Technical analysis of the week: Oracle stock gives back its jump, Dell stock hits a record and Wall Street heads into Fed week
The week that ended on Friday 11 September changed the market's mind about interest rates. It opened on a US jobs report far stronger than expected, ran through crude above one hundred dollars on the Strait of Hormuz and a second hike from the European Central Bank, and closed with in-line US inflation that bought a single day of relief after four losing sessions. The Federal Reserve decides on Wednesday 16 September, and the market goes in pricing a hike.
This edition opens with a session-by-session review of the week, followed by the technical analysis of the names that shaped the weekly close, each with our model's position, long or short. On Wall Street, Oracle stock opened more than 7% higher on a record quarter and still closed lower, Dell stock hit an all-time high, and among semiconductor stocks money switched horses: AMD and Intel ran while Nvidia stock and Micron fell. Anyone following Oracle stocks, Nvidia stocks or Dell stocks will find all three below with the position we hold. On the Milan market, the only European exchange up on the week, Intesa Sanpaolo led the banks and Poste Italiane closed its offer with 66.6% of Telecom Italia.
At Friday's close our model fired 15 new buy signals and turned 33 to a sell, clustered in consumer spending, travel and health care. Everything that follows comes from a systematic model, so from ai trading applied to around 450 instruments, and remains a reference: the decision always belongs to whoever trades.
Technical analysis of the week: from the jobs report to inflation, five sessions that rewrote the rates outlook
On Monday Wall Street was shut for Labor Day, and the market was still digesting Friday's US jobs report, far above expectations: the idea of a rate cut had gone and a hike was back on the table. Europe and crude took the stage, with oil at a six-week high on the escalation in the Strait of Hormuz. In Milan LottomaticaLong gained 7.70%, in Frankfurt Infineon TechnologiesShort 6.91% on an acquisition announced over the weekend.
On Tuesday New York reopened lower, with the US ten-year yield at its highest in almost two years. Health care was the worst sector, Amgen stock AmgenShort down 10.08%, while IntelShort rose 9.05%. On Wednesday Brent broke above one hundred dollars and only one of eleven US sectors closed higher: EniLong gained 1.91% on crude while LeonardoShort fell 4.00% on a broker note on defence. Among the few US gainers, Meta stock Meta PlatformsLong added 6.55%.
On Thursday the ECB raised rates for the second time since the conflict began and US producer prices came in at 5.4% year on year: the market started pricing a Federal Reserve hike. AI infrastructure paid the bill, with OracleLong down 5.38% before a record quarter published after the bell. On Friday in-line consumer inflation gave the market its first gain after four sessions, and the week closed like this: the S&P 500 ETF S&P 500Long down 0.77%, the Nasdaq 100 ETF Invesco QQQ TrustLong down 0.57%, the small-cap ETF Russell 2000 ETFShort down 2.41%. In Europe Frankfurt DAX ETFLong lost 1.82%, London FTSE 100 ETFLong 1.62%, Paris CAC 40 ETFShort 1.17%, and the Italian basket FTSE MIB ETFShort was the only one up, by 0.68%.
Inflation Friday: an in-line print crushes volatility, but the rebound runs on few buyers
US consumer inflation for August came in at 0.4% on the month and 3.4% on the year, in line with forecasts; the core rose 0.3% against the 0.2% expected. The market took the first half of the news: equity volatility fell 11.2% in a session, the S&P 500 ETF S&P 500Long closed up 0.85% and the Nasdaq 100 ETF Invesco QQQ TrustLong up 0.87%. Yields took the second half: according to market reports the US ten-year rose to 4.98%.
The rebound, however, had few committed buyers. On SPY only 24.82% of the session's volume was classified as buying, and a sister ETF on the same index traded 4.3 times its normal volume with 80.6% on the sell side while the price was rising. On both baskets our daily signal remains a sell, and on the S&P 500 Friday's typical price stopped a whisker short of the level that would have flipped it. Crude gave up 2.4% and still closed the week up 9.3%.
Milan market: Intesa Sanpaolo stock and UniCredit lead, Poste Italiane reaches 66% of Telecom Italia
Milan closed the week as the only European exchange in the green, and on Friday the banks did the work: Intesa Sanpaolo stock Intesa SanpaoloLong rose 2.55%, Monte dei PaschiLong 2.46%, MediobancaLong 2.41%, UniCredit stock UniCreditLong 1.63%, BPER BancaLong 1.18% and Banco BPMShort 0.93%, against the backdrop of Intesa Sanpaolo's offer for Monte dei Paschi and MPS's two offers for Banco BPM and Banca Generali. According to market reports the FTSE MIB closed Friday up 0.69%.
The week's other deal wrapped up on Friday: at the end of the acceptance period Poste ItalianeShort reached 66.6% of Telecom ItaliaLong, an absolute majority, and the offer reopens from 21 to 25 September on the same terms. Poste gained 1.92% on Friday and closed the week down 3.12%, Telecom Italia rose 1.82% and lost 1.74% on the week. Elsewhere on Friday PrysmianShort added 2.95%, Stellantis stock Stellantis MilanoShort 2.72%, MonclerShort 2.50% and STMicroelectronicsShort 2.38%; on the week the best name in our Italian basket was LottomaticaLong, up 12.61%, ahead of INWITShort at 5.66% and EniLong at 4.01%, with Pirelli & C.Short down 3.64% and Poste the laggards.
Oracle stock opens 7% higher and closes lower, Dell stock sets a record, and semiconductor stocks switch horses
OracleLong was the most talked-about name of the week, and its Friday is the most instructive. On Thursday night it had posted a record quarter: adjusted earnings of 1.92 dollars a share against 1.74 expected, revenue of 19.35 billion, cloud infrastructure up 121% and remaining performance obligations up to 664 billion. On Friday the stock opened more than 7% higher, lost steam during the session and closed down 1.74%, below Thursday's level; the week ends down 5.35%. Behind it CoreWeaveLong closed down 0.15% and NebiusLong down 1.56%.
Friday's rebound was led by data-centre hardware: Dell TechnologiesLong up 11.98% to an all-time high, HPLong up 8.40%, Super Micro ComputerLong 7.28%, Arista NetworksLong 5.61%, and Bloom EnergyLong 6.68% on heavy volume. Over the week, though, money inside chips changed horses: Advanced Micro DevicesShort up 8.07% and IntelShort up 7.45% on one side, NVIDIALong down 5.24% and Micron TechnologyLong down 4.07% on the other, with BroadcomShort up 1.14% after revenue growth of 85.5%. StrategyLong lost 8.28% on the week with bitcoin weak, and Novo NordiskShort 7.58%.
Europe: the week sells defence and pharma, Rheinmetall and Siemens turn to a sell
European defence had a heavy week: RheinmetallShort down 4.20%, BAE SystemsShort down 2.99%, ThalesShort down 2.91%. Pharma went the same way, GSKShort down 4.12% and SanofiLong down 3.93%, while the European health care ETF was the continent's worst sector at minus 5.45%. Also heavy: London Stock ExchangeLong down 6.70%, Compagnie de Saint-GobainShort 5.62% and SAPLong 4.53%.
On Friday Frankfurt bounced: Infineon TechnologiesShort up 4.95%, SiemensShort 2.54% and Siemens EnergyShort 2.44%, while BASFLong was the weakest name in the DAX at minus 2.83%. AllianzLong added 0.64% and DanoneShort slipped 0.62%, ending the week down 3.67%.
Thirty-three sells and fifteen buys: the week dumps consumer spending, travel and health care
The US sector grid for the week points one way: health care XLVLong down 3.55%, consumer discretionary XLYShort down 1.70%, industrials down 1.65% and financials XLFLong down 1.46%. Only energy XLELong up 1.69%, communication services XLCLong up 0.51% and technology XLKLong up 0.21% finished higher.
It is the same map as our reversals. At Friday's close the model turned travel to a sell almost across the board — BookingShort down 10.02% on the week, AirbnbShort 6.46%, ExpediaShort 5.77%, Uber TechnologiesShort 5.40% — together with StarbucksShort and health care, with AmgenShort down 13.70%, Abbott LaboratoriesShort 5.89% and Eli LillyShort. The new sells also include ShopifyShort, down 11.23% on the week, and AdobeShort. On the other side the buys come from technology: NokiaLong up 10.97%, QUALCOMMLong 7.84%, GameStopLong 10.39%.
European indices: Milan the only one up, Frankfurt holds its buy signal by a whisker
On the week FTSE MIB ETFShort closed up 0.68%, CAC 40 ETFShort down 1.17%, FTSE 100 ETFLong down 1.62% and DAX ETFLong down 1.82%. Measured from their all-time highs, Milan sits 3.05% below, Frankfurt 3.90%, Paris 6.47% and London 9.06%.
None of the four changed side. Milan has been a sell since the week that closed on 4 September, and this week's gain did not bring it closer to the exit level: the week's typical price sits 2.76% below. Paris has been a sell since 24 August, with its typical price 2.74% below its level. London, a buy since April, widened its cushion to 0.84%. Frankfurt, a buy since April, holds by 0.06% on the typical price, with the close 0.35% below the level. A clarification on Friday's edition, which showed Frankfurt with a sell forming: on the basket's series realigned with the reference chart, that flip never happened.
The week's ETFs: the health care ETF, the European banks ETF, the gold ETF, Vanguard's world ETF and the semiconductor ETF
XLV — the State Street Health Care Select Sector, the US health care ETF — was Wall Street's worst sector basket of the week, down 3.55%. EXV1 — the iShares STOXX Europe 600 Banks, the European banks ETF — rose 1.40% on Friday, its best day, and ended the week down 0.24%. XLK, the US technology ETF, led Friday's rebound at plus 1.32%.
GLD — SPDR Gold Shares, the world's most traded gold ETF — lost 1.97% on the week, the metal's third losing week in a row, as real yields climbed. VT — the Vanguard Total World Stock, Vanguard's global equity ETF — closed down 1.11%. SOXX — the iShares Semiconductor, the semiconductor ETF — finished the week up 1.39%, because inside the group the gains in AMD and Intel offset the drops in Nvidia and Micron.
The new weekly buy signals: fifteen names, ten tradable
The cohort was born at Friday 11 September's close: 15 new buy signals, 10 of them tradable. Since it is brand new we publish it in full; from Tuesday we will report only what changes. The other five — Bloom EnergyLong, MicronLong, Taiwan SemiconductorLong, Archer-Daniels-MidlandLong and GerdauLong — carry a setup quality to be discarded. The week's 33 new sells sit in the theme cards.
Setup quality is medium across all ten and the suggested opening is cautious on each. The caveat always applies: past data does not guarantee future results.
This week's earnings: MFE-MediaForEurope, Carnival and FedEx around the Fed decision
Three companies in our universe report over the next seven days, all around Wednesday's Federal Reserve decision.
Wednesday 16 September
MFE-MediaForEurope Short
Thursday 17 September
Carnival Short
FedEx Long
Technical analysis of SPY and QQQ: both survive the weekly close, with two opposite stories
SPY, the S&P 500 ETF S&P 500Long, closed the week down 0.77%; QQQ, the Nasdaq 100 ETF Invesco QQQ TrustLong, down 0.57%. On Friday they gained 0.85% and 0.87%, and the technology basket delivered less than its make-up promised: applying each basket's sector weights to the sector moves, QQQ should have made 1.00% and SPY 0.84%, and SPY did exactly what it was supposed to.
The weekly close was the test, and both passed it. SPY is in the twenty-second week of a buy signal with all three profit-taking windows already reached, and the week's typical price sits 1.04% above the Reversal Point, against 0.75% on Thursday. QQQ is in its fourth week, still below its entry, with every window ahead and a typical price 2.35% above the level. Both closed inside their congestion zone, where our model does not propose entries.
The wider picture: Fed week
The week ahead carries a single event that matters: the Federal Reserve decision on Wednesday 16 September, which the market expects to be a hike after core inflation came in above forecasts and with the US ten-year yield a step away from 5%. The market heads into it with equity volatility down on Friday but bond volatility up 12.5% in a week, tail-risk pricing rising for five weeks and participation in the rally falling for four. An index that holds while its base thins is an index held up by a handful of names, and this week our signals recorded it: 33 sells against 15 buys. In a phase like this, picking the wrong stock costs double, because there is no rising tide to bail you out.
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).