Technical analysis: uranium, gold and crypto take the session while Alibaba stock pays the AI bill
The 21 August session had a single thread running through it, and it was not the index: it was where the money went. On Wall Street the hard commodities ran — uranium, rare earths, gold — with Uranium Energy up 14.44%, MP Materials up 9.10% and Cameco up 7.24%, while the crypto complex climbed with bitcoin above 78,000 dollars and Coinbase Global up 8.20%. Against them, US utility stocks were sold as a block, and Alibaba stock fell 8.57% after a quarter that laid bare the cost of artificial intelligence. On the Milan market Stellantis stock gained 4.00%, the best of the Italian list.
In the cards below you will find the technical analysis of the names that actually moved the day — Cameco, Tesla, Coinbase and Alibaba in the United States, Stellantis, Ferrari and Eni in Milan — the thirteen new buy signals born with the week just closed, the map of the European indices and of the ETFs, and for each of them our model's position, long or short, with the date the signal opened.
- This week's new buy signals
- Uranium, rare earths and gold: the theme of the day
- Bitcoin above 78,000 dollars
- Alibaba stock: down 8.57% on the AI bill
- US utility stocks sold as a block
- Stellantis stock up 4% and the banking chess game
- Miners in London, luxury in Paris
- European indices: the CAC 40 on the line
- The ETFs that moved the session
- This week's earnings
- Technical analysis of SPY and QQQ
This week's new buy signals: thirteen tradable out of eighteen
The weekly analysis that closed on Friday opened eighteen new buy signals. Five were discarded on setup quality — among them Moderna and Coinbase Global, which had the best day of the lot — leaving thirteen tradable. The daily horizon agrees with the weekly on seventeen of the eighteen: the cohort is born tight, which does not happen often.
Technical analysis of uranium, rare earths and gold: the theme that ran the session
The strongest move of the day did not come from technology but from hard commodities. Uranium Energy gained 14.44%, MP Materials 9.10%, Energy Fuels 8.92% and Cameco 7.24%: four names across uranium and rare earths, all in the same complex, each moving between one and a half and two and a half times its own typical swing. Behind them the gold majors, with Newmont up 3.09% and Barrick Mining up 2.87%, as gold has added 10% over four weeks and has been climbing for three.
The US materials ETF closed up 2.14%, best of the eleven Wall Street sectors, and in Europe the basic resources ETF did better still, up 2.64% on the day and 10.32% over the month. This is not an isolated bounce: it is the sector with the longest run in the whole basket.
Bitcoin above 78,000 dollars: technical analysis of Coinbase, Circle and Figure
Bitcoin cleared 78,000 dollars to close its best week since 2024, carried by record inflows into the spot ETFs and by a softer dollar, down 3% over four weeks. The listed complex rose as a block: Figure Technology Solutions up 8.43%, Coinbase Global up 8.20%, Strategy up 6.10%, SoFi Technologies up 5.52%, Circle Internet up 5.16%. The investment banks caught the same wave, with Goldman Sachs up 3.73% on momentum in banking and capital markets.
One case deserves its own line. Robinhood Markets rose 13.70% in a single session; our model has been short since late July, and on this name the declared stop was taken out on 17 August, four sessions before the jump. Anyone following the stop was already out when the rally came; for everyone else the reference remains the weekly Inversion Point, which has not turned yet.
Technical analysis of Alibaba stock: down 8.57% on the cost of artificial intelligence
The corporate story of the day was Alibaba, down 8.57% after its June quarter: profit fell 75%, eaten by the surge in spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure, while cloud grew 45%. The market repriced the cost of the build-out ahead of the revenue growth, and the move is worth two and a half times the stock's typical swing. The mirror reaction came from Baidu, up 1.35%: investors read Alibaba's cloud number as proof of demand, without yet having to pay the bill for it.
Anyone holding Alibaba stocks through the print took the full hit, and it is a pattern worth holding on to for the large American names with capital spending in acceleration, and Meta Platforms is the closest example. The test comes on Wednesday with results from NVIDIA, which slipped 0.98% on Friday: options are pricing a move of roughly 4%, and the whole semiconductor chain hangs on that number.
US utility stocks sold as a block: down 2.28%, the worst sector of the day
On the other side of the rotation sit the utilities. The US utilities ETF lost 2.28%, worst of the eleven sectors, and underneath it Edison International fell 4.11%, Fortis 2.38%, PG&E 2.00% and American Water Works 1.33%. Over the month the sector is down 6.88%, the deepest monthly hole among the twenty sector baskets we track across the United States and Europe.
The explanation sits on the yield curve. The US thirty-year touched a nineteen-year high at 5.34% during the week before easing back towards 5.19%, and utilities are the sector that most resembles a bond: when the risk-free yield rises, their dividend is worth less by comparison.
Technical analysis of Stellantis stock: up 4% in Milan as the banking chess game continues
On the Milan market the session had one name: Stellantis stock, up 4.00%, comfortably the best of the list. The gain landed inside a good day for European autos, whose sector ETF added 1.34%. Behind it, Ferrari stock rose 1.91%, STMicroelectronics stock 1.28% and Prysmian 1.18%. At the bottom, Eni stock lost 1.67% and Leonardo stock 1.88%, with Mediobanca down 1.81%. The Italian index closed almost flat at plus 0.11%: behind a motionless index sat a day of large moves in opposite directions.
The banking chess game moved along quietly. On BPER Banca the market weighed its lead shareholder's plan to contribute selected assets into the bank, later to be merged into a group trading under the Monte dei Paschi brand; the shares closed down 0.10%. On UniCredit came word that the German authorities are shifting from an outright block of the Commerzbank deal to a demand for specific conditions: up 0.25%. Intesa Sanpaolo stock lost 0.67%, Monte dei Paschi stock 1.30%, and Assicurazioni Generali gained 0.35%. Once again, five protagonists of a multi-billion operation all inside a point and a half.
Technical analysis of the London miners and the Paris luxury stocks
In London the day belonged to the miners. Anglo American gained 2.55% and Glencore 2.10% on strength in precious and industrial metals; the British index closed up 0.74%, best of the four European baskets. Health care went the other way, with GSK down 0.10%, while AstraZeneca rose 1.26%.
In Frankfurt the German index added 0.59%, with SAP up 1.34% and adidas up 2.28%; below water sat Bayer, down 1.17%. In Paris the market gained 0.39% on luxury: LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton up 2.12%, Hermes International SCA up 1.52%, Kering up 1.48%.
European indices: the CAC 40 sits half a point from the line that decides its signal
All four European baskets have been on a buy signal since the spring, but the gaps between them have widened considerably. The Italian index has returned the most from its own signal, up 13.55% since early April; the German one is up 5.46% since 13 April, the French up 4.90% and the British up 2.02%, both since 7 April.
The number that matters, though, is the distance from each one's weekly Inversion Point — the level that decides whether the signal stands. Here the CAC 40 sits at plus 0.43%: barely half a point, which is nothing for an index. The other three have more room — the FTSE MIB 1.22%, the DAX 1.87%, the FTSE 100 2.07%. On the opposite measure, distance from each one's own record, the British basket is the furthest away at minus 7.70%, against minus 1.59% for the German.
The ETFs that moved the session: materials, gold and semiconductor stocks
Anyone watching baskets rather than single names had an unusually readable Friday. The US materials ETF closed up 2.14% and the European basic resources ETF up 2.64%, with 10.32% over the month: these are the two instruments through which you sit inside the theme of the first card. At the far end, the US utilities ETF, down 2.28%.
Among the baskets worth watching even without a dramatic day, the gold ETF gained 1.95% and has now climbed for three weeks, while the semiconductor ETF shed 0.44% and the US technology ETF stalled at plus 0.11%, closing the week down 3.53%. The contrast between those two groups — commodities running, technology retreating — is the photograph of the week.
This week's earnings: Wednesday belongs to Nvidia
A heavy week, packed into three days. These are the names in our universe reporting results, with the model's position next to each.
Tuesday 25 August
Intuit Long
Zoom Communications Long
Wednesday 26 August
Salesforce Long
CrowdStrike Short
HP Long
Li Auto Long
NVIDIA Long
Thursday 27 August
Autodesk Long
Marvell Technology Long
The one that weighs most is NVIDIA, on Wednesday after the close: options are pricing a move of roughly 4%, and the whole semiconductor chain — including Marvell Technology, reporting the day after — will trade off that number.
Technical analysis of SPY and QQQ: two buy signals, two opposite stories
SPY, the ETF on the S&P 500, and Invesco QQQ Trust, the ETF on the Nasdaq 100, closed the session almost identically — up 0.41% and up 0.35% — and both sit on a buy signal. The two positions, however, have nothing in common.
On the S&P 500 the signal has been open since 6 April and is worth 12.70%: nineteen weeks of work, the price 1.68% above its own Inversion Point and 1.75% below its record. On the Nasdaq 100 the signal instead opened at the close of the 10-14 August week, making the one just finished its second: entry sits at 731.07 and Friday's close at 713.44, which puts the new signal 2.41% under water. It is also the furthest from its own record, at minus 4.70% against minus 1.75% for the other.
The reason lies in the weights. The Nasdaq basket holds roughly half its value in technology against a third for the S&P 500, and almost nothing in financials against 13% for the other: in a week when the US technology ETF lost 3.53% while materials gained, that imbalance shows up in full.
The backdrop: no spike anywhere, and a market changing horses
The backdrop stays calm, and that is what holds the rest together. Every tension gauge sits lower than a month ago — equity volatility down almost a fifth over the four-week window, bond volatility and tail risk both easing, the BTP-Bund spread essentially flat — and none of them moved enough to trip our spike sensor. The operating picture for the day remains favourable.
The two real moves sit outside equities, and they say the same thing from opposite ends. The dollar is down 3% on the month while gold is up 10% and has been climbing for three weeks: the bet on real yields is firing up again, and it is the same force that pushed commodities and bitcoin in the same session. Behind it all, bond volatility was the true engine of the week: the US thirty-year yield touched a nineteen-year high before easing back, and it did more damage to equities than the fear index managed, given that the latter had already fallen to 15.5 by Friday.
One note on method, since the term gets thrown around: what you read here is not a hand-picked list but the output of an ai trading system that follows some 450 instruments and applies the same rules to each of them, with no automatic exits. The measure to watch remains breadth — how many shares rise alongside the index. It is up 14% over the four-week window, and while it stays there a rotation like Friday's, with commodities in and technology and utilities out, should be read for what it is: a change of horses, not an exit from the market. The week carries two appointments: Nvidia's results on Wednesday, and the Jackson Hole symposium from the 27th, where the new Fed chair speaks for the first time.
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.