Episode 305: From Magnificent to Migrating

 In this week's episode, David and Ian discuss the S&P 500 continuing to be rangebound, some of the potential concerns with price action of the Nasdaq, margin calls in South Korea, areas of the market holding up well and trying to go out to all time highs. They also discuss which commodities are doing well, especially with the strong U.S. Dollar, international leaders year-to-date, long-term treasuries and interest rates.  

Transcript

David 0:36

Welcome back to the Weekly Trend podcast. Today is Friday, July 17th, 2026. S&P 500 currently sitting at seventy-four sixty-four. I'm David Zarling, here with Ian McMillan. Little bit of price action today, but not really a change from the range we've been in for a few months here

Ian McMillan 0:54

Still in the range. Still in the top half of the range, I would say Not the, Greatest Opening the day. Well, depends. Depends, right? 'Cause we, we were just talking about equal weight S&P

David 1:04

Yeah.

Ian McMillan 1:05

Green?

David 1:06

S&P trying to go out to new all-time highs

Ian McMillan 1:10

Nasdaq down. Now we're down 2%. It's pretty rough, 25 minute... A lot, a lot worse 25 minutes ago. So we'll see

David 1:18

h-holding the volume-weighted average price from the March 30th low is the Nasdaq using QQQ

Ian McMillan 1:25

Hi

David 1:26

S&P trying to hold the point of control, which is at s- you know, 7,400 or above that. That'd be my line in the sand, if you will, that things could get dicier But I don't think it hurts that you've got equal weight holding up well

Ian McMillan 1:45

Al's, I mean, poor Al, he never gets talked about, which is fine. But it's okay

David 1:53

Yeah, it's fine

Ian McMillan 1:54

I don't really care for the... I mean, I guess it just got, I mean, it gets overbought. I like to say it's, I'd say it's diverging. It's really not. I mean Uh, overbought in June and then again in July. So at least We're doing that. But, mm, again, I know, same as last week, Dave, I don't know what to tell anyone So we're above 7620 or below 7260

David 2:24

I think you can have a couple things true at once. You can have, you, you know, we had strength out of semiconductors, and at the same time you have micro caps outpacing mega caps. So if you look at like IWC versus MGC Since April of last year, micro-caps have been outpacing mega caps Probably, probably why, you know, breath doesn't look too terrible

Ian McMillan 2:53

Does it look terrible? I don't know. I mean, there's also the... I'm gonna say this. It's gonna make sense to some people and not make sense to others I'm not saying I have some special power, but I've looked at, you know, looked at a fair amount of charts in my life, in my career. Things do feel a little lethargic. Like, I could definitely find some importunate, important stocks or sub-industries that Kind of blah. Just kind of don't give... They give more of a this might roll over type of vibe So I do wonder, like, how long does an RSP hold up? I mean, you can only have The Nasdaq and things like that going down for so long until I think at all I mean, NASDAQ could go sideways, but you can't have an... I don't really think you could have the NASDAQ go down. I think that would eventually bleed into Equal weight

David 3:59

Yeah, no, I, I think there's

Ian McMillan 4:02

Then you got Apple, right?

David 4:03

Well, I was just gonna say you've got Apple, you've got JP Morgan, and that would be the counterargument to what you're saying.

Ian McMillan 4:10

Yeah. I mean

David 4:11

lethargic, but then you've got Apple and JP Morgan going out near new

Ian McMillan 4:16

Bank of America's holding 60 bucks

David 4:18

Financials overall, XLF trying to record new all-time highs. It's you know, it's really hard to get super bearish

Ian McMillan 4:26

That's right? I mean, that's

David 4:29

So I, I think, you know, when you talk about like rolling over, it's... I don't think that's a, a terrible thesis, especially if we consider timeframe what you're talking about. I don't- with some of this other stuff, I don't, I don't think you're talking about a multi, multi-month, you know, 12 to 18-month correction, it could be really hard sledding for the next few months

Ian McMillan 4:52

Yeah I know we've talked about a little bit about 2015

David 4:56

Yep.

Ian McMillan 4:57

Kind of

David 4:58

2015 kind of went sideways summer and then July

Ian McMillan 5:02

Try the bounce Fell again in Q1 2016 and then

David 5:07

And I will say August is notorious for being weak when we get there But I think if you've got, you know, RSP trying to make new highs, we're still in a range for S&P. Like you said, I think is kind of the one where you go, "Hmm." Or even MAGS and FANGs kind of struggling here

Ian McMillan 5:24

Yeah, I can't stay sideways too long Like, okay, if we come back down to the bottom of this range, 7260, whatever you wanna call it down here, 7250 Just feel like That might get put in the bearish bucket I mean, at some, at some point you gotta move higher, right?

David 5:43

Yeah

Ian McMillan 5:44

And yeah, there's I don't know I'm being picky. I'm allowed to be picky.

David 5:50

You are allowed to be picky

Ian McMillan 5:52

I'm allowed to, I'm allowed to be picky. This is monies we're talking about. You're allowed to be picky

David 5:58

Yeah, when you're managing client assets, you're allowed to be picky Internationally kind of stalled

Ian McMillan 6:04

Yeah

David 6:04

for the last few months too

Ian McMillan 6:06

Emerging markets are On the brink too. They Go ahead

David 6:11

I was gonna say, you see all the leverage people in South Korea getting margin called. out, one out of 30 investors

Ian McMillan 6:19

Yeah, they started banning or... I don't know if banning's the right word. They're not letting... No more leverage ETFs I saw. I mean, I think the ones that are already on the market can be used, but no new ones

David 6:34

And SK Hynix just started trading

Ian McMillan 6:37

I know. I saw a, a tweet that said, I saw a tweet that said the Kospi's closed today. How, how do we know, how are us Americans gonna know how to trade?

David 6:47

That's

Ian McMillan 6:48

Which is, I mean, that's... I mean, we do kinda have a tail wagging the doll- dog, if that's what you wanna call it.

David 6:57

Well,

Ian McMillan 6:57

It is

David 6:58

Hynix and we've got, you know, we have leveraged ETFs over here for SK Hynix now. Isn't that funny how that works? Those launch and here we've got a 30 some percent, almost 30% correction in the KOPSI With margin calls And what's interesting is you get a long-term chart of SK Hynix and you're like, "Oh, this is pretty normal pullback. This makes sense." Still painful. I mean, when you say normal on a high beta thing like that, down 30%.

Ian McMillan 7:27

Here You know who's big into that? Big position South Korea, David Tepper

David 7:34

Really?

Ian McMillan 7:35

Yeah I think he even bought like just like a ton of EWI. I don't know if he did anything with the individuals. I'm sure he did What else? Should we buy any utilities? No

David 7:47

I find it interesting real estate kind of perking up here regional banks Right at prior highs from 2021. See what they've, you know, they've gotta prove it. They've been s- had been such trouble for so long

Ian McMillan 8:01

Adjusted yeah, I mean real estate total return XLRE made it to all-time highs Depending on how you wanna look at that Real estate does look good. The hotel REITs are good. The hotel, talk about that all the time. Hotel, some get, well, some get categorized as consumer discretionary, some get categorized as REITs. I guess it's however the company wants to structure themselves But yeah, it's a hot... Look at that. Russell's almost flat on the day

David 8:37

Well, interesting how REZ, R-E-Z, looks that much better than XLRE. It's all a matter of how you position yourself. But I mean,

Ian McMillan 8:45

That's what I have.

David 8:46

new all-time highs,

Ian McMillan 8:47

look at that. Rez does look good

David 8:49

REZ going to new all-time highs

Ian McMillan 8:52

Residential and multi-sector

David 8:55

The healthcare holding up okay I mean I think we have more of a mega cap churning and burning. And do- and doesn't that make a little bit of sense with the SpaceX stuff?

Ian McMillan 9:06

Yeah. Speaking of that, I did saw, I saw it was below its IPO. Is that still true?

David 9:12

That is

Ian McMillan 9:12

Oh yeah, look at that thing. 126 bucks Was down to 122 this morning. Got up to 226 three days after the IPO

David 9:25

When a lot of these,

Ian McMillan 9:26

always have to buy the hot thing

David 9:28

No. But a fair amount of these, We would call them Like space, satellite have had a rough month

Ian McMillan 9:36

It,

David 9:37

Like,

Ian McMillan 9:37

the ones that fall under the aerospace

David 9:39

yeah, like aerospace. So your ASTS, pretty

Ian McMillan 9:43

Yeah. Oh, wow.

David 9:46

Glad it's gone

Ian McMillan 9:48

Well, Rocket Lab, yeah

David 9:50

So, and, and

Ian McMillan 9:50

Yeah.

David 9:51

j- yeah, it, Rocket Lab, what is that gonna be down almost 35% on the month? I mean There are very few aerospace Pieces that are up on the month. And it makes you wonder 'cause right, that was a leader We'll see

Ian McMillan 10:09

It was definitely a leader for a long time. Very hot. All the, all the hot names.

David 10:15

So

Ian McMillan 10:15

W- do you remember Planet Labs?

David 10:17

Yeah, Planet Labs So isn't that classic that you launched one of the biggest aerospace

Ian McMillan 10:23

Well, didn't someone just change their ticker to UFOX

David 10:28

Yeah, that

Ian McMillan 10:29

it more of like a aerospacey

David 10:31

yeah, that was 6G

Ian McMillan 10:33

Yeah

David 10:34

6G was supposed to be, you know, your connectivity. It was just like

Ian McMillan 10:38

Yeah

David 10:38

was the, what it was marketed as, and now it's space and connective tech. Yeah, so good

Ian McMillan 10:44

Hmm. Just saying

David 10:47

U- UFOX ticker change Some of these are hurting all over the last two months

Ian McMillan 10:53

Rate of trends though, I mean, like if I look at a UFOX, could you bounce here?

David 10:58

Oh,

Ian McMillan 10:58

Maybe

David 10:59

Yeah, definitely

Ian McMillan 11:00

bounce anywhere

David 11:01

yeah, back into a, a rising 200-day moving average. Makes perfect sense to me

Ian McMillan 11:08

Russell's green. What if we just did like a play-by-play all nine hours today?

David 11:15

We could, yeah. Pull up a 15-minute chart and just

Ian McMillan 11:18

Two broadcasters up in the booth So you gotta comment on the game, but then you also gotta comment on other random stuff

David 11:25

Mm-hmm

Ian McMillan 11:26

Uh, it's 3-2 count. Say, Dave, you seen The Odyssey yet?

David 11:31

It's out today. I haven't seen it. But we watched Troy with the kids last night

Ian McMillan 11:36

Choice good Think of the Troy, Nate Troy today

David 11:40

What's that?

Ian McMillan 11:41

What if they made Troy today? It wouldn't be Brad Pitt, probably not

David 11:45

Probably not But yeah, are you gonna go see that? You gonna go see The Odyssey?

Ian McMillan 11:49

Now. Now No, we don't do that

David 11:54

Semiconductors leader Below a 50-day moving average, approaching a 100-day moving average

Ian McMillan 12:02

I know crude's g- gasoline's not too far from Nice. Maybe that was a clue. Gasoline never really dropped as far as, like, oil did

David 12:13

Held up pretty good

Ian McMillan 12:14

Nola I mean, any co- any, any commodities that are doing strong with the strong dollar probably Wheat, very strong. Precious metals, not

David 12:26

Yeah. Remember when gold was, gold and silver were a thing? Remember how that was

Ian McMillan 12:29

Remember the Koreans? Man, the Koreans have gotten rug pulled twice this year First to precious metals It's a degen society over there. Not that we're any different in America. We probably like to think of ourselves as different, but

David 12:44

Now when you got all the betting apps out there

Ian McMillan 12:47

Oh my gosh

David 12:48

and the parlays and whatever, you, you can bet on anything. It's crazy

Ian McMillan 12:52

You can. You truly can. Did you see there's a deli or not a deli, an ice cream parlor in New York, and they said that their sales drop by, like, pretty significantly, 30, 40% when it rains? So the owner has... He's been hedging on, like

David 13:13

Weather

Ian McMillan 13:13

like Polymarket and stuff. He just bets on the weather

David 13:17

That's kind of fun.

Ian McMillan 13:18

I mean, I guess so

David 13:19

I feel like that's an applicable use

Ian McMillan 13:22

I think it's better than like, do you think someone will say a certain word during their Grammy speech?

David 13:28

Yeah Good point Well, caps are s- up the last five minutes. Back to the game Oh, now they're gonna be down. Imagine if that was it. We just talked about every five-minute candle Oh.

Ian McMillan 13:42

Oh

David 13:43

Oh, crazy Yeah, year to date still remains Russell in first place Which you wouldn't expect necessarily. Energy's back into first place over tech for the year.

Ian McMillan 13:57

Okay, that makes sense. Especially, yeah, energy's definitely on the bounce the last week or so

David 14:03

For bonds, it still remains convertible bonds. They've pulled back here, but inflation protected

Ian McMillan 14:09

Evan will like that

David 14:11

Yeah. Uh

Ian McMillan 14:14

Well, today is a rough look. We'll see where it end up

David 14:18

I mean,

Ian McMillan 14:18

Gosh

David 14:19

though EWI, K- South Korea's in this big correction, it's still up 67% on the year

Ian McMillan 14:25

What's Taiwan up?

David 14:27

Ooh, find it Using EWT

Ian McMillan 14:32

Yeah

David 14:33

On the year, is up approximately 51%.

Ian McMillan 14:39

Okay

David 14:40

So not bad

Ian McMillan 14:41

Not bad

David 14:42

Not bad. I mean, that's, that's definitely...

Ian McMillan 14:46

I would write home about that

David 14:47

Those are the first two. It's, it's been South Korea and Taiwan, which makes

Ian McMillan 14:52

Then

David 14:53

SK hynix,

Ian McMillan 14:54

his number, his number three Who I think it is?

David 14:58

Oh. Depends on what you mean, I guess. it's who you think it is.

Ian McMillan 15:04

It Israel?

David 15:05

no

Ian McMillan 15:06

Oh, who is it?

David 15:08

It is Well, what is in this thing? Colombia? Colombia. But didn't, isn't, isn't that a unique... Okay, there's something about this ETF I remember. So Colombia is next. Then, okay

Ian McMillan 15:23

What about all Peru? Did they roll over yet? Cause they got the whole... No, they really haven't. They got the whole precious metals run, and then, uh Kind of just went sideways instead of down, which I guess is Good

David 15:40

Australia's still up decent on the year Turkey up 14% on the year. So some pullback, but look good Indonesia's kind of a oddball in that they're, they're down on the year. Hmm. Down 32%

Ian McMillan 15:56

Indonesia

David 15:57

Indonesia, India, China, Vietnam, down on the year So consolidation across a lot of international as well

Ian McMillan 16:06

Yeah

David 16:06

me- you mentioned commodities Would you say canola? Gasoline, like you said, up 97%. Ooh

Ian McMillan 16:14

How does that make you feel, America?

David 16:17

America. America. Yeah. Heating oil, crude oil

Ian McMillan 16:23

And this is with the strong dollar. Wow, strong to last I guess year to date the dollar is up. What's the dollar up year to date? Okay, 2%. Yeah, I mean, I guess it's Is that right? Year to date. Yeah, I guess it is about 2%.

David 16:41

And I tell you what is kind

Ian McMillan 16:42

About 7% in the last From the end of January though

David 16:47

Tell you what, three, 30-year treasuries are right on the brink. I think that'll be very telling in the coming weeks and months as if that breaks above

Ian McMillan 16:57

That we've... Yeah, if this

David 16:59

this consolidation and compression since of

Ian McMillan 17:03

We truly move into the next leg higher I don't know where our major move takes you, but

David 17:08

Well, I'll give you an approximate Proxima would take you to about 6.7% 30-year yields 10-year yields measured

Ian McMillan 17:21

to where we were in 01 through '06, this is basically where we hung out

David 17:27

10-year would be around 6% So it, it does look like yields wanna go higher. I mean, that's at least what the the market is showing

Ian McMillan 17:35

That's been the thesis all along, right?

David 17:38

Right?

Ian McMillan 17:38

Well, at least since COVID

David 17:40

Yep. New 35, 40-year cycle in

Ian McMillan 17:44

Mm-hmm

David 17:45

Uh, what do you think about transportation stocks? So you

Ian McMillan 17:48

I mean, the whole

David 17:49

costs like gasoline being high, being high, being high, but transportation stocks trying to record new weekly all-time highs again

Ian McMillan 18:00

Transportation has definitely held up well Cybersecurity's held up well You mentioned financials, which is true. It's true. Insurance having a good day today Yeah, like a IYT, XTN

David 18:14

Yeah. Looks good, man It's hard to get overly overly bearish with DOW theory being confirmed with new highs in transports and Dow Jones right there And some of these stuff, when you look at relationships, it just kind of looks like a reversion. Like, are we just getting a reversion to the mean? And that's fine

Ian McMillan 18:34

It's really hard, right? Especially if you wanna pair something with Semiconductors. 'Cause you're

David 18:39

Yeah

Ian McMillan 18:40

like, "Okay, well this could be..." Just to your point Everything's gonna look so extended Then I wonder about '98. Wasn't there a big drawdown in '98?

David 18:50

Yeah, '98. There's a currency crisis '98, '99. There was long-term capital management blow up in there. that's some of this too. You wonder You could always have a drawdown with some type of blow up and then we move higher. Like, are there any managers out there that were just super leveraged into semis or AI or space? And we'll get the... You know, one of these weekends we'll get the info out that somebody blew up and then, then we're moving higher over concentrated Could happen

Ian McMillan 19:22

ADPV screen. So take a turn around there

David 19:26

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Ian McMillan 20:13

Oh, this is a sweet setup.

David 20:15

Yeah, you did it. That was

Ian McMillan 20:16

I did it. I saw you, I saw you going down. I was like, "You know, I'm gonna tap this over for the assist."

David 20:21

Yeah.

Ian McMillan 20:21

You put it right in the back of the net, dude

David 20:24

Yeah, well no, that was basically a Messi, that you just the ball in my head when the

Ian McMillan 20:29

I looked at you like that GIF. I said, "Okay. Okay"

David 20:33

That is gonna be a good GIF for a while I want you to know my kids say JIF and I, I will, I will go to my grave that it's GIF cause it, that's the literal what it stands for

Ian McMillan 20:45

They say Jeff

David 20:46

They say JIF when it's...

Ian McMillan 20:48

Like the peanut butter

David 20:50

Yeah, it's Graphics Interchange Format, so therefore it's GIF. But the kids, the kids, it's JIF

Ian McMillan 20:58

Well, you know what? If the kids can... I'll let the kids call it whatever they want if they can vote properly going forward

David 21:06

Yes, that would be good Back to the game, IDWM Green again. Last five minutes

Ian McMillan 21:13

There we go.

David 21:14

What do you

Ian McMillan 21:14

How about that?

David 21:15

So I saw this, I saw this stat on, from Phenom Group, and it says when the New York Stock Exchange advanced decline line makes a new high in July, S&P has never had a negative return the rest of the year

Ian McMillan 21:31

Isn't that wild? But I don't know if that's true Because, so I think, and I still actually have this pulled up from yesterday I went back to 20 Fifteen

David 21:43

Okay. And was it a new, was it a

Ian McMillan 21:47

I feel like it was. NY, NYAD, update chart

David 21:52

keep in, keep in mind that w- okay, S&P in 2015, ooh, with dividends, is it positive?

Ian McMillan 22:04

Probably. But was it positive the se... I mean

David 22:07

No, it wasn't You're just saying that that was a positive advance decline line year in July, and the market was not positive at the end of the year Right? That's what you're saying?

Ian McMillan 22:18

I feel like that's what I saw. And of course my dash lane is being a jerk

David 22:24

Yeah, so 2015. Yeah, it doesn't list 2015. I don't know why. Is it saying that the advance decline line didn't make a new high Well, we can look this up

Ian McMillan 22:33

Hustler

David 22:34

I'm trying to get there. I gotta go back. I gotta go in the way back machine Oh, 2015, based on what I'm seeing here

Ian McMillan 22:44

It's not

David 22:45

it is not a new high in the advanced decline

Ian McMillan 22:48

Okay, in July. Okay, the month of July. We did make one. What is this over here?

David 22:57

May

Ian McMillan 22:58

Are, wh- well, what, which one are you looking at again? Are you looking at NYSE or S&P

David 23:05

NYSE

Ian McMillan 23:06

Okay, I'm looking at NYSE

David 23:08

And I've got the la- in, in June, May of 2015 is the last high. In July, advance decline line has not made a new high So it's interesting. I mean Could hold up

Ian McMillan 23:22

Okay, this is, that's true. Okay

David 23:25

You got any wildfire smoke by you? Probably not I'm guessing half our

Ian McMillan 23:28

Dude, it's Canadians. Those Canadians are... That's probably like an SOS. Come help us. Come save us

David 23:35

Could be. I mean But I know here in Wisconsin, I know a lot of Midwest is getting rid of... Yeah, it's, it's pretty bad

Ian McMillan 23:42

Like even down where you guys are at?

David 23:44

Yeah

Ian McMillan 23:45

Dang

David 23:46

Like it smells like fire and it, you, you can see it just sitting there. Can't see very far off in the distance

Ian McMillan 23:53

All very normal. I mean, this has happened... I'm sure this happened a lot when you were a kid

David 23:59

Nope. I know

Ian McMillan 24:00

Very

David 24:01

I know it happened in 2023, but your point is made. I don't recall that ever happening before kind of over it

Ian McMillan 24:08

I would be too

David 24:10

Maybe they should start clear-cutting up there and actually taking care of their forests rather than just letting them burn What if we harvested trees for energy?

Ian McMillan 24:17

Wouldn't that be something?

David 24:18

Won't that be something?

Ian McMillan 24:20

Like a purification of the environment

David 24:22

Yeah. All right, so long story short, we got equal weight S&P holding up better over the past month than cap weighted. Micro caps over mega caps. We see strength out of banks, energy, healthcare, transports. Breath appears to be okay. Dollar's still

Ian McMillan 24:40

That is okay It d- it doesn't feel like that some days, but

David 24:44

Sometimes the market just spins you around. You know, sometimes this, this, you know, we could call this sector rotation and That's not a bad thing

Ian McMillan 24:52

Well, let's hurry it up then

David 24:53

Yeah, let's get a move on it

Ian McMillan 24:55

Let's hurry her up and rotate it

David 24:57

Rotate it, spin it around, flip it up

Ian McMillan 25:01

I get it. You are, you are rotating But it's tricky, right? 'Cause you got a, you got something like a regional bank, which Not quite there on a Not quite there on a, on a relative basis I mean, building a really nice base. Of course, we've been doing this for three years, so we'll see But on an absolute basis, right, then some things are gonna start to get away from you

David 25:26

Yep

Ian McMillan 25:27

We'll see. Not, not unlike a KRE quite yet. KRE still needs to get through 78, 79 bucks, but

David 25:35

Well, if JP Morgan is gonna lead, JP Morgan's gonna actually pull some type of whipsaw and move higher out of this space since 1989, that's pretty

Ian McMillan 25:46

Wouldn't that be something?

David 25:48

Pretty bullish. But if we're gonna have mega caps struggle here, it's gonna feel that way. It's gonna f- you know, when you have a cap-weighted index like the S&P Gonna, rest of the summer could be from a cap-weighted index might be a little tough Anything else you wanna highlight before we wrap this one up?

Ian McMillan 26:09

Nothing for me

David 26:11

Awesome. Well, we hope everyone enjoy listening to this. We ask you to share with your friends and family. Give us a high ranking on your platform of choice, and we'll see you guys next week

Ian McMillan 26:22

Have a great weekend everyone