Long
Long
Long
SPY Closed The Gap To 748 - Still No Break.SPY Closed The Gap To 748 - Still No Break.
SPY pushed up to the 748 area and is trading 746, the closest it has held to the trigger yet - but it still has not closed above it. The daily structure is bull with a 235-bar bull print standing and conviction firm, though the hourly cooled back to neutral on the approach. This is now the fourth run at 748 without a confirmed break through. The story has not changed: the level is the event, and the level has not gone. Until it closes above 748, the honest read stays a range between 740.44 and 748. Neutral.
Resistance: 748.00 - the trigger, still unbroken
Key resistance: 751.00, then the 755.66 ceiling
Current price: 746.16
Support: 744.00 - first support
Key support: 740.44 - the range floor
Structural floor: 739.34 - the swept low
Two paths from here:
748 closes above and the range resolves up. A confirmed break with the daily bull print standing opens 751 and the 755.66 ceiling, and it is the event that would finally earn a directional call on the one name where breaks carry an edge. It is one point away; it just has to close there.
748 caps it a fourth time. Four failures at the same level is a genuine ceiling, not noise. A rejection here sends price back toward 740.44, and the range that has held for over a week stays intact.
SPY has closed the distance to 748 but still has not closed through it. One point away is not the same as above. The range is the range until the level breaks on a close.
Built with SYNTHESIS v3.3 | SOM / ACE / IMP / SYNTHESIS
Study, not financial advice. AALG LONG — 1D ALMA Setup (WR 83% · avg RR 4.2)█ SETUP
NASDAQ:AALG · 1D · long only.
(Context: Leverage Shares 2x Long AAL Daily ETF — 200% daily exposure to American Airlines Group; path-dependent vs holding AAL outright.)
ALMA Averaging Strategy: ALMA 3 / σ2, SD band 2, min diff 1/1, 25% per bar, up to 4 adds, hard stop −10% from average entry.
Strategy Tester (AALG 1D):
Win rate 83% · profit factor 8.9 · max drawdown 9%
Avg winning trade +29.3% · avg losing trade −7.0%
Typical hold ~17×1D bars on winners — 2x airline mean-reversion grid on the daily Averaging template · 41-trade sample
═
█ WHY NOW
Fresh 1D ALMA long on the 21 Jul 13:30 UTC bar ~ $14.50 — first lot on this Averaging template (1 of 4).
Bar-close ENTRY after the mid-Jul wash under ~$16 — not a discretionary “buy American Airlines” call and not a leveraged day-trade. Hard stop −10% from fill ~ $13.05 . Exits follow Pine ALMA flip + min diff or the hard stop. Scale-in stays 25% per bar, up to 4 adds, if lower bars qualify.
═
█ MACRO
Sector: AALG = daily 2x AAL beta — US airline demand, unit revenue, fuel/cost gap vs peers, and leisure/corporate traffic drive the underlying more than broad index beta. Leverage and daily reset mean multi-day holds diverge from 2× spot AAL.
Tape (19–21 Jul): American Airlines CEO outlined a plan to close a >$3B profit gap (19 Jul), while peer airline headlines stayed on fuel costs and capacity fights (JetBlue/Spirit slots, Ryanair industry-shakeout talk). Execution is 1D ALMA Averaging on the fill bar — not an AAL earnings or CEO-vision forecast.
═
█ OUTLOOK
Positive factors
- Tester skew: 83% WR · PF 8.9 · avg win +29.3% vs avg loss −7.0% — fat right tail vs bounded ALMA stop path
- Fresh first-lot ENTRY on the 21 Jul daily close ~$14.50 after the mid-Jul slide from the mid-$15s — process re-arm, not revenge size
- ALMA — daily just flipped LONG at the band: 1D L:1 vs LAvg:4.3 — first bar above ALMA / SuperTrend pocket (~14.14–14.17) — touch-quality long, not a late chase deep above the band
- ALMA — slow clocks still stretched SHORT below: 3D S:4 vs SAvg:3.9 (OVERHEAT-S) · 1W S:3 vs SAvg:3.1 — structure clocks still below the band while the daily template arms — classic HTF discount fuel for an Averaging long
- EMA — weekly/3D still Below: 3D Cur S:4 · 1W Cur S:3 with weekly Dev still large in magnitude — slow EMA side not reclaimed; room for mean-revert if daily holds the flip
- SMC — 1D: FVG Enter Bull tagged ~ $14.17 on the 20 Jul daily bar — demand inefficiency sits just under the fill
Negative factors
- EMA — LTF already Above: 15m Cur L:6 · 1H Cur L:2 · 4H Cur L:3 · 1D Cur L:1 — young above-session on the execution clock; not a deep below-EMA discount entry
- SMC mixed at ~$14.17: same window also printed FVG New Bear — bull FVG is not a clean one-way shelf
- 2x daily leveraged ETF — overnight gaps and chop in AAL can erase a “correct” multi-day AAL view via compounding / path dependency even if the underlying drifts the right way
- First lot only (1 of 4) — no averaged cushion yet if the daily bar fails and lower adds qualify or the −10% path prints first
- Snapshot board had no VWAP Touch row for AALG — no Active Support/Resistance levels to lean on in this idea
Takeaway: the 1D ALMA strategy and strong tester skew support a disciplined first lot after the mid-Jul wash, with 3D/1W still below-band and a bull FVG near ~$14.17, but LTF OVERHEAT-L, a young daily above-session, mixed FVG, and 2x path risk frame a repair grind — not a clean trend reclaim; nominal risk stays on the −10% hard stop / Pine exit path.
Base case: follow 1D ALMA Averaging · hold/add on qualifying bars while the ~$14.1–14.5 bull-FVG / ALMA pocket cushions · mean-revert toward the mid-$15s prior shelf if AAL tape stabilizes without a fresh gap through the stop.
Bear case: lose the ~$14.17 bull FVG · 15m/1H giveback extends · AAL headline gap drives AALG through −10% toward ~$13.05 from this fill · template posts the stop and waits for the next bar-close arm.
Chart: NASDAQ:AALG 1D — ALMA Averaging Strategy.
Educational idea. Live position — past backtest ≠ future results. NFA. 
Long
I Made $10,467 By January 31. I Haven't Been Paid Since March 27I Made $10,467 By January 31. I Haven't Been Paid Since March 27.
Four payouts. One month. $10,467.
That's how January closed on my Topstep account.
If you had only seen that log, you'd have assumed the rest of the year looked the same. A payout every few weeks, a bit bigger each time, on a steady clock.
One more payout landed on 27 March. $671. Then the log went quiet.
It's 21 July now. Nearly six months since that first payout, across a combined $300,000 in funded accounts, and the log has exactly one line after January.
"Did the system stop working?"
That's the question the log alone would have you ask.
The Log, In Full
Here it is, no editing.
$4,020 on 28 January. $2,235 on 31 January. Another $2,235 on 31 January, same day, second request. $1,977 on 31 January. $671 on 27 March.
Five payouts. $11,138 requested. Then nothing. Not because I stopped trading. Not because the account closed. Because the payout gate hasn't been cleared since.
What A Payout Actually Requires
Topstep doesn't pay out on a calendar. It pays out on a gate.
I need five winning days of $150 or more before I can request anything. A winning day isn't "green." It's net $150 or more, in one session, on that account.
Land five of those inside a cycle and I can request 50% of the balance, up to $5,000, split 90/10 in my favour. Land four, and the request doesn't exist yet. Land zero, same thing.
January had enough $150-plus days, back to back, to fund four separate payout requests. Since 27 March, the account hasn't produced five more of them in one live cycle. That's the entire explanation. Not a suspended account. Not a rule breach. A gate that a slower stretch of the same system hasn't cleared yet.
January Wasn't The System
Here's the part that's easy to get backwards.
January didn't prove the system works. Four months without a fifth payout doesn't prove it stopped. Both are readings of a sample too short to mean anything, just measured on the calendar instead of on trade count.
You've done this with your own results. A great week gets read as "I've finally figured it out." A quiet month gets read as "maybe this doesn't work for me." Neither read is coming from the data. Both are coming from how recently something good or bad happened.
The system that produced four payouts in one month is the exact same system sitting in a payout drought since March. Nothing was swapped out in between. If January was skill, the current stretch can't quietly be the edge running out. It's the same rules, meeting a slower stretch of the market.
The Trade I'm Not Making
The fastest way to end this drought is obvious. Size up until a $150 day arrives faster. Take a marginal setup because the account needs a green day, not because the setup earned one.
That would probably work, once. It would also mean I stopped trading my tested rules and started trading the gate instead.
A win taken outside my rules to force a payout is a bad trade wearing a good result. I'd rather sit in an unpaid stretch that's honest than force one with a trade my own backtest never approved. So the accounts keep trading exactly the way they traded in January. No new size. No new setup. No exception for the calendar.
What Would Actually Worry Me
None of this means I'd ignore every signal. A drought like this only stops meaning "quiet cycle" and starts meaning "problem" under specific conditions.
If the losing days started breaking my own risk rules, that's a flag. If the setups stopped matching what I backtested, that's a flag. If this ran for a full year with no fifth day in sight, that's a flag serious enough to review the whole approach.
None of those are true right now. What's true is a gate that hasn't cleared in four months, on a system with a track record before this stretch started. That's a slow patch, not a verdict.
Check Your Own Log First
Open your own trading log. Find your best month on record.
Now look at what happened in the months right after it. If the answer is "quieter," ask yourself honestly whether you decided the strategy stopped working, or whether you actually checked if your rules were still being followed and your setups were still showing up.
Most traders never separate those two questions. They just feel the quiet stretch and start changing things.
If you want to track that properly instead of guessing from memory, use a trade journal. Log the winning days, the losing days, and whether you followed your own rules on each one. That log is what tells you whether you're in a slow cycle or an actual problem.
Stay consistent. Stay safe. SPY Held 740.44 Again. Same Setup, Third Approach.SPY Held 740.44 Again. Same Setup, Third Approach.
The second test of 740.44 held, exactly as it needed to. SPY bounced to 745.24, structure has flipped back to bull, and hourly conviction is top-quartile with a long thesis. The floor is proving itself with two defenses now. And the trigger has not moved: 748 on a close. This is the third time this setup has assembled, and twice already it stalled short of the level without firing. The setup is good. The trigger is what matters, and it has not been hit. Neutral.
Resistance: 748.00 - the trigger, unchanged
Key resistance: 751.00, then the 755.66 ceiling
Current price: 745.24
Support: 742.00 - first support
Key support: 740.44 - the twice-defended floor
Structural floor: 739.34 - the swept low
Two paths from here:
748 finally closes above and the setup triggers. A twice-defended floor, bull structure, and top-quartile conviction is the strongest version of this setup yet. A confirmed close above 748 opens 751 and the ceiling, and it is the event that would earn a directional call on the one instrument where breaks carry an edge.
It stalls under 748 for a third time. Two prior attempts failed within a point of the level. A third failure sends price back to 740.44 for a third test, and a floor tested three times is weaker each time. Repeated failure to clear is itself information.
The floor keeps holding and the setup keeps rebuilding, but 748 has not closed above in three attempts. Until it does, the honest read is a range between 740.44 and 748, not a trend.
Built with SYNTHESIS v3.3 | SOM / ACE / IMP / SYNTHESIS
Study, not financial advice. Fundamentals of Cycles, Part 1: Is Your Trend Really a Cycle?📊 Incorporating an awareness of cycles into your trading and investment strategy has the opportunity to provide new insights and perspective on price movements. The natural and business worlds are filled with examples of cycles – is it far fetched to think these cycles make their way into the markets as well?
🧠 As a thought experiment, examine the chart on the left hand side above. We see support levels, triangle formations, and relatively lengthy up/down trends - it very much looks like a stock, index, or currency chart. However, this image was created entirely from a set of interacting sine-wave "cycles" (on top of a gentle upward trend). If similar short and long-term cycles are present in the market, identifying them can help us look past news headlines and develop more disciplined trading strategies.
Think about some cycles we are all aware of:
🔷Natural cycles:
Solar (years, and Earth's tilt driving seasons)
Lunar phases
Sleep-wake
🔷Perhaps more compelling - business cycles:
Bi-monthly salary payments and corresponding 401K investments
Quarterly company reporting
Four-year US presidential terms
🎯 There is an old saying – that a single moment can change all the rest that follow. Picking up "The Profit Magic of Stock Transaction Timing" by J.M. Hurst – one of the fathers of modern cyclic analysis – was one such occasion for me, and it put cycles at the foundation of my market analysis. The next time you are looking at a chart - take a moment to consider - is this a trend or a cycle?
📌 This is just the first step - positing that cycles may exist within market data and that they can even explain some "textbook" technical patterns we are trained to spot. In a future post we will build on this foundation by examining how chart offsets can help us examine potential daily and weekly cycles and turn them into cycle projections to help identify potential market turning points and price targets. 
Education
QQQ / NDX Weekly Outlook – Week 29 of 2026 (20-24 JUL)QQQ / NDX WEEKLY MARKET OUTLOOK
UA CAPITAL RECAP 19.07 | WEEK 13-17 JUL
The execution throughout the week closely followed our published trading plans.
Monday and Tuesday, both SPY and QQQ Long Scenario 1 trades from the Weekly Market Outlook reached profitable outcomes.
Wednesday's updated Tactical Playbook generated new long opportunities in both SPY and QQQ, with both trades closing profitably.
No new trades were taken on Thursday.
Friday's Tactical Playbook successfully identified short opportunities in both SPY and QQQ. Both positions generated multiple partial profit targets and continue to hold small runner positions into next week.
Ahead of Tuesday's CPI release, we also opened VIX hedge positions on Monday afternoon and closed them Tuesday morning for approximately a 36% gain.
In total, seven options trades were executed throughout the week, and all seven finished as winners.
It was an exceptional week from both an execution and risk management perspective, resulting in a 100% winning record across every completed options trade.
(For reference, I have included last week's outlook on the right.)
Equities Play
Throughout the week we also continued building medium-term spot positions in selected companies through the UA CAPITAL Trading Desk.
To maintain disciplined risk management, new purchases were limited to only one-quarter of our available buying power, bringing our total deployed capital to approximately 50% of our intended allocation.
Our plan remains unchanged. We intend to continue gradually building these medium-term positions from attractive technical levels with an investment horizon extending into November and December 2026.
The specific names remain exclusive to the private Trading Desk, although our primary focus continues to be concentrated in the technology and semiconductor sectors.
This Week's Scenarios / Prediction
Risk Index
This oscillator reads macro conditions and converts them into a technical risk framework. It was developed internally at UA CAPITAL and remains the primary indicator I use for both short-term and long-term positioning decisions.
The Risk Index is currently signaling the potential for a short-term bounce. However, the broader short to medium-term environment continues to price in the possibility of another meaningful downside flush.
The long-term model remains firmly risk on, while the medium-term outlook continues to lean slightly bearish.
This combination typically creates elevated volatility, with both bulls and bears competing aggressively for control before a larger directional move eventually develops.
Given the potential for rapid acceleration in either direction and increasingly violent reversals, our focus this week will remain on aggressive profit-taking and disciplined risk management.
Scenarios / Strategies
Long Scenario 1
KEY Level 1 (688) This is the first major demand zone. If price reclaims this level with a confirmed 1-hour bullish candle close, long exposure can be considered.
Trigger: Price must test the level and produce a bullish 1-hour candle close back above the zone.
Targets: Take partial profits after every $1 advance.
Invalidation: 4-hour candle close below 681.
Long Scenario 2
KEY Level 2 (663)
This is the second major demand zone. If price reclaims this level with a confirmed 1-hour bullish candle close, long exposure can be considered.
Trigger: Price must test the level and produce a bullish 1-hour candle close back above the zone.
Targets: Take partial profits after every $1 advance.
Invalidation: Daily candle close below 653.
Flip Scenario
FLIP Level (709) This is the major flip zone. If price reclaims this level with a confirmed 1-hour bullish candle close above, long exposure can be considered. Market yukarıdaki supply bölgelerine hareket gerçekleştirecek bir bullish yapıya evrilebilir.
Trigger: Price must break above the level 709 and produce a bullish 1-hour candle close above the Flip Level.
Targets: Take partial profits after every $1 advance.
Invalidation: 1 hourly candle close below 700.
Short Scenario 1
FLIP Level (700) This area represents the primary supply zone and the upper boundary of the current trading range. A confirmed rejection from this level could provide a tactical short opportunity.
Trigger: Retest of the zone followed by a 1-hour bearish rejection candle.
Targets: Take partial profits after every $1 decline.
Invalidation: 1-hour candle close above 709.
Short Scenario 2
Main Supply (735) This area represents the primary supply zone and the upper boundary of the current trading range. A confirmed rejection from this level could provide a tactical short opportunity.
Trigger: Retest of the zone followed by a 1-hour bearish rejection candle.
Targets: Take partial profits after every $1 decline.
Invalidation: 4-hour candle close above 744.
Position Management Rules
1. Entry model: 1 hour candle close above/below the designated level.
2. Take profits in stages because market reversals can happen quickly.
3. After the first profit target is reached, move all remaining stop losses to breakeven and convert the position into a risk free trade.
4. A reaction from the level must be confirmed. We do not predict price. We react to price.
5. Invalidation levels are unique for each other. Read it carefully.
6. Charts using RTH (regular trading hours). ETH gives you wrong candle confirmation.
Notice: Starting a fresh, fully transparent track record for SPY, QQQ, and core equities here on TradingView. Going forward, all daily market updates, tactical SPY/SPX - QQQ outlooks, institutional research, weekly outlooks, and mid week market updates will be documented and tracked consistently.
This analysis is for educational purposes only and reflects my personal opinion. It is not financial advice. Long
Long 
QQQ Elliott Wave Signals Double Correction Toward 684The short‑term Elliott Wave view on the Nasdaq 100 ETF (QQQ) shows that the instrument is correcting the cycle from the March 30, 2026 low. The decline from the June 3, 2026 all‑time high continues, with the extreme target zone defined by the 100%–161.8% Fibonacci extension. This area lies between $646 and $684 and represents the next logical support cluster within the ongoing correction.
From the June 16 high, the cycle has unfolded as a double three structure. Wave (w) ended at $697.86, followed by a counter‑trend rally in wave (x) that peaked at $726.40. The ETF then resumed lower in wave (y), which subdivides into another double three, highlighting the complexity of the correction.
Within wave (y), the decline from wave (x) produced wave w at $686.76. The subsequent rally in wave x ended at $705.80. The ETF has since turned lower again. A break beneath $686.76 is required to confirm that the correction is extending as a double sequence. Until then, the possibility of a more complex consolidation remains.
Near term, the pivot at $737.72 is critical. As long as this high remains intact, rallies are expected to fail in either three or seven swings. This reinforces the downside bias and favors continuation lower toward the $684 area, consistent with the projected Fibonacci extension zone. 
Long
Fed blackout; AI-capex cluster, tariff sunset 7/24Four dated events inside five days carry the tape into the July 28-29 FOMC and the Fed is in blackout the whole week. USTR Section 301 determinations on Monday 7/20 (weakly sourced date, verify). The midweek after-close earnings cluster (TSLA, TXN, NOW and IBM's formal print Tuesday, GOOGL the Wednesday marquee) is the first live test of the AI-capex top read that fired on 7/17 across the semis and hyperscaler shorts.
The SOX closed the week -12.5% and over 20% off its late-June high, bear-market territory, after China's Moonshot open model. Section 122 sunsets 00:01 ET Friday 7/24, taking the US effective tariff rate from about 11% to about 8.2% absent a Congressional extension (no extension bill pending). Friday 9:45 the Flash PMIs land, composite consensus ~51.9 (July), June manufacturing 55.7 and services 51.3. Composite over 50 keeps the growth crack un-tripped and the higher-for-longer, no-cut regime intact.
On Saturday I posted the QQQ weekly-top call: QQQ closed the week -4.16% at 695.33, back under the first Warsh FOMC key level 731.62 (my median of the event range, the price that bakes in expectations plus reaction plus digested positioning around the regime-reset FOMC). Weekly signal projects five downside targets stacking to 468. Structure rhymes with the January 2022 top. Invalidation is a weekly close over 731.62. SPY closed under its Warsh line 745.41 too, so the AI-capex re-rate is broader than one index.
Energy stays the receipt: Brent through $90 on the Monday reopen on an open US-Iran shooting war around the Strait; gasoline long half booked and a runner on (products over crude); NWE diesel crack a record ~$60-66 on Russia's producer-inclusive export ban. Signals scorecard: BULL 4 / BEAR 3 / NEUTRAL 11, two factors past kill lines (P/E 26.7x over 25, Junk Spreads 2.71 under 3.0). VIX 18.4 is sub-20 into the tariff binary and the AI-capex cluster; own cheap optionality over the directional bet.
Best of luck!
Cheers,
Ivan Labrie. Short 
BITO - Forecasting a Huge Move SoonOne really important BTC ETF chart I want to lay out is BITO, ProShares 1x Bitcoin ETF. This ETF remains highly traded for short term tactical positioning, which is exactly why it is worth analyzing right now.
It appears active market participants are expecting a significant move for Bitcoin very soon, and that is showing up clearly in how they are positioning within this ETF.
You can see this through the rapidly increasing volume. For most of its life, BITO traded well under 100 million shares per week. Toward the end of 2025 that began ramping up above 100 million shares per week, and volume has since accelerated even further.
Last week, BITO recorded total volume of just under 2 billion shares! What makes this particularly notable is not just the size of the number, but the pattern behind it. Volume increased every single day that week without exception.
Monday, July 13: 277,275,900 shares
Tuesday, July 14: 407,703,000 shares
Wednesday, July 15: 496,250,000 shares
Thursday, July 16: 553,007,500 shares
Friday, July 17: 633,367,473 shares
Volume more than doubled from Monday to Friday alone, with each day building on the last.
This surge is likely tied directly to the speculation around a significant low being formed at $57,800 for Bitcoin. I want to outline a few of my recent ideas that support what BITO is currently signaling through this volume surge.
First, I outlined ProShares' 2x leveraged ETF market structure a couple weeks ago. That idea can be found here:
Even in that idea I noted slightly increasing volume at the time, but nowhere near what is currently being seen on BITO.
I also previously pointed out that IBIT's low was likely in. It may not yet be the full bear market low, but it has acted as a significant pivot low so far and should continue to hold that role for some time. Review that idea here:
For the broader BTC analysis supporting this thesis, view these ideas:
