Welcome back to your weekly market checkup!
I hope you had a great week!
ICYMI, you can see the latest Top Pick of the Week here →
Top Pick of the Week: One Layer Deeper
One of my favorite parts about investing has nothing to do with buying stocks.
A quick highlight from last week →
Airbnb Inc. ABNB 0.00%↑ printed a doji bar on Friday and hit an extreme-high RSI reading! This usually signals a top is in and a reversal may be underway here. ABNB was one of our Top Picks of the Week back in June. If this was a swing trade for you, you could close the trade. If this is a position trade, you could lock in some profits and leave the rest to run! ABNB is trading fairly valued here.
Congratulations to you in the ABNB trade!!
Let’s dig into last week’s market recap and the playbook for the week ahead →
Leadership changed in the markets last week.
Last week wasn’t a market where everything moved together.
Bitcoin exploded higher. Gold and Gold Miners continued their run. Oil strengthened. Healthcare took the lead inside the S&P 500.
Meanwhile, the major equity indexes pulled back, Technology went from leader to laggard, and Semiconductors took an even bigger hit.
That doesn’t look like money simply leaving the market.
→ It looks like money moving.
So this week, I’m paying less attention to whether “the market” is up or down and more attention to where capital is actually going.
I. The Market Vitals (Best to Worst)
Here’s how the 7 major asset classes ranked this week:
Bitcoin ($BTCUSD)
Gold GLD 0.00%↑
Oil USO 0.00%↑
The S&P 500 SPY 0.00%↑
The Nasdaq-100 QQQ 0.00%↑
The Dow Jones 30 DIA 0.00%↑
20 Year Bonds Treasury ETF TLT 0.00%↑
♥️Market Pulse: 4/7
4/7 assets are up.
GLD, BTC, TLT, and USO.
QQQ, SPY, DIA are down.
II. Section Rotation (11 SPDR S&P 500 Sectors)
The sector data confirms that leadership changed last week.
Healthcare XLV 0.00%↑ led all 11 sectors at +4.33%, followed by Energy XLE 0.00%↑ at +2.79% and Materials at +1.90%.
At the bottom, Technology XLK 0.00%↑ fell 3.53%, Utilities XLU 0.00%↑ dropped 3.48%, and Industrials XLI 0.00%↑ declined 3.36%.
→ Only three of the 11 sectors finished higher, so market breadth was considerably weaker than the week before.
The Rotation
The biggest shift came from Technology.
Last week, XLK was the #1 sector at +7.20%.
This week?
It fell all the way to the bottom at -3.53%.
Meanwhile, Healthcare, Energy, and Materials took over leadership.
That fits what we saw in Part I: QQQ was the weakest major index, while Oil and Gold were among the strongest major assets.
My Read 👑
This looks like sector rotation with narrowing breadth, rather than broad strength across equities.
Healthcare XLV 0.00%↑ and Energy XLE 0.00%↑ attracted money while Technology XLK 0.00%↑ gave back some of its recent gains. Materials XLB 0.00%↑ participating alongside stronger Gold GLD 0.00%↑ and Oil USO 0.00%↑ adds to the hard-asset side of the story.
→ The question now is whether this is a short-term rotation, or the beginning of a more meaningful leadership change.
Biggest Takeaway: Technology went from first to last while Healthcare, Energy, and Materials took the lead. Money didn’t disappear; it moved.
III. Important Secondary Assets & Sectors
The specialized ETFs reinforce the strength we saw in Gold GLD 0.00%↑ , Healthcare XLV 0.00%↑ / IBB 0.00%↑ , and Energy XOP 0.00%↑ .
→ Gold Miners dominated the group.
GDX GDX 0.00%↑ surged 14.29% and GDXJ gained 12.28%, confirming Gold’s move with strong participation from the miners.
Biotechnology IBB 0.00%↑ also joined the leadership, with IBB up 7.72%, supporting the strength we saw in Healthcare XLV 0.00%↑ .
Energy confirmed too.
Brent Crude ($brent) gained 6.12% and XOP rose 5.01% but there’s an interesting exception to the Technology XLK 0.00%↑ weakness.
ARKK ARKK 0.00%↑ gained 6.30%, even as Software IGV 0.00%↑ fell 0.68% and Semiconductors SOXX 0.00%↑ dropped 5.52%.
So investors weren’t abandoning growth altogether.
They were becoming much more selective about where they took risk.
Where the Weakness Showed Up
Semiconductors SOXX 0.00%↑ were the weakest group at -5.52%, which fits the pressure we saw in Technology XLK 0.00%↑ and QQQ 0.00%↑ .
Regional Banks fell 3.94%, Homebuilders (XHB) declined 2.31%, and small caps (IWM) lost 1.68%.
→ The rotation wasn’t broad. Leadership was concentrated.
My Read 👑
Parts I–III now tell a pretty consistent story:
→ Gold and its miners were strong. Energy participates. Healthcare and Biotech led. Technology weakened, but speculative growth still found buyers in ARKK.
This isn’t a clean risk-on or risk-off market.
→ It’s selective.
Biggest Takeaway: Gold Miners, Biotech, and Energy confirmed the new leadership, while weakness in Semiconductors showed just how selective the market became.