OVERVIEW
🟩 It’s Time To Push

QQQ: Cleared all supply at $581 with highest RVOL of week; all-time highs confirm Nasdaq leadership via MAGS.

QQQE: Breakout >$98.50 on high RVOL, then tight low-volume consolidation Friday = textbook digestion. Growth rally broadening.

MDY: Friday saw liquidation as flows rotated into large/mega-cap tech. Key watch = $598 (10-EMA/psychological $600). RS vs SPX rolling over.

IWM: Pullback on higher RVOL than breakout = distribution signal. Short-squeeze fuel fading as RS vs SPX breaks down.

Focused Stock (SOFI): Breaking out <1% from highs, ADR 5.4%. Watch gap-fill/flag, avoid chasing open.

Focused Group (URA): Consolidating at $42 prior highs with drying RVOL. Leadership in OKLO/nuclear-AI link is where edge lies.

MARKET ANALYSIS
Markets Remain Calm Ahead of Fed Cuts

Stocks are starting the week on a steady note, with small caps in the Russell 2000 leading early gains while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq follow modestly behind. Gold is slightly lower, Treasury yields are edging higher, and volatility is ticking up after a calmer stretch.

The real spotlight is on the Fed. Tomorrow marks the start of the two-day FOMC meeting, where policymakers are widely expected to cut rates for the first time since December 2024. Most expect a 25 basis point move, though some argue for a larger cut or none at all. Because easing has been priced in for months, the decision could easily turn into a “sell the news” moment.

Outside of the Fed, it’s shaping up to be a smooth week. Earnings from FedEx, General Mills, and Lennar are on the way, while fresh reports on retail sales, housing, and jobless claims will offer more color on the economy. Plenty to watch, but nothing to stress over.

Nasdaq

% over 20 EMA: 43.56% | % over 50 EMA: 43.56% | % over 200 EMA: 56.43%

The red-box supply zone around $581 was not only retested but fully absorbed as demand stepped in Thursday, and Friday delivered confirmed follow-through on the highest relative volume of the week, propelling QQQ to all-time highs and clearing all overhead supply.

There’s nothing ambiguous here: the Nasdaq is strong, driven by continued sponsorship of the MAGS.

Digging deeper, Thursday’s breakout through $98.50 on high RVOL was consolidated on Friday in a tight, low-volume pullback. This is exactly what you want to see: confirmation of the breakout, digestion without distribution, and leadership concentration in the large/mega-cap complex.

Yes, breadth cooled slightly Friday as flows rotated up-cap, but that doesn’t weaken the signal as growth segments across the board are rallying, finally in unison.

S&P 400 Midcap

% over 20 EMA: 55.25% | % over 50 EMA: 63.00% | % over 200 EMA: 62.75%

Friday’s session made the capital rotation crystal clear: money flowed into large- and mega-cap tech, while midcaps saw short-term liquidation. This reflects a structural shift we’ve seen repeatedly in past cycles (most recently throughout 2024), where liquidity consolidates into the biggest weights once risk appetite turns.

Despite that, our daily scans still show midcap strength beneath the surface with clean breakouts following through (however they are very industry group specific and not as broad as the large caps).

The divergence lies in relative strength: MDY/SPX is breaking down while QQQ/SPX is accelerating higher, confirming the market’s marginal dollar is flowing toward the Nasdaq complex, not the midcap bucket.

The immediate focus is the rising daily 10-EMA at $598, just beneath the $600 psychological level. A retest here today would be normal, but whether that zone holds or fails will tell us if midcaps remain part of the leadership rotation or fade into a secondary role behind the MAGS.

Russell 2000

% over 20 EMA: 57.19% | % over 50 EMA: 65.02% | % over 200 EMA: 60.98%

The Russell’s rally into $239–240 carries a very different signature than large and midcaps. Friday’s reversal printed higher RVOL than both the breakout session and the bulk of last week, signaling distribution rather than healthy digestion.

The driver behind the last leg up was not broad institutional sponsorship but short-covering flows, evident in high-short-interest baskets where squeezes ran in lockstep. That asymmetry (shorts forced to buy vs. genuine demand) is now decaying.

Relative strength confirms the fade: IWM/SPX ratio is rolling over, showing capital rotation back into higher-quality, mega-cap leadership. Without fresh inflows, small caps face negative convexity: the upside fuel from squeezes is exhausted, while downside risk opens if weak hands lose conviction (or they simply believe they would rather hold the tech complex which is generally safer).

That being said, we don’t want to give the wrong impression, we are not bearish on small caps.

In fact, we continue to hold two long positions from last week in leading small-cap growth names. What we are highlighting is the decline in relative strength across small and midcaps, which must be noted in the context of capital rotation.

🧠 Mindset Check: Don’t Let The Rate Cut Scare You

If you read the financial media this week, you’ll see plenty of noise about “what if the Fed doesn’t cut.” Let’s be clear: that’s not a real debate.

Fed funds futures are pricing a 96.2% probability of a September cut. For Powell not to deliver would be extraordinary. The market has already discounted it.

This is what too many traders forget: markets are forward-pricing mechanisms. They don’t wait for the Fed but instead they anticipate, discount, and then move on.

Which means the cut itself isn’t where your edge lies. The edge is in how price and volume behave around key levels once the announcement confirms expectations.

Here’s what the tape has been showing:

• Breakouts are sticking for the first time in weeks.

• Breadth is broadening across multiple groups.

• Growth-sensitive sectors are pulling leadership back.

That’s expectancy turning positive and that’s why inside Swingly PRO we’ve been pressing size since last Thursday. The market is paying traders again.

Action step for every retail trader reading this:

Build a watchlist of market leaders and update it every single day with the most resilient names.

That simple process keeps you aligned with strength and stops you from chasing random moves. (Hint: in Swingly PRO, we do this work every morning, so members know exactly which leaders deserve attention.)

FOCUSED STOCK
SOFI: A Relative Strength Leader

ADR%: 5.40% | Off 52-week high: -1.1% | Above 52-week low: +250.7%

SOFI is pressing less than 1% from 52-week highs within a strong financials group, lining up with broad growth strength across the market.

Structurally, it’s been respecting its rising 10- and 20-day EMAs, showing controlled accumulation, and the VRVP shows a thin pocket above $26 that could allow for sharp continuation if sponsorship persists.

Process-wise, while we normally use the 5-min opening range high as our breakout confirmation tool on gap-ups, SOFI is a clear exception. Too many gap-ups have faded recently, and the probability of a false breakout at the open is high. Instead, the playbook is:

• Look for a pullback long either into the gap-fill or back into rising intraday EMAs.

• Or, wait out the first leg entirely and look for a flag/base setup on the 15-min chart before pressing.

The key here is not to blindly chase into the open, but to let the trade set up asymmetrically.

FOCUSED GROUP
URA: Nuclear Stocks Continue To Rally

URA has pulled back into the $42 zone, which is highly significant as it aligns with the late July highs and marks the classic shift from prior resistance into support. The retrace over the past few sessions has come on drying relative volume, a constructive sign that supply is light and demand is quietly reloading here.

What matters next is whether we see an acceleration in relative volume on any push higher out of this base. Without that, breakouts risk stalling. With it, the ETF can resume trend and bring the underlying leaders with it.

As always, our focus is not on URA directly, but on the leading stocks inside the complex.

Names like OKLO have already broken out with volume, and the thematic tailwind of modular nuclear reactors tied to AI infrastructure demand, makes this a space where sponsorship is likely to expand.

Q&A
Got a trading question? Hit reply and ask!

Q: “If you get two identical breakouts in two identical stocks, how do you decide which to ignore and which to enter? Do you just pick the one with better fundamentals?”

The real answer is that as swing traders, we’re not evaluating businesses as we’re just allocating risk into vehicles that maximize reward-to-risk expectancy.

Price, volume and relative strength are the only objective truths, and they consistently front-run fundamentals.

Here’s how we think about it:

Relative Strength is Non-Negotiable

Identical breakouts aren’t identical once you layer in relative performance. Over the last 50 years, academic studies (Jegadeesh & Titman, 1993; Fama & French, 2012) have shown that stocks in the top decile of RS outperform the bottom decile by 6–12% annually on average.

How we track it:

• Ratio charts (e.g. TSLA/SPX, MU/SMH, XLI/SPX).

• Daily RS scans across all major sectors.

• Confirmation that RS is rising, not flat.

If RS isn’t there, we pass because odds collapse without leadership.

Multi-Timeframe Consistency

True leaders don’t just pop for a week and vanish as they tend to dominate across timeframes. That’s why we scan daily for the top performers over 1 week, 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, and 12 months.

When the same names show up across multiple horizons, it’s rarely random. That’s institutional accumulation working in layers, and it’s the clearest filter for separating real leadership from noise.

Match Vehicle to Intent

Identical breakouts can demand very different approaches depending on volatility. This is where ADR% (average daily range) comes in.

Momentum trades: If the goal is quick asymmetric payoffs, we prefer higher ADR names (5–10%+). They move faster, deliver R multiples sooner, and are better suited for volatility contraction breakouts. Example: BITF no real fundamentals, but with explosive RS and ADR, it’s been a textbook momentum vehicle especially given the theme of crypto strength.

Position trades: If the goal is to size bigger and hold longer, lower ADR names (2–4%) are better. They’re less noisy, allow for tighter stops, and make it easier to run larger size without getting shaken out.

4. Always Remember That Price Leads Narrative

This is the most important mental reset. The market rewards relative strength, not stories. By the time fundamentals improve, the trade is usually halfway over.

The best trades often look “wrong” fundamentally when they start e.g. CVNA in 2024 and quantum computing names like RGTI today are perfect examples.

Swingly PRO gives you the daily playbook with the strongest leaders across large, mid, and small caps, filtered for both growth and momentum. No guesswork, no noise. You know exactly where capital is concentrating, and where the next big moves are setting up.

This is the power of trading alongside a team → see what’s included