Vol. III · No. 156 · Monday, August 3, 2026

Golden Terminal

Overnight drift: S&P 500 September futures (ESU6, a proxy) sit near 7,562, up about 0.6% from Friday's settle of 7,519.25, extending Friday's rally after President Trump called off planned strikes on Iran and said peace talks resume this afternoon. The war premium is pouring out of oil: the USO crude proxy is down roughly 6% pre-dawn, near $121 after closing Friday at $129.17. Treasury yields are easing this morning on the oil move, even though Friday's close left the 30-year at a fresh 5.27%. Late Friday the U.S. Treasury and Japan intervened together to buy the yen, their first joint action in 15 years. Drift shows where the tape has already traveled overnight; by rule it never changes a completed-bar momentum verdict.

The rally finally broadened out. Friday was not a two-stock day. Amazon extended its blowout and rose another 15.32%, Alphabet jumped 6.73%, and the gains reached past the mega-caps: the S&P 500 added 0.72% and the Nasdaq 1.00%. Four of our eleven sector momentum verdicts are now green, up from two, and our top-level market-risk light upgraded from yellow to green for the first time since the selloff began.

But two big names still missed, and the tape split around them. Apple confirmed its miss and fell 7.35%, the worst Dominator on the board, and Linde dropped 5.95% on its own disappointing report, dragging Materials from yellow to red. A broadening rally with a pair of earnings air-pockets inside it is still a broadening rally, but it is not a clean one.

The long bond would not quit climbing. Even as stocks rose, the 30-year Treasury yield pushed up to 5.27% Friday, a fresh high and above the level we flagged all last week, while the 10-year rose to 4.75%. The stock market keeps buying the AI trade; the bond market keeps selling the long end. That argument did not resolve on Friday.

This morning, the war premium came out of oil. With Iran strikes called off and talks resuming, crude is tumbling about 6% pre-dawn, and the energy names are following it down: EOG is off roughly 2.8% and ConocoPhillips about 2.0% before the bell. Our Energy verdict was yellow at Friday's close; this morning's tape is pulling hard the other way.

And Washington waded into the currency market. The rare U.S.-Japan yen intervention, aimed at a cratering currency and a wobbly Japanese bond market, is the kind of plumbing story that matters more than it looks. The week's calendar is busy: ISM Manufacturing PMI lands at 10am ET today, Booking Holdings reports after the close, and Friday brings the July jobs report, the first read on the labor market since the Fed's hawkish hold.

The best thing that happened to this market last week did not happen on a screen full of two names. It happened underneath them. For most of July the rally, when there was one, was Microsoft and a handful of chips carrying an index while nearly everything else quietly bled. On Friday that changed. Amazon followed its blowout with another 15.32%, Alphabet added 6.73%, and this time the buying spread out: the S&P 500 rose 0.72%, the Nasdaq 1.00%, and four of our eleven sector momentum verdicts turned green. Most important for the way we read risk, the market-risk light we compute off the S&P itself flipped from yellow to green, its first green reading since the selloff started. Breadth, the thing that had been missing, finally showed up.

It was not a spotless session, and the honest read includes the holes. Apple confirmed its miss and dropped 7.35%, the single worst name on our board, and Linde fell 5.95% on a weak report that knocked Materials from yellow all the way to red. So the same Friday that broadened the rally also delivered two ugly earnings air-pockets, which is a fair picture of where we are: a market strong enough to rise on wide participation, but still one where a single miss can gut a stock in an afternoon. And above all of it, the bond market kept doing the one thing it has refused to stop doing. The 30-year Treasury yield climbed to 5.27% on Friday, a fresh high, even as equities rallied. The 10-year rose to 4.75%. Stocks keep buying the future; the long bond keeps selling it.

Then the weekend rewrote the top of the tape. President Trump called off planned strikes on Iran and said talks would resume this afternoon, and the war premium that had been sitting in the oil price for two weeks began draining out fast. Crude is down about 6% before the bell, and the energy names that led on Friday are now the ones falling: EOG is off roughly 2.8% pre-dawn and ConocoPhillips about 2.0%. Our Energy momentum verdict closed Friday at yellow; this morning's tape is pulling the other way hard enough that we flag it in the section below. Cheaper oil is not bad news for a market worried about inflation and growth, but it is a fast repricing of a trade that a lot of accounts were leaning on a week ago.

One more thing happened Friday that most people slept through, and it may end up mattering more than the oil headline. The U.S. Treasury stepped into the currency market alongside Japan to buy the yen, the first coordinated intervention of its kind in fifteen years, after the yen slid toward 164 to the dollar and Japan's own bond market started to wobble. That is not a stock story. It is a plumbing story, the kind that surfaces when the machinery under the markets starts to strain. So here is the tape that opens August: a rally that finally broadened and turned our risk light green, an oil price falling apart on peace talks, a long bond that still will not come down, and two governments quietly propping up a currency over the weekend. Green light on. Just keep one eye on the plumbing.

Brad Hoppmann

Filed from Taintsville, Florida · Pop. < 1,000 · 'Taint in the Beltway, 'taint in any backwards corrupt city: just a Florida man with a sharp pencil and a long memory of expensive lessons.

The week opens with ISM Manufacturing PMI at 10am ET this morning, the first data point of August and a read on whether the factory economy is still contracting. Booking Holdings reports after today's close. Tuesday brings a wall of earnings, with AMD, Caterpillar, Pfizer, Duke Energy, McDonald's, Merck and EOG, and Wednesday adds Disney and Eli Lilly, with ConocoPhillips on Thursday. Looming over the whole week is Friday's July jobs report, the first look at the labor market since the Fed's hawkish hold. The question for the market that just turned our risk light green is whether broad participation can survive a hot GDP deflator, a 30-year yield at a fresh high, and a jobs number that could push the bond market around all over again.

"Green light on. An oil price falling apart, a long bond that will not come down, and two governments propping up a currency over the weekend. Just keep one eye on the plumbing."

Early Earnings Update: 11 roster names report over the next seven sessions, starting with Booking Holdings after today's close. Friday's broadening pushed our market-risk light green, and several reporters now carry three momentum-green lights into their prints for the first time this session. None has held the required two consecutive sessions yet, and the model's analyst overlay reads no-read on each, so no confirmed alignment fires today. Full breakdown continues in the members' section.

The Reader, Investor & Active Trader Tiers

The full sector-by-sector breakdown, rotation snapshot, and validation data continue below.

Disclaimer: The Daily Update is an independent financial publication produced for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing in this issue constitutes personalized investment advice, a recommendation to buy or sell any security, or a solicitation of any kind. The editor and affiliated parties may or may not hold positions in securities mentioned; no such positions are currently disclosed and none are known as of publication. Momentum verdicts (CCI-based GREEN/YELLOW/RED readings) are technical indicators derived from historical price data and carry no predictive guarantee. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Data is sourced from Massive Market Data, Financial Modeling Prep, and named third-party outlets; while believed reliable, accuracy is not guaranteed. Consult a licensed financial advisor before making any investment decision.

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