The latest weekly analysis produced 27 new buy signals; ten of them are below. What matters more than any single stock is the mix: European and US defence, gold and its miners, a handful of technology stocks. The theme that actually paid this week — AI software — was not in this list.

Cisco Systems closed its fiscal fourth quarter with record numbers — adjusted earnings of 1.22 dollars per share against 1.17 expected, revenue of 17.25 billion against 16.82 — and raised guidance for the current quarter to 18-18.2 billion, above consensus. The stock lost 8.40%. One line explains it: gross margin fell to 66.3% from 68.4% a year earlier, eaten by the cost of memory and components for AI hardware. Demand is not the problem, with 4 billion in hyperscaler orders in the quarter alone, but whoever assembles the boxes pays the bill.

After the bell it was the turn of Applied Materials, with a record fiscal third quarter: revenue of 9.12 billion, up 24.8% year on year, a fifth consecutive beat, fourth-quarter guidance of 10.25 billion and the Semiconductor Systems margin widening to 38%. The most consequential figure is political: the China share fell to 28% from 35%, a direct reflection of export controls. The stock still gave back 2.48%.

Where hardware pays for margins, software defends them. Salesforce gained 4.16% after JPMorgan lifted it to Overweight, arguing that proprietary AI tooling is a durable revenue channel. Palantir Technologies added 4.66% as analysts kept raising targets following a quarter with revenue up 93% year on year. ServiceNow put on 1.85% and Snowflake 1.54%, extending the run that followed the previous day's 36% jump. Oracle closed 1.92% higher, and Oracle stocks were among the most actively traded stocks of the session.

This rotation rewards companies selling licences and platforms at high margin over those selling components, and it will be tested in the coming weeks by this same group's earnings.

A risk-friendly session lit up the usual high-volatility stocks. CoreWeave led it, with quarterly revenue doubling year on year and an adjusted operating margin of 5%, ahead of expectations: the bet on cloud infrastructure for artificial intelligence keeps paying as long as growth stays explosive. AppLovin recovered 2.93% on a mix of dip-buying and short covering, with management framing the slowdown in its advertising engine as a matter of deployment timing. Snap rose 1.92%.

The Milan market traded close to its highs with few catalysts. Eni stock shed 0.65% in a session shaped by conflicting reports around a possible Middle East peace agreement, while Leonardo stocks gave up 0.74% despite a positive call from RBC. Fincantieri went the other way, adding 2.52%.

Elsewhere on the continent the early-August guidance still sets the tone: Airbus and VINCI had confirmed or raised their targets, while LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton remains under pressure after Deutsche Bank cut its price target on softer luxury demand.

The four European baskets we track all carry a weekly buy signal opened in spring: DAX since 13 April, CAC 40, FTSE MIB and FTSE 100 since 7 April. Seventeen weeks in the trade, and on that they agree.

Where they part company is the result. The Italian basket returns 15.76% from the signal, the French 6.90%, the German 6.10%; the British one stops at 1.41%, a tenth of the Italian over the same span. It is also the only one of the four with the daily signal turned to sell, and the only one to have already run through its first published stop.

Among the US sectors the day belonged to communications, with Communication Services US up 2.07%, followed by real estate, with Real Estate US up 1.42%. Europe sat at the other end: Basic Resources Europe gave back 2.35%, and it is the basket whose daily reading diverges most sharply from the weekly picture.

Three baskets deserve a line even without having moved the session. Gold ETFs, which we track through Gold, carry a buy signal born with the latest weekly analysis, precisely while the metal retraces 1.3% after brushing a two-month high: the gold technical analysis says the structure holds even as the daily price slips, which is why the signal fires now. The semiconductor ETF, Semiconductors, stays short on our model since 13 July, and the Cisco and Applied Materials results explain why that reading is not obvious. The Nasdaq ETF (QQQ), Invesco QQQ Trust, is the case of the day and has the closing card to itself.

The week ahead is short on stocks and heavy on content, because it lines up the American consumer and Chinese demand.

Tuesday 18 August — BaiduShort

Tuesday 18 August — Home DepotLong

Thursday 20 August — WalmartShort

Just beyond the seven-day window comes the block that matters most for the current theme: Intuit and Zoom on 25 August, Salesforce on the 26th, and Nvidia at month end.

S&P 500 (SPY), the S&P 500 ETF, gained 0.70% and closed a whisker from its all-time high, breaking above the congestion band that had held it for five sessions. The buy signal has been open since 6 April, returns 14.49% and has already reached all three profit windows: it is a trade run by the trailing stop alone.

Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ), the Nasdaq 100 ETF, did almost twice as much at plus 1.16%, and still has its own record 2.26% above the current price. On our model it is the case of the day: after three weeks of selling that began on 20 July, a buy signal is printed on the weekly candle now forming and validates at tonight's close.