Technical analysis: Intel, AMD and Meta stock reignite Wall Street as semiconductor stocks rally and Milan rebounds with its banks
Wall Street opened the week on Monday 21 September with its best session in more than a month: on our data the S&P 500 ETF gained 1.55% and the Nasdaq 100 ETF 2.77%, led by chipmakers. The Milan market recovered 1.77% on the back of its banks and every European index closed higher, while oil fell 3.9% and the spread between Italian and German ten-year yields narrowed.
In this edition you will find the technical analysis of the names that made the session, with our model's position on each. Among semiconductor stocks, Intel stock jumped 12.14% on reports of a memory deal with SK Hynix, AMD stock 9.95% and Arm 17.16%, while Meta stock added 11.34% on its Muse assistant. In Milan Banco BPM topped the list at 4.30%, followed by UniCredit, while Eni slipped with crude. In Germany Infineon and Siemens led. Our trading strategy on each name is set out below.
On the day's names our model collected a great deal: long Meta at 14.38%, long Mediobanca at 40.11%, short Stellantis at 39.41%. Every reading comes from a systematic model, that is ai trading applied to about 450 instruments, and they remain references: the choice always belongs to whoever trades.
Semiconductor stocks take off: Arm, Intel, AMD and Qualcomm lead the rally, with Micron and Nvidia behind
Chipmakers made the session, and the spread between them mattered more than the average. Arm stockShort gained 17.16%, Intel stockShort 12.14%, AMD stockShort 9.95% and Qualcomm stockLong 9.29%. According to press reports Intel rose on talk of a deal with SK Hynix to make memory in the United States, which neither side has confirmed, while AMD crossed a market value of 1,000 billion dollars during the session for the first time.
Further back, Micron stockLong rose 2.77%, TSMCLong 2.41%, Nvidia stockLong 2.30%, Western DigitalShort 1.54% and Broadcom stockShort 1.41%, while SandiskLong, after Friday's 10.99% jump, gave back 1.41%. Astera LabsShort added 12.36%.
Meta stock up 11%, CrowdStrike and Cloudflare ride cybersecurity, Strategy and Coinbase follow bitcoin
Outside chips the standout was Meta stockLong, up 11.34%: press reports credit the traction of its Muse assistant, with several analysts lifting their targets, on the day the stock went ex-dividend. In software, money rotated into cybersecurity: CrowdStrike stockLong rose 4.92% after announcing a deal to sell its platform on the marketplace of SnowflakeLong, which gained 2.09%; CloudflareLong added 8.67% and ShopifyShort 7.33%.
Bitcoin above 87,000 dollars, its highest since January according to press reports, lifted Strategy stockLong 9.47% and Coinbase stockLong 3.50%. Robinhood stockLong rose 2.90% after Jefferies and Goldman Sachs raised their targets to 140 and 142 dollars. Among the long-horizon themes, Rocket LabShort gained 8.24% on a record order book and IonQLong 3.53% after lifting its 2026 revenue guidance.
Milan market higher: Banco BPM and UniCredit stock on top, Azimut, Prysmian and STMicroelectronics up, Eni stock down with crude
The rebound in Milan had a clear lead: the banks, on expectations that the ECB will clear Intesa Sanpaolo's offer for Monte dei Paschi, which press reports place by mid-October. On our data Banco BPMShort closed at the top of the list, up 4.30%, followed by UniCredit stockLong at 3.19%, UnipolLong 2.21%, BPERLong 1.92%, Monte dei PaschiLong 1.84%, MediobancaLong 1.69% and Intesa Sanpaolo stockLong 1.68%.
AzimutLong added 1.36% on the day it agreed to take full ownership of Kennedy Capital Management, the US asset manager in which it already held 51%. European chipmakers lifted STMicroelectronics stockShort 2.83% and PrysmianShort 2.98%; FerrariLong gained 2.71%. Poste ItalianeShort lost 0.82% on the first day of the reopened offer for Telecom ItaliaLong, of which it already owns 66.6%; Eni stockLong fell 2.00% with crude, while Enel stockShort rose 0.89% and LeonardoShort 0.32%. As of yesterday Technoprobe sits in the FTSE MIB in place of DiaSorinLong, which closed up 1.77%.
Europe higher: Infineon, Siemens, Schneider Electric and Rolls-Royce stock up, Volkswagen down, Novo Nordisk slumps
In Germany the same engines as on Wall Street did the work: Infineon stockShort rose 4.35% and SiemensShort 3.60%. In Paris Schneider ElectricShort added 3.24% and L'OréalLong 2.06%; in London Rolls-RoyceLong gained 3.78% and BarclaysShort 1.93%. BayerLong rose 1.95% and Siemens EnergyShort 2.11%.
Two company stories stood out: UnileverLong, up 0.47%, is in advanced talks to spin off its food business and merge it with McCormick, according to press reports, and BAE SystemsShort, up 1.23%, won a Swedish contract for an air-defence system. Carmakers bucked the trend, with VolkswagenLong down 2.01% and Mercedes-BenzLong 0.75%. The worst day belonged to Novo NordiskShort, down 7.96% on volume 4.8 times its median, 84% of it selling.
European indices higher with Milan in front, but all four remain below their weekly sell signal
On Monday the FTSE MIB ETF FTSE MIB ETFShort gained 1.77%, the DAX ETF DAX ETFShort 1.02%, the CAC 40 ETF CAC 40 ETFShort 0.92% and the FTSE 100 ETF FTSE 100 ETFShort 0.85%. Milan now sits 3.16% below its record high, Frankfurt 3.88%, Paris 6.76% and London 9.07%.
The rebound did not redraw the map: all four baskets remain under a weekly sell signal, with the typical price of the forming week between 1.76% and 2.52% below the level that judges it. Milan has the thinnest margin, and it is also the basket that rose most; Frankfurt has the widest. Paris, a sell since 24 August, is the only one whose short is in profit, at 3.00%; for Milan, Frankfurt and London yesterday's rally pushed the short into a small loss.
The ETFs that moved the session: the US tech ETF, the semiconductor ETF, the communication services ETF, the energy ETF, the European banks ETF and the Vanguard world and emerging markets ETFs
XLC — the Communication Services Select Sector SPDR, the US communication services ETF — was the best sector of the session at 3.56%, carried by Meta. XLK — the Technology Select Sector SPDR, the US tech ETF — gained 2.77%, and is up 6.3% on the month. Within technology the strongest was SOXX — iShares Semiconductor, the semiconductor ETF — at 4.93%. At the other end XLE — the Energy Select Sector SPDR, the US energy ETF — lost 2.88% with oil. In Europe EXV1 — iShares STOXX Europe 600 Banks, the European banks ETF — rose 1.61%.
The most telling detail came from the broad funds. VT — Vanguard Total World Stock, the Vanguard world stock ETF — added 1.48%, and VWO — Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets, the Vanguard emerging markets ETF — 1.88%. Both triggered a daily buy yesterday with weekly money flow accumulating and strengthening over 3 weeks, the same signature our model found on the iShares emerging markets fund and on the large-cap US ETFs.
This week's new buy signals: Virgin Galactic, Tesco, Inwit, Apple and MARA Holdings all above their entry
From Tuesday to Friday this card reports only what changes. After the first session the 5 new buy signals born on Friday 18 September all sit above their entry: Virgin GalacticLong up 7.82%, InwitLong 2.53%, TescoLong 1.53%, Apple stockLong 0.85% and MARA HoldingsLong 0.30%. None has changed side on the daily chart, none reports this week, and none has left the cohort.
The usual caveat applies: past data do not guarantee future results.
This week's earnings: Costco on Thursday, Uranium Energy on Friday, Carnival next Tuesday
Three companies in our universe report between now and next Tuesday. Right after the window come MicronLong on 30 September and AccentureLong on 1 October.
Thursday 24 September
Costco Wholesale Short
Friday 25 September
Uranium Energy Short
Tuesday 29 September
Carnival Short
Technical analysis of SPY and QQQ: both break out of the No Trade Zone, QQQ back in profit and SPY's daily signal turns to a buy
SPY, the ETF on the S&P 500 S&P 500Long, closed Monday up 1.55%, 0.76% below its record high; QQQ, the ETF on the Nasdaq 100 Invesco QQQ TrustLong, rose 2.77%, 0.97% short of its record. Applying each basket's sector weights to the day's sector moves, SPY should have gained 1.23% and QQQ 2.00%: both did better, thanks to semiconductors.
Both opened above their No Trade Zone and never went back into it. SPY turned its daily signal back to a buy, after a sell since 9 September, and is in the twenty-fourth week of a long trade that is 13.84% in profit, with all three profit-taking windows reached. QQQ is back in profit, at 1.42%, in its sixth week, and its first window sits 1.03% above the price, practically on the record high.
The bigger picture: a broad rally in Europe, a narrow one in America
Monday reopened the week with every market higher, but with two different qualities. In America the rally was strong and narrow: chipmakers and a handful of large technology names did most of the work, small caps gained only 0.52% and market participation did not move. In Europe it was broader, from Italian banks to German chipmakers, yet not enough to change any of the four weekly sell signals. The thing I would watch this week is exactly that: whether the US rally spreads beyond technology, and whether the European one gets far enough to challenge the weekly levels, starting with Milan's.
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).