Trading Desk

HTI1!On July 10, I wrote: "A sustained break above 4.74K opens the door to 5.14K. If it fails here, price could pull back toward 4.25K."

The first attempt failed. After three weeks of consolidation, HTI has now rallied roughly 15% from the 4.195K–4.25K support range, reclaimed 4.74K, and recorded its first weekly close above the descending trendline from the October 2025 peak. That is a meaningful technical change.

4.74K is now first support, followed by the broken descending trendline. As long as both hold, the next resistance sits around 5.14K. A move back below both would turn this into another failed breakout and put 4.25K–4.195K back in play.

Z1!held the ascending trendline in mid-July while semiconductors were in sell mode. It has since bounced from that support and printed a new ATH just below 11K.

The divergence is structural, not macro. FTSE is effectively an anti-tech index, with little direct semiconductor exposure and heavy weightings in banks, energy, miners, defence, and dividend-heavy defensive names. The same higher-oil, higher-yield regime that compresses long-duration tech multiples supports FTSE heavyweights through stronger energy cash flows and bank earnings. Record dividends and a cheaper starting valuation have reinforced the rotation.

This is not evidence that the UK economy or global risk appetite has suddenly broken out. It is a rotation out of expensive duration and into cash-generative old-economy sectors.

11K is now the immediate resistance. A sustained close above it confirms another leg higher. If 11K rejects again, 10.7K is the first support, followed by the ascending trendline around 10.6K. As long as FTSE holds above that trendline, the path of least resistance remains higher. A sustained break below it would put the breakout at risk.

FTSE is still not immune to a broad liquidation. If higher oil and yields trigger a full risk-off move, its sector mix may deliver relative outperformance, not absolute protection.

RB1!Gasoline was rejected at 3.3 again. As long as 2.93 holds, another test of 3.3 remains in play. A sustained close above 3.3 opens the door to 3.6-3.7. Lose 2.93, and the path of least resistance shifts lower.

00700.HK broke above the multi-month descending trendline, backtested the breakout around 435-440, and bounced sharply. As long as price holds above the broken trendline, the near-term path remains higher.

480 is the first resistance. A sustained close above it opens the door to 500. A sustained move back below the broken trendline would put the July low around 410 back in focus.

GOOGLA sustained daily break above the upper boundary of the channel would open the door to further upside and bring 370–375 back into play.

343.7 is now first support. A further break below the channel midline around 335–338 would put the lower boundary around 318–320 back in play.

VIX failed to extend the recent move toward 21.6 and reversed back to 16. The failed push keeps volatility suppressed for now. A sustained close above 21.6 opens the door to 28.3. Unless that happens, VIX is likely to remain rangebound between 14.2 and 21.6.

META540–550 is now the line in the sand. Continued daily closes above the trendline, followed by a break above the latest candle high around 555–560, would keep the tactical rebound in play. A sustained daily close below the trendline would confirm another leg lower.

HSIOn June 26, when HSI reached 22.55K, I said I expected a bounce. I also made the next condition clear: sustained closes above 25.25K would put HSI back inside the prior range and bring 27.3K back into play.

HSI has now rallied almost 15% from 22.55K and decisively reclaimed 25.25K. That condition has been met. 25.25K is now first support. As long as it holds, 27.3K is next. A daily close back below 25.25K would turn this into a failed breakout and put 22.55K back in play.

Both indices have now done what I previously said they needed to do. That still does not establish fundamental leadership, but the tactical bias remains constructive while HSI holds 25.25K and HTI holds 4.74K.

NIFTY is testing 24.34K again after holding the ascending trendline. A sustained close above 24.34K opens the door to further upside. If it fails here, the ascending trendline is the first support. A sustained break below that line shifts the path toward 22K-22.1K.

BABA moved back above 120 after last week's rejection at the level. This breakout now needs to hold. As long as BABA stays above 120, the near-term path remains higher, with 146.4 back in play.

A sustained break back below 120 would turn this into another failed breakout and put the low-90s back in focus.

NDX followed through after the wedge resolved lower, breaking 28.6K and printing another lower low around 27.2K. I called the bottom at Wednesday's close, and NQ1! subsequently reversed sharply higher.

NDX then backtested 28.6K from below, while NQ tested 28.8K-29K resistance from below. We saw a sharp reversal from these levels at Friday's open. Once again, our levels proved surgical.

This resistance zone also lines up with 533 on SOXX, another vital level I have been monitoring for months.

For the rebound to extend, NDX must break above 28.6K, NQ must deliver a sustained close above 28.8K-29K, and ES1! must clear 7.55K. Until those resistance levels clear, this can still be a dead-cat bounce or a broader bear-market rally. If they fail, the path of least resistance remains lower.

SPX tested 7.27K and briefly broke below the ascending trendline before closing back above it. ES briefly breached 7.36K, then reversed sharply, delivering the immediate bounce I expected in the July 31 Desk Note.

This keeps 7.58K on SPX and 7.63K on ES in play, but ES first faces ST resistance at 7.55K. Sustained closes above 7.58K on SPX and 7.63K on ES reopen the path to ATH. Until then, this can still be a dead-cat bounce or a broader bear-market rally.

A sustained break back below 7.27K on SPX or 7.36K on ES confirms another leg lower, with 7.1K next on SPX.

000001 held 3.8K on the weekly close, but the rebound has failed to gain traction. A sustained close below 3.8K would confirm the break and shift the path of least resistance lower.

399001 remains weaker. It broke below the long-term ascending trendline and failed to reclaim it on the rebound. Unless price closes back above the trendline around 14K, the path of least resistance remains lower, with 13.1K back in play.

EWY undercut 154.2 and reclaimed it into the weekly close. As long as 154.2 holds, a rebound toward 173.6 remains in play. A sustained break below 154.2 reopens the downside.

US30Y

US30Y As long as US30Y holds above 5.2%, the path of least resistance remains higher. A sustained move back below 5.2% puts the ascending trendline back in play.

BZ1! There has been little change in the Iran setup. Hormuz remains effectively closed, Trump is visibly frustrated, and there is still no durable peace deal.

The SPR continues to be drained aggressively. Inventories fell another 3.8m barrels last week to 307.7m, the lowest since March 1983. The four-week draw now stands at roughly 18m barrels. The stockpile is rapidly approaching the point where continued releases lose credibility as a lasting tool to suppress crude.

Trump faces significant pressure heading into the midterms. As I have repeatedly said, he cares about four things: 1) the equity market, 2) inflation prints, 3) yields, and 4) approval ratings. Lower oil helps all four at once.

From my first Iran post before the war began, I was bullish on oil and bearish on Trump's decision to intervene. My view was that this could become a years-long war that the U.S. cannot easily exit. That structural thesis has not changed.

As I laid out in Tactical Positioning | Week of 05.11, Iran still holds two core cards: its nuclear program and leverage over Hormuz. Tehran may compromise on one, but I see no scenario in which it voluntarily gives up both.

For Israel, expansion is existential, while preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon is non-negotiable. For Tehran, the nuclear program is a deterrent against Israel and the U.S., while control over Hormuz gives it direct leverage over oil prices and Washington. This is the core conundrum. Under the current terms, there is no durable resolution, which is why the war can continue for years.

Trump TACOed last weekend by pausing the strikes. Crude and gasoline dropped sharply during the first half of the week, then rebounded violently as he threatened to strike Iran again. The tape is still trading every escalation and de-escalation headline.

The structural oil setup remains bullish, but the tactical path into the midterms is different. I do not view an imminent surge to new highs as the high-probability outcome. Oil should remain elevated and volatile. Another escalation could retest last week's highs or produce a marginal higher high. But in our view, the odds favor oil grinding lower rather than higher into the election.

I expect the worst to come after the midterms. Any pre-election suppression of crude would only delay the inevitable. It would not resolve Hormuz, Iran's nuclear leverage, or the underlying war.

A sustained close above 103 opens the door to a retest of the YTD high around 120. Technically, crude still carries an upside skew, but its direction is increasingly dictated by Trump's whims.

USDJPY In late June, I wrote, "Unilateral intervention rarely succeeds, but coordinated intervention can have a more sustained effect. Without Washington on board, MOF can slow the move, as we saw in May, but it is unlikely to reverse the trend when fundamentals are still pointing the other way."

I put it more bluntly on July 25: "Unilateral intervention rarely changes the trajectory of a fundamentally driven currency move."

After Thursday's MOF intervention, I wrote that the cycle could be broken in only two ways. MOF could deploy enough firepower to push USDJPY low enough to trigger a self-reinforcing move lower, or the BOJ could hike aggressively and signal that more was coming. If neither happened, the third path was simple: the familiar cycle would repeat. USDJPY would grind back toward the YTD high, perhaps make a new high, MOF would intervene again, and the pair would eventually grind higher once more.

What I failed to include was a third cycle-breaker I had mentioned several times in the past: coordinated intervention with the U.S. On Friday, Washington joined. USDJPY then delivered its first decisive daily close below the long-term ascending trendline.

As I laid out after the April 30 intervention, intervention only becomes durable when official yen buying pushes USDJPY low enough that traders positioned against the authorities lose enough money to have no choice but to unwind. That forced unwind is what makes the move self-reinforcing. Until then, intervention remains highly susceptible to reversal, exactly as we saw from April through July.

Breaking the ascending trendline was the right move. Several Japan-only intervention rounds from April 30 through early May failed to secure a daily close below it. The first day Bessent joined the effort, it broke. As Trump's personal trading adviser, Bessent has undoubtedly helped Trump make key decisions when major assets were sitting at key technical levels. Trump and Bessent have repeatedly shown how effective they can be at reversing trends.

I was explicit about the level in May: "For USDJPY to initiate a self-reinforcing downward spiral, the BOJ must sustain a break below the 155.5 level for a few days."

We are not there yet. The trendline break is the first real change in the April-to-July sequence, but the setup is not complete. A sustained break below 155.5 for several days would raise the odds of the self-reinforcing downward spiral I described in May, but it would not make that outcome inevitable.

The oil-inventory cushion is far thinner than it was in April. OECD stocks fell by 135 million barrels in May and June, while the U.S. SPR is now more than 100 million barrels below its early-April level. With less inventory available to absorb another oil shock, the fundamental backdrop for the yen is less favorable than it was during the first intervention.

SOXX As expected, SOXX printed a new low this week after the relief rally I predicted last week. Price remains below 533 despite Friday's sharp reversal. Unless SOXX closes back above 533 over the next few sessions, the path of least resistance remains lower.

US10Y Global long-end yields are on an ominous trajectory. I warned about long-end yields exploding to the upside back in 25Q4, and they're set to only grind higher. In May, referring to the US10Y multi-year descending trendline, I wrote, "This is perhaps the only real resistance global long-end yields have left." That resistance has now broken.

On FOMC day, Warsh, Trump's latest Fed puppet, unsurprisingly held rates steady. Equities initially reversed sharply higher. Trump then tested the waters by threatening to strike Iran. The bond vigilantes slapped Trump in the face. Long-end yields surged, US30Y broke to its highest level since July 2007, and the equity rally was erased into the close. US30Y extended the move later in the week.

That move is very bad for Trump and the U.S. economy. It is also backfiring on his effort to reduce the government's debt-service burden.

Yield trends can run for years, and the recent breakouts in US10Y and US30Y may mark the continuation of the stagflation era I have anticipated for years. In my view, that era began when Powell delayed rate hikes to secure a second term, allowing post-Covid inflation to spiral out of control.

The easing cycle that began in 2024 gave the bond market temporary relief, but that relief is now over. Those resistance levels have given way, and yield trends are extremely difficult to reverse once they begin. The window for Trump to reverse course is closing. If he fails, I can easily see US10Y and US30Y moving into the 6%-7% range over the coming years.

US10Y saw follow-through on last week's breakout above multi-year resistance. As long as it holds above the broken trendline, the path of least resistance remains higher. A sustained move back below it invalidates the breakout.

NQ1!

KOSPI

ES1!

DXY

USDJPY