There are twelve of them, born out of the weekend's weekly analysis, and what matters more than any single name is where they cluster: energy, defence and industry, utilities, telecoms. That is the side of the market living on present orders and present cash. The day-signal column carries the date the buy fired on the daily chart; the weekly candle now forming closes on Friday, so that column stays provisional until then.

The story that set the tone did not come from a balance sheet but from a truce. With the pause in US-Iran strikes, crude handed back in one move the premium built up over weeks of tension, and European gas shed roughly 8% alongside it. The move rippled through the whole session: yields down, the dollar slightly softer, gold up more than a point.

Across our universe the effect was surgical. Eni stock was the worst performer in Milan, and TenarisShort went down with it. Among the majors, Exxon MobilLong, ConocoPhillipsLong, PetrobrasLong and BPLong all moved lower by more than one and a half times their typical swing, and so did TotalEnergiesLong in France. Three companies, three markets, one cause: when the commodity sheds 7.5% in two sessions, whoever pulls it out of the ground follows.

The real earthquake is in chips. NvidiaShort fell 3.5% after reports of talks to guarantee some $250bn of debt tied to a data centre build-out, a figure that revived the circular-financing worry: the chipmaker effectively funding its own customer to lock in future demand. AMD stock shed 8.3%, weighed down further by a report on a claimed Chinese breakthrough in lithography.

But the most violent move carries the memory sector's signature: SanDiskShort collapsed 11%, the worst name in its index and now 45% below its June highs, dragging MicronShort down 5%. The trigger was the market debut of a Chinese memory maker, which gave fresh substance to fears of a price war. In 2026 the risk for Western producers is no longer demand alone: it is Chinese capacity advancing across the whole supply chain.

Investors did not flee the artificial intelligence theme — they rotated inside it. With semiconductors under pressure, capital moved into application software: SalesforceShort gained 7%, ServiceNowShort 8%, while Shopify stock rose 7.9% after an Overweight initiation with a $192 target and two upgrades to Buy on the same day. PalantirShort added 4.1%, supported by enterprise demand and government contracts.

It is the same bet played from the side of those selling artificial intelligence as a service rather than as hardware, where the multiples do not hang on a capital-spending plan running into hundreds of billions.

It is worth looking at all four together, because on Monday they beat the United States and the reason is the very thing that punished the oil names. A continent that imports energy breathes when the barrel falls: DAXLong gained 1.36%, CAC 40Long and FTSE MIBLong 0.53% each and FTSE 100Long 0.40%, while the broad US index sat flat and the technology one slipped.

In technical analysis terms all four are in the same underlying condition, which does not happen often: every one of them has had a weekly buy signal since the first half of April, roughly fifteen weeks, and every one sits between 2% and 3.2% above its own weekly Inversion Point. Three of the four are also within 2% of their record; the odd one out is the London basket, still 8.6% below its high and carrying the thinnest gain of the group.

One closing note: the Milan basket should not be read on its own. It is the most bank-heavy of the four, and that single fact explains both its run this year and its sensitivity to every piece of news on rates — starting with the one landing tomorrow.

Milan closed half a point higher, with a split dictated by oil. On the winning side the banks, with UniCreditLong up 2.3% and Monte dei PaschiLong up 1.3%, and defence, with Leonardo stock up 2%. FerrariLong also did well, gaining 2% two days ahead of results. On the other side, the collapse in crude made Eni stock the worst name on the index, dragging the oil complex with it.

Intesa SanpaoloLong, the largest company on the index by market value, tracked the strength of the banking sector. The calendar thickens from here: shipbuilder half-year figures land on 29 July and the sports-car maker's quarterly on the 30th.

Widening the lens from the day's news to the map, the Italian picture is the clearest of any market we cover, and it has one dominant theme: banks and asset gatherers. Across nine financial names the signal is a buy on all nine, and eight of them are in double digits since the signal: MediobancaLong above 36%, Monte dei PaschiLong close to 29%, Banco BPMLong at 24.5%, Banca MediolanumLong at 23%, GeneraliLong at 21%, then Intesa SanpaoloLong and FinecoBankLong above 14% and UniCreditLong at 13.8%. It is the most profitable theme of the year on the Milan market, and the model has been inside it since the first half of April.

The outright leader, though, is not a bank: Saipem stock has been a buy since last December and is worth more than 78% since the signal. Monday's collapse in crude dragged it down with the rest of the complex, and it is precisely the case where one session's move says nothing about a trade that has travelled that far.

On the sell side the model has been right for months on three names the public keeps searching for. StellantisShort has been short since 1 June with almost 20% of gain; STMicroelectronicsShort since 13 July with 14.7%, carrying the highest conviction on the entire Italian market, a hundred out of a hundred — it is also the name drawing the heaviest technical analysis search traffic in Italy right now, and our reading runs against what most of that traffic seems to expect; MonclerShort completes the trio since last March, with luxury still failing to restart.

One name deserves a line of its own, because on Monday it was the most searched on the whole Milan market: EnelLong. Our buy signal has been open since 7 April, yet the gain sits barely above break-even and since yesterday the daily has turned to sell while the weekly holds. It is the case where public attention and the strength of the instrument do not travel together, and it is worth knowing that before buying out of curiosity. Among the new entries, the freshest in Italy is LeonardoLong: its weekly buy signal fired yesterday, so the trade starts today. Just behind it FincantieriLong, a buy since 6 July with 11.3% and half-year figures due tomorrow; and FerrariLong, a buy since 8 June with 8.1% and quarterly results on Thursday.

Europe, for once, delivered sharper company news than Wall Street. AstraZenecaShort beat expectations with core earnings per share up 21%, gaining 1.1% and helping lift the London index despite the slump in oil names. Rolls-RoyceLong also performed, up 2.6%.

The most interesting signal, though, came from luxury: LVMHShort closed an accelerating first half, with revenue up 2% organically and the second quarter at 3%, and above all a fashion and leather goods division growing again for the first time after seven quarters of decline, with watches and jewellery up 11%. With US demand recovering, it is the first concrete hint that the luxury cycle may have bottomed.

We close with the desk's technical read, which today comes down to one comparison. SPYLong, the S&P 500 ETF, trades 2.80% below its own record; QQQShort, the Nasdaq 100 ETF, 8.89% below. Six percentage points between two indices the public often treats as interchangeable.

The reason sits in the composition, and it reads off a single number: financials weigh 12.59% in the first basket and 0.24% in the second. On Monday technology gave up 0.90% while financials gained 1.01%, and that alone was enough to hold the broad index flat while the other fell. In technical analysis terms the two are in opposite states: the first is compressed, with eight distinct levels inside a point and a half above price and its weekly Inversion Point less than a point below; the second is pinned to the lower Bollinger band with empty space beneath it, and its weekly signal turned to sell in the week of 20 July.