moving average. As I mention all the time, I don't trade this market. It's just, this ETF is just too choppy, so I don't really even care to talk about it too much. The semiconductors, this is where the big damage has been done. And, of course, it came after the record earnings from Micron. This was the day of the, or actually, that's not true. Anyways, let's take a look at this by itself. We'll take a look at Micron in a moment. But the anchor from the ceasefire bounce last week, rallied up to the declining 20-day moving average, and then fell apart from there. We broke a lower low below the 5-day moving average on Wednesday, and then Thursday and Friday, we continue to see selling below that level. So now the question is, is this prior band of support going to act as resistance if on a bounce? It's guilty until proven innocent. And again, Micron. Micron reported earnings and gapped up on this day. That was right here. And since then, we've gone from $12.50 down to $8.50. It's a 35% decline for a company that just reported massive numbers. Only price pays. The market doesn't care what you think about the fundamentals. If it's selling off and it's been below the 5-day moving average, and even while it was above the 5-day moving average, it still had a pattern of lower highs and lower lows in here. So there was not a reason to buy in here. And there still isn't. I day traded it Friday morning. And the bottom line on that, let's turn that. Anyways, what happened in here was we saw the gap down, and then it reclaimed the volume-weighted average price right here. And I sold it pretty quickly because I didn't want to hang around with it. But again, it was just meant as a day trade. That's it. I'm not looking to find the bottom, not while we're still below a declining 5-day moving average. And when you look at this, here we can see that this band of support right now, really, and we spoke about the head and shoulders pattern. And if we broke down below it, then a reversal back up would be good. But we don't have a reversal back up. Right now, below a declining 5-day moving average, sure, maybe you're going to day trade it, but there's no way I was going to hold this thing over the weekend. In order for this stock to become neutral, not bullish, but neutral, it's going to have to get back above 900, 910, right in that zone. This prior band of support in here has the potential to become resistance, and in fact, it was resistance, and right at the week-to-date volume-weighted average price on Friday, and it sold off from there. So for this market, if it rallied like this, great, and then started to turn sideways, then I would be interested in buying strength over here. I'm not interested in it right now, not while it's declining like this. You can look at other semis. Intel broke some key support in here. In order for this to become neutral, it's going to have to get back above this band of support where we have that 50-day moving average because it has the potential to become resistance, and it would only be neutral because we're still below a declining 5-day moving average. Intel also broke down, and there is, you know, I spoke about maybe we could undercut this briefly and then rally. We're still below a declining 5-day moving average, and that should keep you on the sidelines in cash. Also, Nvidia gave back those gains that it's recently had, as did the MAG stocks. They're finally succumbing to some of this pressure after really doing much better relative to the broader NASDAQ, at least over the last couple weeks. They've been really kind of a dud this year. This is where we started the year for the MAGs, and we're basically pretty much break even in those names. So let's go back and take a look at the biotext because this group is really looking amongst the best. And I've been stopped out of this one. We spoke about the lower low, below the declining, below the 20-day moving average. That would have gotten you out over here. Now, the question is, was that a great sale? Maybe, you know, if the market continued lower, if the biotext continued due to this, then you can say, yeah, that was a great sale. We saw a bounce right off the open on Friday, so that was a good thing. That's what we want to see. Now, what do we have here? Well, we have still a rising 20-day moving average, above a rise in 50, above a rise in 200, above all the key levels. And when we look at the weekly timeframe, actually, let's look at the monthly timeframe, it looks to me like this market is heading towards that 175-ish level. 175 was the all-time high back here in 2021. Now, it doesn't mean it's going to be a smooth line to there, as we, you know, talk about. I love the quote from Linda Raschke, which is, you know, markets will do the most obvious thing in the least obvious way. So, right now, there's, you know, they saw buyers on Friday, that's good. But we still have this pattern of lower highs and lower lows below the declining 5-day moving average. On Monday, the 5-day moving average starts to average this data out. So, as new information builds over here, it's replaced with that. That will start to flatten this 5-day moving average out. What I'd really like to see, the market doesn't care what I want, is an undercut in here, spend a day, day and a half going sideways, tighten up the range. And this is the market, I think, has the best opportunity for upside next week. I'll be focused on that if it sets up. If it doesn't set up, I really don't care about the biotechs. Why would you care if they're not going to, you know, pay you in a low-risk way? Bonds bounced a little bit this week, but still just in a horrible downtrend, just in bad shape. SpaceX, wasn't it last week we saw these clowns come out with, you know, minimum price targets of 200? It's just crazy. Don't listen to the analysts. Don't really even listen to the news. Or listen to the news, but realize that only price pays. You've got to listen to price action. Lower highs and lower lows. This has been below the decline. Once it broke that 5-day moving average, it's guilty to proven innocent. You might think, oh, well, I've got to buy here. I've got to buy here. I've got to buy here. Or whatever the level is that you think is important, it's not important while it's below a declining 5-day moving average. Oh, I was going to talk about Bitcoin. I almost forgot. I sold the majority of my Bitcoin as it undercut this level. As I've stated, I think this is a durable low for Bitcoin. But that doesn't mean I want to own it while it's going down. I'm a trader. I bought this over in here, and I didn't want to give back my profits. So I'm out of the majority of that. I've got a quarter of a risk unit in my crypto account right now. I sold some Ethereum right here as well. That's basically about where it is. And Solana, I was stopped out of that one as well. So that'll do it. Have a good weekend.