The Weekly Trend
The Weekly Trend is a conversation on various publicly-traded markets, seen through the eyes of technical analysis.
The Weekly Trend
Episode 308: Who Let the S&P Out?
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In this week's episode, Ian and Kevin discuss the S&P 500 getting above 7600, areas of the market that have led so far out of the range, precious metals, precious metals miners, fixed income, and credit spreads.
Welcome back to the Weekly Trend podcast. Today is August 7th, 2026. S&P sitting at, drum roll, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, 7748 My name is Ian McMillan, and today I'm joined by our analyst. Senior analyst, is that your technical title? Are you just, like, a senior analyst, Kevin?
Kevinit should say only analyst, I guess, would be the correct way to
Ian McMillanYou are.
KevinThe only,
Ian McMillanThat's true. That's true. We don't really have a junior or senior
KevinYeah, actually I think it's like lead, I think technically. Lead analyst.
Ian McMillanlead fits. If you're the one and only, you're the lead
KevinI lead myself Oh, yeah.
Ian McMillan7748, Kevin. We made it, dude. It is above 7,600.
Kevinin
Ian McMillanWe've made it. Took about three months
Kevinlike three years
Ian McMillanDecent. We haven't gone back to visit 7,600. Not that I want that, I don't. But holding up pretty well. Monday, it was a quick, it was a quick... I guess you can call it four days, basically from the bottom of the range,
KevinMe too though. I mean, by basically by
Ian McMillan7,300 last Wednesday All the way to the top of the range by Monday, and then a big, big candle Tuesday. Kinda hung out here on seventy-seven fifties, seventy-seven forties. So we'll see.
KevinYeah, I remember,
Ian McMillanBut it's a big, it's a big box to check
KevinYeah. And I remember talking Friday too that when we were on here, like, depending on how candle that day closed, like whether or not we really think we're getting out of this range. And I mean, really, we were at the highs of the day probably up until like, fifteen minutes to close, maybe even less than that. It came back a little bit, but
Ian McMillanYep
Kevinkinda had that feeling like, man, are we gonna do this right away next week? Cause earlier I was thinking... Or no, I was probably thinking that after Monday, I'm like, we're gonna close at seventy-six hundred, like even in gap down Monday, and the total opposite happened. Which is good. You gotta
Ian McMillanYeah
Kevinhedge sometimes But
Ian McMillanYou can? You do? Unfortunately, so a- yeah, so S&P all-time highs. Russell it depends on how you wanna look at it. I guess it did get all-time closing highs on Tuesday
KevinNot an intraday high.
Ian McMillansay we're like above
Kevinlike the previous intraday high from beginning of July
Ian McMillanNasdaq not there Nasdaq it depends on how you wanna draw, draw your rated trend, how you wanna draw your overhead resistance. You could say, right, if you took the highs from June 3rd June 15th June 22nd August 5th, which is Wednesday. And you could argue we have not broken the rate of trend. We went a little bit shorter term June 30th And then July 10th and July 15th. Depends on where you wanna draw your line. Yeah, I don't Tech definitely had the biggest hole to get out of from a like price behavior standpoint They definitely dug themselves the deepest hole. They have had some good moves, but yeah, like a semiconductors, I don't I don't-- I'm not quite convinced that we're going back to semiconductors
KevinThe whole AI push with semi and storage and all that stuff
Ian McMillanYeah, it just see... Or what, what semiconductors are we gonna pick, right? It's gonna be Nvidia and the large caps, or is it gonna be all the other random stuff
Kevin'Cause before it was basically everything but Nvidia, I think it felt like, and now it's more so like Nvidia's the one kinda leading the way for
Ian McMillanI feel like we had a little off the April lows. We had a little bit better start. Maybe I'm being super picky. I think they've broken their rate of trend, but are they gonna be a leader
KevinThat's the question, right?
Ian McMillanThey're not, they're not one of the clear ones. But I do think we have some Areas, right? Okay, if this is our next leg And we're three to four days into it What would you say are the sub-industries that have provided the most evidence that they could be the next short to intermediate term leaders
KevinYeah, I mean, really it was kind of growth that led us out of the range. So I mean, you know, kind of the areas we were talking about earlier this week
Ian McMillanDefinitely growth.
KevinLike on the software
Ian McMillanThis was not banks
Kevinlike cybersecurity you know, like cloud computing FANGs, so like your FANG stocks, and even, even, you know, MAGS has done well. I mean, there were some things, like if you look at some relative charts where, I mean, they kinda got left out of some of the adjustments we made there. I would say that, like your, a lot of your AI stuff, like Chat, AIS, things like that, which look...
Ian McMillanYeah, chat had a big move. God, some of this stuff.
Kevinit's...
Ian McMillanLike cloud computing, that was real- really quick back to the top of the range
KevinBut here's... The problem with all
Ian McMillanyeah, and then I look at like,
Kevinyeah, you're really not out of the woods yet necessarily for a lot of this stuff though, right? Like yeah, it let us out of the range, but I don't know that we're like free and clear to where you can... I mean, you can never lock it in, right? But I, I don't know if I feel comfortable locking it in that yeah, this is gonna be growth again, and like specifically the, you know.
Ian McMillanSame stuff.
Kevin'Cause I mean
Ian McMillanYeah, like I don't know if I'm buying AIS. DRAM, which was a, such a hot ETF during the last run took in billions. I think there's still a, yeah, 25 billion, which is amazing for an ETF that debuted April 6th. So like that stuff, that type of stuff, yes, it's off its lows, but it's really lackluster compared to some other things. Now, maybe that changes Monday and like if you look at DRAM or ga- gapping up above 55 and it's off to the races. But
KevinI mean, you kind of brought this up too, right? Like some of those areas really dug themselves kind of a bigger hole. So I mean, it, it's just not... Right? It's not as clean of a look as something like, cybersecurity or something like that that's out to all-time highs or some of these other areas. But like even FANGs, are kinda trying to work through those June highs still. I mean, that's kinda where we got turned back a couple of days
Ian McMillanYeah
KevinLike MAGS themselves, even quite gotten to those June highs yet.
Ian McMillanI feel like internet had a decent reaction, like FDN. PNQI, now those relatives are tough. XSW, again, tougher re- It's back above a 200-day on the relative. Shorter term XSW. So see, software, it's just been such a mess for couple years now kind of lost solar I could see it bouncing here. Yeah, I'm with you. I think
KevinYeah, I mean, like June
Ian McMillanthe cloud computing
Kevinsome of those June highs, know, like some of these things are there, trying to work through them. We're not quite there yet. I mean, I don't think
Ian McMillanMaybe biotech? I biotech.
KevinYeah.
Ian McMillanThat's
Kevina tough one to bet on
Ian McMillanDecent?
KevinI mean, that's the thing there too, like
Ian McMillanDefinitely
Kevinturned back, kinda like we were talking about a couple weeks ago. I mean, that, that was pretty convincing rejection. You know, in an area that made sense. Kinda those twenty-two, twenty-three relative highs
Ian McMillanAll right. I'm rolling my eyes if you can feel it through the podcast audio. But
KevinHmm. Your white whale?
Ian McMillanwe have... They've perked up again The miners
KevinYeah, and really all the miners. I mean,
Ian McMillanAll of them, and they're all huge move Okay. Yeah so you've got... Okay, like a
KevinУгу
Ian McMillanwe'll use this as an example. So off the Monday, so we're talking about Monday lows, four days ago, 24%.
KevinYeah, three out of the last four days gaps up, not small gaps either really
Ian McMillanNo. And so you've... They looked pretty rough coming into this week. They were kind of basing out.
Kevinsige, jeg mener,
Ian McMillansee that. I could see, like they've been flat for most of June and July And then big move. And then so they break the rate of trend from the, what was that? Like late February? Yeah. Late February We're back above a 200-day, 200-day that's flattening out, so we'll see. And then back above and could re-wap
Kevinhighs
Ian McMillanfrom the highs. So you've checked a lot of these boxes Definitely like a thrust. Have to go back and look at some, like, rate of change, like one week rate of change data on it. It's definitely a price thrust. I'm sure the weekly candle is, looks incredible. Yeah, look at that thing. Holy smokes
KevinThe relative on that versus SPX is kind of interesting. Like this is pretty much where we're at today, is kind of a, a level on a relative basis that it's wrapped around, you know, quite a bit really for the
Ian McMillanYeah. See, that's the other thing, the relative
KevinYou got the break of that rate of trend
Ian McMillanIt's almost rolling over the 200-day So it's still below a 200-day. So is this a countertrend move? Definitely a tricky one. Definitely a tricky one Or is it gonna go? Is this gonna be like August of last year That came off more of a sideways move, but
Kevinthe MO either, right? You kind of to take a little bit of a leap of faith. You really didn't get too much of a chance to
Ian McMillanThink about it, yeah
Kevinit, you know, you got the for sure breakout
Ian McMillanWell, and that was the whole thing, right? Even coming into today, you and I talked about yesterday of like, okay, well Still below these, and then of course 7%, 7%. You say, "All right, now what, Ian? Now what you gonna do?" We're above your little magical lines that you drew on your chart
KevinYeah, Junior Silver Miners too are pretty interesting. know, just basically right at the 200 day-to-day, just above it. You know, if you kind of draw roughly the same, Anchored VWAP from like the... Yeah, I think that's the same high rate end of February. You know, that's basically kinda today's intraday high. So looking like might potentially struggle to get through that. So I mean it-
Ian McMillanYeah, look at that. See, then it gets stuck, and then you wonder, right? I mean I'm definitely not a believer that in all gaps need to get filled. You can just look up at SILJ chart. We've got gaps from May of 2025 that haven't been filled
KevinEven the gold miners too, I mean, in the same boat. I think there's... Eh, maybe to a lesser degree. But yeah
Ian McMillana heck of a move to still not really like have conviction in the chart
KevinAll right
Ian McMillanAnd then you, we'll wait till Monday and then we'll lose another 8% on it to another gap up. What are you thinking about- The old you're the fixed income expert. What do you what do we have going on in fixed income land?
KevinLong-term treasuries, TLT trying to, to hang in there. I mean, they lost eighty-two fifty last... Was that last week or was that technically...
Ian McMillanHanging by their fingertips on the edge of a cliff again
Kevinthink we talked about that last week. I mean, kind of a Yeah, I mean, it depends how you draw. It's not the cleanest. You know, maybe like a retest to eighty-three somewhere in there. I mean, you could argue really from like eighty-three fifty to like eighty-two fifty is kind of a potential support area. So know. I guess wait and
Ian McMillanThe, yeah. 30-year yields they came back down a little bit this week, bounced where they needed to. So I don't think they're gonna skyrocket further, but I just... The longer we stay above five, 5.1, the long- it's more confirmation that, yeah, again, and I don't know what the, the rate of trend is gonna be going forward,
Kevinyou're saying? Like, yeah
Ian McMillanyeah, for rates themselves. We could stay above, stay in between five and Five and a half or I don't know. I don't know But I'm saying is if you, if we're above five, then we're not going to 4.9 or 4.8, 4.7.
KevinThose are the
Ian McMillanSo that's just the rules, unless you know some different type of numerology than I do
KevinNo, I don't think so. I think it's kind of an interesting thing too, right? I remember when we were at the symposium in New York for the CMT, and I can't remember who we were listening to when they asked who's, you know, who was working professionally during the last, like, rising rate cycle. I think there was two hands, and it was the two
Ian McMillanYeah, I think Louise Yamada asked that. Yeah
Kevinsense. So I mean, literally, I mean, there might've been a handful of hands go up in that room. So I mean, I think there's a lot of people, I guess, who really don't know what to
Ian McMillanJust not owning? Well, yeah well, what what about like convertibles and stuff? They rebounding? Like our favorites
KevinYeah, the convertible's chart's a little messy. I think that-- I think it's a little easier to kinda look at that on a, a
Ian McMillanKind of looks like DRAM. Yeah, like kind of... You would've really hoped for a better candles last
KevinMm-hmm. you know, using ICVT, like that a hundred and seventeen dollar level, you know, basically came up, tested that, and then got rejected. And I mean... 'Cause I think there's a lot of-- Like a lot of these convertible bonds I think are tech companies. So this, you know, it's always a chart that seems to somewhat be similar to a lot of areas in tech. Like there's kind of a decent correlation there. So it- Yeah, we'll see
Ian McMillanCredit spreads, not too hot, dude
KevinHmm.
Ian McMillanYear-to-date highs, highest since April 2025 Mm. Well
Kevinback into the
Ian McMillanPut that in the back of your head to think about this fall. Credit spreads 16-month highs. I don't know how I feel about that. That's, that's kind of a Red flag, man, and we're breaking a rate of trend from... I'm looking at C- triple C and lower US high yield option adjusted Man. Well It's kind of a bummer I guess rates were going up through the second half, or sorry, s- spreads were going up second half of 2021 as well And well, the S&P did fine. Your average stock did not do fi- do have a great year. And then obviously we fell apart We've also, right, we've-- technically rates spreads, high yield spreads bottom January 2025. And we have... Do you think Maybe that will just be D- in a rate, in a rising rate environment, will this type of measurement be as valuable? Will be more valuable? Less valuable? Will you just see...
KevinThat's a
Ian McMillanLike, will it not matter the spread? If a spread's 15, which we've become, like, that's kind of been, like, a high over the last decade or two.
Kevinjust
Ian McMillanif you got into, like, the high teens oh '07, '08, we got into, like, 40-point spreads. Dotcom bubble we had 24-point spreads at the peak But those are s- those were still falling rate environments. I wonder if
KevinYou go back, like how, what do
Ian McMillanYeah, because just the base is lower. Like if your base, because tr- the treasury yields are X, then corporations, you know, typically, I don't know of any corporation
KevinYou'd think they'd... Right, even the correlation to...
Ian McMillanA trade that a lower yield than,
KevinRight? But I mean,
Ian McMillanright?
Kevinrates would come down, too. I mean, they're always gonna be greater. Well, not... Generally, they're gonna be greater, but you would think that that spread relationship would kinda somewhat maintain the same or at least stay similar. But I don't know. You know, without going back to, like, what- How far back can you go?
Ian McMillanTradingView I got to 97, 97
KevinYeah, that would be interesting to see if you could get something, eh, where you can go back further Might have to look
Ian McMillanYeah. Something to think about But rates and spreads moving higher. So take that for what it's worth, right? When you look at junk, junk pretty, JNK pretty
KevinStill just
Ian McMillanBlah. It's kind of been blah all year
KevinI mean, kind of the areas that were working before are still hanging in there, so like high yield floating rate, emerging market bonds
Ian McMillanI was gonna say I guess emerging market high yield you could. Total return, it looks pretty... If you throw the divvies in there, the chart isn't too bad
Kevina little better. You know, I mean, which the dollar is still kinda hanging
Ian McMillanWell, like my God
Kevinfifty. I think that helps that space a little bit
Ian McMillanYeah
KevinBut yeah, like your B to triple B CLO is still doing fine. So I mean it Pretty, pretty much the same old, old in that space Yeah, I'd be curious to see what they do with With the TLT down here. Guess we'll have to wait and
Ian McMillanOr I wonder if it's like a, if it's like one side of the spread, right? So like the worst of the worst If that's just like the worst of the worst, the rates that they Have to pay, they have to issue at, are just terrible. But like your top end of the triple Cs, so your best of the worst their rates stay the same. So you see the spread go up I don't know, maybe that's what happens every time. I don't know. I'm not-- I don't know enough about, like, fixed income Other than from like a watch monitoring it from technical analysis view. I don't know much about the fixed income spreads and like I'm not an expert in triple C
KevinI don't think it would be, right, too crazy to expect as rates get higher that, you know, you're still looking for change in spread, but that like base default spread might grow as rates grow. I don't think that would be crazy to expect. But yeah.
Ian McMillanYeah, like a base. That thing, that's a good way, like your base
Kevinyou're looking for, like just because you're at like a, you know, the highest level since this date in a rising rate environment maybe might not mean as much, but like the, the change in that spread might still, you know, it should still You know, kind of signal
Ian McMillanYeah, maybe we're just going higher 'cause there's naturally gonna, I mean Well, we're about to find out. If stocks are lower in like three months and spreads are still going up Then I guess It still can be read the same way? I don't know. I don't know. We'll have to just let it play out
KevinI guess you can kind of
Ian McMillanTwo things this fall: football and watching to see what happens with credit spreads
KevinThat's why I gotta have two TVs, credit spreads on one screen, football game on
Ian McMillanYeah.
Kevinother
Ian McMillanNo, babe, we're trying-- We're seeing if the economic impact of credit spreads is changing due to the fact we're in a new 30-year rising rate environment. Duh. Duh anything else? Anything else that you believe would tickle our listeners' fancy
KevinWe kind of talked about miners. Well, I think were kind of talking about this too earlier in the week, but copper miners too, not just, you
Ian McMillanHopper
Kevinbut copper miners doing pretty well
Ian McMillanWe gotta see FCX do it. It's up there again today. We gotta see FCX above... I guess you, in theory, don't have t- FCX doesn't have to get above 70 bucks But copper prices themselves gotta be one of the, Better metals
KevinAlthough kind of struggling here around like,
Ian McMillanOh, getting hit today. Yeah.
Kevinlike that, where that was really starting to
Ian McMillanBoo
KevinThat's the thing, there's a lot of...
Ian McMillanThat's a hard uptrend though. That's a really hard... That's slo- that's, that's clearly an asset that does not like to hold its highs. You can catch a run in it let's say off March 2020, I guess, March, May 2020. But 90% of the time, very sloppy trending
KevinShe's pretty... I mean, you're riding a rollercoaster there for sure
Ian McMillanYeah, you just got-- that's more of a like, "Well, as long as we're above a 200-day or something, I'm just gonna be long." And that's the GSIF. That's the GSIF of like I can't look at this every day
KevinWhich I think is more of just a, probably a volume thing, right?
Ian McMillanYeah, I think it's more of just being thinly traded
KevinGold and silver,
Ian McMillanIs disappointing today
KevinI mean, yeah, they've been... Thought for sure insurance would stick with how good that looked there for a while, but that definitely didn't happen European
Ian McMillanNope
Kevinin there. I mean, that looks pretty similar to like
Ian McMillanYeah
KevinSimilar to GSUB. I mean, not a relative outperformer of that, but looks similar
Ian McMillanBitcoin, what do you think about Bitcoin? It's done nothing since the beginning of June
KevinAnd maybe come back up here into like sixty-six eight hundred, something like that
Ian McMillanYeah
Kevinor I don't know. Arc could go to the two hundred day and then roll back over. I don't know. It's kind
Ian McMillanDon't, Kevin. Don't say that Yeah, we gotta be done with that. It's just not going anywhere. I don't like being short when it doesn't go anywhere Oh. Anything else?
Kevinsilver themselves,
Ian McMillanJa.
Kevinperked up.
Ian McMillanJa
KevinSo, I mean, you got the metals perking up here a little bit
Ian McMillanI saw someone and I can't-- I should have copied it. Someone I follow on Twitter had a nice, I think they were looking at like an analog from... Gold in 1976 had a nice correction That's pretty similar to today Similar chart Or '72. I can't remember. It was some point in the seven- well, big thing, big thing to take away is we are above 7,600 And as long as we hold that
KevinCan't complain. Well, you can
Ian McMillanCan, shouldn't be complaining about stocks then We'll see how breadth holds up. I am curious though, yeah, now that we've s- now that we kind of noticed the credit spread thing, I'll be curious if this turns into just a terrible last two quarters for the average stock
KevinWhich, yeah. Or is it just gonna be
Ian McMillanthat's right. That's why you see A- like Apple and, well, not Apple, but like FANGs and MAGs is all that. Nvidia Is all that gonna be a safe haven?
KevinUntil we start clearing some of them June highs, I feel like it's harder to lock that in. That's, that's the thing too with like, right, you got that AI tech stuff and then also gold, silver, and the miners. Like, I mean, that seems a little goofy and obviously there are some levels there we talked about too, where you'd like to see them clear before you can really even say for sure that's gonna
Ian McMillanIndustrials. Industrial's been kind of disappointing They're fine. They're in an absolute uptrend. Relative chart is just
KevinLittle bit of a seasonal headwind too, I guess you should expect. So maybe, maybe that's how this plays out. Maybe we don't really necessarily get all these areas out to all-time highs. we just gotta cool off here
Ian McMillanYeah, new route allows for utilities. I will take that It's always a nice box to check I think we're there on...
KevinDa- well, not
Ian McMillanNo, not quite there on real estate. On staples we're not there?
Kevinkind of the June lows we still gotta get through, but
Ian McMillanWhat about like a PSCD versus PSCC? That's, Dave loves this one. Ugh, trash XLY versus XLP. Ugh. Yeah, that's rolling over. See
KevinNot a lot of cleanliness out there, I feel like, you know
Ian McMillanThere's not, there's, like this is not If we keep going,
Kevinthe
Ian McMillanknow, okay, first week of September we can have another discussion. But Ah
Kevinreal at ease about a lot of this. I mean, it-
Ian McMillanLike it's not like you're getting a lot of individual charts and relationships to bottom out at the same time Still very mixed, like you said. I think the three cloud computing, cybersecurity, that type of stuff, FANGs. We'll see. Like the WAG-
Kevinlike all those areas like really took off so quick. You either had to jump on it now or you-
Ian McMillanYou gotta be there by Tuesday
KevinAnd now you're getting to some of those kind of previous levels that are getting a little uncomfortable since we're pausing here a little bit. Just kinda... That's the thing, if this move wouldn't have been done in two days, if it kinda would've taken its time a little bit, maybe, I don't know. I guess it's what we didn't get, so it doesn't matter
Ian McMillanI'm surprised we haven't r- that we haven't run back to emerging markets with this weakness in the dollar
KevinI mean, yeah
Ian McMillanAnd I could see that maybe starting to come together. It i- relative chart actually it's into a rate of trend It's gotta do it now, now it's gotta be next week
KevinI mean, Peru's been doing all right, but that's always pretty much as the miners go, goes Peru
Ian McMillanPeru did hold up well. I think you said Greece held up well Yeah, Greece is held up, but
KevinAnd there's some questions there with some of those highs from like January, February twenty of earlier this year
Ian McMillanGrids been a bum- well, again, a chart that's had a strong re- I mean You know, it's, okay, so off the lows it's outperformed by 8%, so 8, 9% over the last week, but then that brings you back into the underside of a relative 200-day and Getting more work. Sorry, man, I gotta see more. I gotta see more You have to put it together another really strong week again Well, Kevin, thanks for joining me today.
KevinYeah.
Ian McMillanAlways a pleasure But before we leave, I would like to give a shout-out to the sponsor of this podcast, Adaptive Select ETF, listed on the NYSE under ticker ADPV, helps investors access two of the most prevalent factors in markets, momentum and relative strength, through proprietary identification methods. The Adaptive Select ETF attempts to own the strongest 25 large cap stocks when the market is in an uptrend. But as we all know, not all market environments are the same, and when we are in downtrends, Adaptive Select seeks to prevent extended declines by moving to short-term T-bills and cash. Investors can find out more, including how to invest in ADPV, by visiting adpvETF.com or calling 1-833-880-5200. Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal. Distributed by Quasar Distributors LLC. And there you have it We wish all of our listeners a wonderful weekend
KevinHave a good weekend. Hopefully this time next week we're still out of the range. Knock on wood
Ian McMillanStill above 7,600. That's the goal
KevinJust hold it up
Ian McMillanHave a great weekend everyone