Trade Plan for 7/15-7/19

Aftershock

Last week I remained cautiously bullish once again and after a couple of weeks of watching/being long $RTY/small caps futures, I emphasized that the index was close to a major breakout:

On Monday, I anticipated some chop, so I looked for $ES/SPX futures shorts, but it quickly became clear that there were none to be found early in the week and we remained above my intraweek bull/bear key for the entire week.  I took $ES long profit right before the data at my weekly resistance, but held $RTY longs into the data:

I slightly increased my confidence in both the precious metals/$GDX long trade ✅ and in the $CL/crude oil bear trade.✅

Summary of Market Action Last Week:

• $ES/SPX futures and $NQ/Nasdaq futures crept higher Monday and Tuesday, then accelerated their ascent on Wednesday.  Thursday was a dramatic bearish reversal particularly for $NQ, but Friday bulls reclaimed some of the downside.  $RTY/small caps finally broke out of a lengthy weekly consolidation and did so with conviction to significantly outperform last week. 

• $GDX/gold miners showed relative strength against the broad market again last week.  $GC/gold futures settled with a slight gain, but $SI/Silver futures gave back some of the impressive gains from the previous week. 

• $CL/Crude Oil futures declined on the week, while $XOP/oil equities advanced despite weakness in the commodity. 

Here’s how last week closed out:

For the week ahead (07/15 - 07/19/24)