Technical analysis: why the stock market is down today, one green sector out of twenty, Eni stock rises as defence collapses
The market stopped looking at earnings and started looking at the Persian Gulf. Military escalation in the Strait of Hormuz pushed Brent above 101 dollars a barrel for the first time since May, and the response was the predictable one: sell everything, buy energy. Out of eleven American sectors one closed higher; in Europe, two out of nine.
The cards below carry the technical analysis of the names that moved the session, with our model's position on each one, long or short, and the date the signal fired. On Wall Street, artificial intelligence rewarded whoever produced numbers — Cloudflare stock up 10.51%, Meta stock up 6.55%, Marvell stock up 4.26%, Exxon stock up 2.22% — while Apple stock barely moved on the day of its own launch event, and Vertiv stock lost 9.61%. On the Milan market Eni stock led the index on crude while Leonardo stock and the rest of defence were hit by a broker note. Whoever follows Apple stocks and Meta stocks will find both here with the position we hold.
And there is one number we have been tracking for weeks that deserves the opening line today: market participation has fallen 13.1% in a single week and 37% over the month, a fourth consecutive weekly decline. Barely more than four American stocks in ten sit above their own medium-term average. 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.
- Why the stock market is down today
- One green sector out of eleven
- Milan: Eni rises, defence collapses
- United States: artificial intelligence rewards the numbers
- Europe: Paris, Frankfurt and London below Wall Street
- European indices: Frankfurt is hanging
- The ETFs that moved the session
- The cohort's changes
- This week's earnings
- Technical analysis of SPY and QQQ
The Strait of Hormuz rewrites the agenda: Brent above 101 dollars, yields at 52-week highs
The question many people are asking this morning has a single answer, and it is not in the earnings reports. US Central Command destroyed five Iranian tankers in response to ballistic missile launches against a Navy vessel; Tehran struck a base used by American forces in Jordan, with eighteen missiles intercepted, and claimed attacks on more than a dozen ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Brent moved above 101 dollars a barrel for the first time since May, and European gas priced in the same risk premium.
The second thread is rates. US Treasury yields touched 52-week highs, and the Treasury announced a buyback of up to 6 billion dollars on ten-to-twenty-year maturities, triple the ordinary size. On our dashboard three stress gauges are climbing together: equity volatility up 16% over the month, bond volatility up 10%, the Italy-Germany spread up 6%. Shipping rates are up 26% over the month, which is how route risk reaches everybody's costs.
Indices paid unevenly: the S&P 500 ETF S&P 500Long shed 0.46%, the Nasdaq 100 ETF Invesco QQQ TrustLong 0.29%, the small-cap ETF Russell 2000 ETFShort 1.37%. Europe took a harder hit: Paris CAC 40 ETFShort down 1.76%, Frankfurt DAX ETFLong 1.63%, London FTSE 100 ETFLong 1.38%, Milan FTSE MIB ETFShort the most defensive at 0.67%.
The sharpest sector grid in weeks: only the producers rise, everything else falls
In the United States the only sector above zero was energy XLELong at 0.83%, carrying 8.52% over the month. Technology XLKLong came next, exactly flat: on a day like this, zero is a fine result. At the bottom, industrials XLIShort at minus 1.51%, consumer discretionary XLYLong at minus 1.34% and utilities XLUShort at minus 1.17%.
Europe drew the same picture: oil and gas EXH1Long up 0.34% and utilities EXH9Short up 0.13% were the only two greens out of nine, while industrials EXH4Long closed at minus 2.27%, the worst reading on the whole grid. European banks EXV1Long lost 1.27% and health care EXV4Short 1.02%.
Eni stock up 1.91% on crude while a broker note flattens the defence sector
Milan closed down 0.67%, the most defensive of the large European markets, and the outcome came from two opposing forces that nearly cancelled out. On one side Eni stock EniLong gained 1.91%, the best of the index heavyweights, leading oil and gas on the rise in crude.
On the other, defence collapsed — and not because of the conflict, but because of a Goldman Sachs note questioning future demand for the sector. Leonardo stock LeonardoShort fell 4.00%, Fincantieri stock FincantieriLong 3.61% and Avio stock AvioShort 2.44%. Also lower: Poste Italiane stock Poste ItalianeLong at minus 2.77%, Stellantis stock Stellantis MilanoShort at 2.23%, ENAVShort at 1.28% and Prysmian stock PrysmianShort at 1.21%. Banks held up better: Intesa Sanpaolo stock Intesa SanpaoloLong at minus 0.46%, UniCredit stock UniCreditLong at 0.25%, Monte dei PaschiLong at 0.17% and BPER BancaLong at 0.37%, while Ferrari stock FerrariLong gave up 0.66%.
Cloudflare stock up 10.51%, Meta stock up 6.55%, and Apple stock flat on its own event day
With roughly 70% of American stocks in the red, the few that rose all had a specific reason. CloudflareLong gained 10.51%, the best across our whole universe. Meta PlatformsShort added 6.55% after launching "Muse", a personal artificial-intelligence agent built into its own app and into WhatsApp. Marvell TechnologyLong rose 4.26% after the chief executive raised revenue targets sharply: around 12 billion dollars for fiscal 2027, against 10 previously, and about 18 for 2028 against 13.5. Astera LabsShort gained 4.05% on the same theme.
Energy heavyweights followed crude: Exxon MobilLong up 2.22%, ChevronLong up 1.91%, ConocoPhillipsLong up 1.10% and Occidental PetroleumLong up 1.07%. On the downside VertivShort lost 9.61%, worst among industrials; BookingLong 3.81% after the General Court of the European Union dismissed in full its appeal against the block on the eTraveli acquisition, Europe's largest online flight-booking operator; UnitedHealthShort 1.94%. Among the megacaps AppleShort gave up just 0.28% on the day of its "Surprise and Shine" event, the first under new chief executive John Ternus, unveiling the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max and the foldable model.
Europe pays more than Wall Street: Paris down 1.76%, autos and banks under pressure
All three main markets closed worse than Wall Street: Paris down 1.76%, Frankfurt 1.63%, London 1.38%. The shared message is a common macro worry, driven by the same two engines as the American session — oil and rates — but without the cushion of a large energy sector.
Among the German names, Infineon TechnologiesShort lost 2.57%, Deutsche BankLong 1.99%, AllianzLong 1.86%, Volkswagen AG PrefLong 1.68% and Bayerische Motoren WerkeLong 1.63%: German autos tracked the European sector EXHGLong, down 1.55%. SAPLong was among the very few greens, up 0.64%. In France AirbusShort shed 2.17% inside the same move that hit defence, while TotalEnergiesLong gained 0.59% on crude. In London GlencoreLong gave up 0.57%.
European indices: the German basket already has its exit level above the price
CAC 40 ETFShort lost 1.76%, DAX ETFLong 1.63%, FTSE 100 ETFLong 1.38% and FTSE MIB ETFShort 0.67%. Distances from their records tell four different stories: Frankfurt is closest to its high at minus 3.80%, then Milan at 4.14%, Paris at 6.63% and London at 8.95%.
Our signals have shifted a great deal in two weeks. Paris has been on a sell since 24 August and Milan since the close of 4 September, after twenty-one weeks of buy signal closed at 12.20%. Frankfurt remains on a buy from 13 April and London from 7 April. But the number that matters is the distance from the exit level: on Frankfurt the weekly Reversal Point now sits 0.34% ABOVE the price, on London 0.47% below.
The ETFs that moved the session: energy, industrials, semiconductor stocks and developed markets
XLE — the Energy Select Sector SPDR, the US energy ETF — was the only American sector basket to close higher, up 0.83%, carrying 8.52% over the month. At the opposite end XLI, the Industrial Select Sector SPDR, the US industrials ETF, lost 1.51% and sits last on both the day and the month, at minus 6.94%.
Two baskets earn the card without being among the widest movers. GLD — the SPDR Gold Shares, the world's most traded gold ETF — gained 0.91%, its first real move after weeks of stillness; and SOXX — the iShares Semiconductor, the semiconductor ETF — added 0.68% while the US technology basket XLK closed exactly flat.
In Europe EXH4, the European industrials ETF, gave up 2.27%, the worst reading on the entire grid, while EXH1, the European oil and gas ETF, added 0.34%. And there is one basket that does not appear among the price movers yet deserves the card more than any other: IDEV — the iShares Core MSCI International Developed Markets, the developed-markets-ex-US ETF — slipped just 1.14% but traded six and a half times its median volume, with 88.2% of that volume classified on the sell side.
The new buy signals: yesterday's changes
The weekly cohort was born at Friday 4 September's close: 21 new buy signals, 14 tradable. From Tuesday to Friday this card publishes only what changes — who crosses above or below their entry level, who flips side on the daily, who reports earnings, who leaves the cohort.
Yesterday there was a single change that matters, and it concerns Recursion PharmaceuticalsLong: the daily signal turned to sell, while the weekly one, born only five days ago, remains a buy. The trade carries minus 11.4% from the signal. Across the rest of the group no name crossed its entry level and none reports this week. Among the Brazilians, eleven of the twenty-one, CSNLong remains the strongest of the set.
This week's earnings: Adobe and Oracle tonight, the thermometer on artificial-intelligence spending
Six companies in our universe report over the next seven days, and the first three arrive today.
Today, Thursday 10 September
Adobe Long
Oracle Long
Avio Short
Wednesday 16 September
MFE-MediaForEurope Short
Thursday 17 September
Carnival Short
FedEx Long
Technical analysis of SPY and QQQ: the broad basket is less than a point from its exit level
SPY, the S&P 500 ETF S&P 500Long, lost 0.46%; QQQ, the Nasdaq 100 ETF Invesco QQQ TrustLong, 0.29%. Once again the more aggressive of the two held up better, but this time sector composition explains only 31% of the gap: applying each basket's own sector moves produces an expected spread of 0.06 points against the 0.18 observed. The rest came from how the stocks behaved, so technology held on its own merits yesterday.
The geometry of the two trades is opposite, however. The broad basket is in the twenty-first week of a buy signal carrying 12.21%, with all three profit-taking windows already banked, and yesterday saw its daily sell signal fire: the weekly Reversal Point now sits 0.74% below the price. The technology basket is in its fourth week, still 2.02% below its own entry level, with all three windows ahead and the time gates open, and its exit level 2.30% away.
The wider picture: a market rising on fewer and fewer legs
Today carries two events and one variable almost nobody watches. The events are the European Central Bank, expected to take its main rate to 2.50%, and the Oracle and Adobe results after the American close; the third is the Federal Reserve meeting on 16 September. The variable is breadth: participation in the rally has fallen 13.1% in a single week and 37% over the month, a fourth consecutive weekly decline, and barely more than four American stocks in ten sit above their own medium-term average. An index that holds while participation thins is an index held up by a handful of names, and that fragility stays invisible until it gives. With crude above one hundred dollars and the cost of money rising, picking the wrong stock in a phase like this costs double: there is no tide to make up for it.
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).