Technical analysis: a three-continent bond selloff sinks tech stocks while oil lifts BP and Shell stock
The 1 September session had a single engine, and it came from the debt market. Government bond yields rose across three continents on the same day: the US thirty-year above 5.30%, its highest since 2007, the thirty-year gilt at 5.89%, a level unseen since 1998, and the Japanese ten-year touching 3% for the first time in thirty years. Geopolitics piled on top, with renewed fighting around the Strait of Hormuz pushing Brent beyond 92 dollars. When rates and oil climb together, valuations pay the bill: the Nasdaq 100 ETF lost almost twice as much as the S&P 500 ETF.
In the cards below you will find the technical analysis of the names that moved the day — Dell stock and Oracle stock caught by the rate move, CrowdStrike stocks and Interactive Brokers among the sharpest falls, BP stock and Shell stocks carried by crude, Apple stock going the other way. The Milan market gets its own card, where Eni stock was the only real winner while Stellantis stock, STM stock, Enel stock and Intesa Sanpaolo stock all gave ground, and Europe's four indices close the picture. For each name you get our model's position, long or short, with the date the signal was triggered.
- Debt breaks across three continents
- Oil beyond 92 dollars
- Milan: Eni holds, Stellantis and STM fall
- US technology: distant earnings punished
- Fifty signals turned in two sessions
- Edison International and PG&E: the rebound
- The ETFs that moved the session
- European indices: Milan is the divergence
- This week's signals: what changed
- This week's earnings
- Technical analysis of SPY and QQQ
Technical analysis of the session: debt breaks across three continents and drags equities down
The day's story did not start in equities. British government bonds led the selling — the ten-year above 5.2%, its highest since 2008, the thirty-year at 5.89%, unseen since 1998 — pulling Treasuries, Bunds and OATs along with them. The US thirty-year cleared 5.30%, the ten-year climbed back towards 4.78-4.81%, and the Japanese ten-year touched 3% for the first time in three decades. The fuse is identical in every market: rising energy prices, repriced inflation expectations and renewed worries about public debt.
The channel that carries those numbers into our charts is direct. A higher real yield compresses multiples, and it compresses them hardest where a company's earnings sit furthest into the future. That is why the Nasdaq 100 ETF fell 1.27% against 0.69% for the S&P 500 ETF, and why US technology finished second from bottom among eleven sectors.
Technical analysis of the oil complex: Hormuz lifts Brent beyond 92 dollars
Renewed hostilities around the Strait of Hormuz — American strikes on Larak Island and Iranian reprisals against the Emirates and Jordan — restored the geopolitical premium on crude: Brent climbed past 92 dollars and the US benchmark settled near 86.7. On our dashboard oil is now up 9.7% across four weeks.
The sector moved as a block on both sides of the Atlantic. Petrobras stock gained 5.06%, BP stock 3.73%, ConocoPhillips 2.79%, TotalEnergies 2.75%, Shell 2.63%, Chevron 2.38%, Exxon Mobil 2.24% and Occidental 1.28%. The US energy ETF closed up 1.27%, first among eleven sectors. The exception is Schlumberger, down 4.91% on a day when crude rose: a stock falling while its own sector gains is paying for something that concerns it alone.
Technical analysis of the Milan market: Eni stock holds, Stellantis and STM stocks fall
The Milan market shed 1.41%, and beneath that number only one name genuinely held. Eni stock gained 1.54% and Tenaris stock 1.92%, both carried by crude. Everything else fell: Stellantis stock 2.40%, STM stocks 1.72%, Enel stock 1.92%, Ferrari 2.47%, Prysmian 2.58%.
Banks were hit by the same rate channel that moved everything else: Intesa Sanpaolo stock down 1.78%, Monte dei Paschi 1.37%, Mediobanca 1.32%, Generali 1.01%, UniCredit stocks 0.95% and BPER 0.35%, the latter having just opened its share buyback. At the bottom of the list Poste Italiane lost 3.78% and Telecom Italia 3.61%, both among the day's outsized moves. Behind Stellantis Milano sits the announced industrial reset: the 2026 dividend suspended and a write-down of roughly 26 billion on electric and battery investments.
Technical analysis of US technology: rates punish the most distant earnings
The US technology ETF shed 1.53%, second from bottom among eleven sectors, and the decline was broad rather than concentrated. Oracle stocks lost 5.23%, CrowdStrike 6.90%, Strategy 6.06%, ServiceNow 3.44%, Palantir 3.47%, Advanced Micro Devices 2.36%, Micron stock 2.64%, Qualcomm stocks 2.27% and Nvidia 1.51%. Outside the sector but inside the same family, Interactive Brokers fell 7.09%, the largest single drop in our universe: a broker losing 7% on the day yields jump is the most coherent reaction of the session. These are semiconductor stocks and software names hit by one mechanism, not by twelve separate stories.
Running the other way were Apple stocks, up 2.61%, and Meta, up 1.08% — the two with the strongest cash positions. And there is the counterpoint that matters: Dell stocks lost 6.80% in the session and then, after the close, reported revenue of 46.97 billion against 44.9 expected, earnings per share of 7.04 against 4.95, and full-year targets raised by more than 25 billion on demand for artificial intelligence infrastructure. Anyone running ai trading as a single theme has the lesson of the day in front of them: demand for artificial intelligence did not change, the discount rate did, and yesterday the discount rate won. It is the kind of session where a trading strategy built on one theme alone gets tested by something entirely outside it.
Fifty signals turned in two sessions: why they are still provisional
The weekly bar that opened on Monday 31 August contains only two sessions and closes on Friday 4 September. On that bar our model has already printed 50 signal changes: 34 from long to short and 16 the other way. For comparison, Monday carried seven. All of them are provisional: until the candle closes they can be withdrawn, and Monday and Tuesday are the days when that happens most often.
Two blocks stand out on their own. The first is defence: RTX, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Airbus and Safran all printed a sell flip together, and three of them had already crossed their exit level on Monday. The second is Brazil, moving against the rest of the world: Vale, Banco do Brasil, CSN, Cemig and six other names printed a buy flip on the very day the local index rose against the tide. Among indices, the FTSE MIB and the Russell 2000 — the US small-cap basket — both turned lower.
Technical analysis of Edison International and PG&E stock: what a rebound after a crash is worth
After Monday's collapse the two Californian utilities recovered part of the ground: Edison International stock gained 8.93%, the largest rise in our universe, and PG&E stock 5.95%. The US utilities ETF closed up 0.78%, second among eleven sectors, helped along by the day's defensive rotation.
Set against Monday, though, the rebound weighs less than it looks: after losing more than a fifth of their value, an 8.93% recovery retraces under a third of the distance. The Californian wildfire bill, which leaves civil liability with the publicly traded utilities, has not changed in the meantime.
The ETFs that moved the session: energy on top, gold and technology at the bottom
Six baskets tell the day better than any commentary. XLE — the State Street Energy Select Sector SPDR, the US energy ETF — closed up 1.27%, first among eleven sectors, while EXH1 — the iShares STOXX Europe 600 Oil & Gas, the European oil and gas ETF — did better still at 1.76%, the best of all twenty sectors we track. XLU — the State Street Utilities Select Sector SPDR, the US utilities ETF — added 0.78%.
At the other end, XLK — the State Street Technology Select Sector SPDR, the US technology ETF — lost 1.53% and EXV3 — the iShares STOXX Europe 600 Technology, the European technology ETF — fell 2.04%, worst of the day. And then the basket that usually protects and yesterday did not: GLD — SPDR Gold Shares, the most heavily traded gold ETF in the world — lost 2.86%, penalised by the very rise in real yields that moved everything else.
Technical analysis of European indices: Milan is the divergence
European markets all closed lower, but the distances matter. The FTSE MIB shed 1.41%, the DAX 1.11%, the CAC 40 0.44% and the FTSE 100 only 0.30%, the last protected by the weight of energy in its own basket.
Our signals paint a more interesting picture than the day's league table. The DAX has been in buy since week twenty-one, worth 4.79%, with price sitting 1.14% above its weekly Reversal Point; the FTSE 100 in buy since week twenty-two, worth 1.81%, sitting 1.54% above. The CAC 40 is the only one already in sell, since week two, with the signal ahead by 1.24%. And the FTSE MIB is the outlier: the buy signal has run twenty-two weeks and is worth 11.80%, the best of the four, yet price now sits below its Reversal Point by 3.37% and has printed a sell flip on the bar in progress.
This week's buy signals: what changed in the second session
The cohort is the one born at Friday 28 August's close — 9 signals, six of them tradable — and it stays the same until next Friday. Here we publish only what has changed in the second session: who moved meaningfully, whose daily signal turned, and who comes back into play after an exchange holiday.
This week's earnings: Broadcom reports tonight
The next seven days bring three names from our universe, and the first is the heaviest.
Wednesday 2 September
Broadcom Long
Thursday 3 September
Zscaler Long
Tuesday 8 September
FuelCell Energy Short
Technical analysis of SPY and QQQ: composition explains the gap
SPY, the S&P 500 ETF, shed 0.69%; QQQ, the Nasdaq 100 ETF, 1.27%, almost twice as much. The reason sits in the composition, and it can be measured. In the Nasdaq basket technology weighs 50.54%, communications 16.06% and consumer discretionary 12.62%: nearly 80% in three sectors that all fell. Energy, the only sector clearly higher, weighs 0.66% there and financials 0.24%; in the S&P 500 basket those same two are worth 4.02% and 12.59%.
The technical picture is just as different. SPY has been in buy since week twenty-two, worth 12.12%, has banked all three profit-taking windows and sits a 2.31% rise from its record, with its exit level only three quarters of a point below. QQQ has been in buy for four weeks, the trade is down 3.20%, no window has been reached and the record sits a 5.80% rise away.
The backdrop: risk has moved onto debt, and bonds offered no protection
No formal central bank meeting marked the day, but the backdrop carries weight: markets absorbed hawkish remarks from the chair of the Federal Reserve, which supported both the dollar and yields, while the European Central Bank remains primed for a possible September move. The dollar firmed and the euro slipped below 1.16.
The stress dashboard now describes a clear migration. Equity volatility rose 3.4% over the week and is flat across the month; bond volatility, by contrast, is up 9.7% in a single week and 8% over the month, the Italy-Germany spread 8.6% and rising for four consecutive weeks, tail risk 12%. Three tension gauges lined up on debt while the most closely watched indicator of all stands still. Oil points the same way, up 9.7% across four weeks.
The number we keep watching is market participation — how many names are genuinely holding the index up. It fell 11.4% in a single session and has been declining for three weeks, 4.7% in total across the month. It is the largest move on the entire macro board, and it says yesterday's prices were held up by very few.
What you find here. If you are trying to understand how to manage risk in trading — stops, break-even stops, trailing, and the declaration of stops that have been taken out — or how to read chart patterns (double bottoms, Bollinger bands, the Ichimoku cloud, price action trading), this is the desk's trading journal: published every morning before the US premarket, with our model's position on every instrument mentioned.
The full analyses behind the cards on this page.
* Our system — The rows of names at the foot of each card carry our model's position, long or short. Position from the latest published weekly analysis. Levels, targets and the trading plan sit in each instrument's own page. The two letters in brackets lead to the instrument page (G) and the full analysis (P).