OVERVIEW
What You Need To Know

• Trump reignites trade tensions after calling China’s halt on U.S. soybeans “economically hostile,” sparking new tariff threats.

• Markets held up surprisingly well post-Friday selloff, showing underlying demand despite headline volatility.

• Earnings stay strong: JPM, Citi, WFC, and GS all beat, cushioning downside pressure.

• Nasdaq: Lagging — rejected $600 but gapping above premarket; needs to hold for confirmation.

• Midcaps: Testing key $595 demand shelf — holding would confirm rotation beyond megacaps.

• Small Caps: Leading with strength off $241 POC — historically outperform early in new bull legs.

• AGI: Another gold leader setting up a Stage 2 continuation; breakout over $35 would confirm momentum.

• PBW: Clean energy back in Stage 2 advance, defending $32 — a major trend regime shift.

MARKET ANALYSIS
Markets Hold Up Better Than Expected

• Trump Reignites Trade Tensions:
  Trump is back at it again reigniting U.S.–China tensions after accusing Beijing of an “economically hostile act” for halting U.S. soybean purchases. He threatened potential “retribution,” including new trade restrictions, which erased much of the market’s late-session strength.

• China Fires Back:
  Earlier, China sanctioned five U.S. subsidiaries of South Korea’s Hanwha Ocean, escalating the ongoing trade and shipping standoff. The move adds pressure ahead of Trump’s proposed 100% tariff increase on Chinese imports, which could take effect as soon as Nov 1.

• Market Context:
  Despite the headline volatility, the broader market has actually bounced well since Friday’s sell-off, recovering a large portion of those losses across major indices. The rebound shows underlying demand is still present, but confidence remains fragile, with traders quick to fade news-driven spikes.

• Earnings Undercurrent:
  Beneath the noise, financials continue to outperform as JPMorgan, Citi, Wells Fargo, and Goldman all beat expectations, showing strong credit quality and capital markets activity. Earnings strength has kept the market from breaking down further.

Nasdaq

% over 20 EMA: 39.60% | % over 50 EMA: 49.50% | % over 200 EMA: 58.41%

• The Nasdaq’s rebound was noticeably weaker than the rest of the market.
  Where small and midcaps snapped back with conviction, the tech complex lagged, showing that leadership is still uncertain and institutional money hasn’t rotated back into high beta just yet.

• On the QQQ, price rejected cleanly at the Point of Control ($600) yesterday at a major inflection level where volume has concentrated all quarter.

• That failure to reclaim and hold $600 was the first red flag of the session and signaled that sellers were still active at key supply.

• But that changes this morning as in premarket, QQQ is gapping back above $600, and this is now the single most important level on the board.

• If we see a controlled retest that holds, confirming $600 as new support, it would mark the first constructive structural pivot in the Nasdaq since last week’s breakdown.

• Until that confirmation, the index remains trapped in a volatility pocket between $590–$605 at a zone of forced positioning and reactive liquidity.

• The equal-weight Nasdaq (QQQE) paints a slightly better picture: it reclaimed both the 10- and 21-day EMAs, showing that breadth has started to normalize beyond megacaps.

• But even here, participation remains tentative- a reminder that the tech tape needs time to rebuild confidence.

S&P 400 Midcap

% over 20 EMA: 40.64% | % over 50 EMA: 41.39% | % over 200 EMA: 56.35%

• The midcaps are sitting right on their Point of Control (POC), perfectly aligned with the $595 demand shelf- the same zone (the green box) that’s acted as a strong base since mid-August.

• This area has consistently drawn buyers each time price pulled back over the last two months.

• Right now, we’re at a make-or-break moment: If $595 holds as demand, it reinforces the integrity of this entire base and could set up a secondary rotation higher as money shifts away from large-cap tech.

• But if this level flips to supply, it would mark a clear bearish character change, confirming that what once was support has now turned into resistance and show a classic stage transition.

• What’s notable here is that midcaps have actually outperformed the Nasdaq during this rebound.

• While QQQ struggled to reclaim its POC, MDY has already retraced deeper and held structurally stronger, suggesting a potential early rotation back into broader market strength rather than pure megacap leadership.

• The key confirmation point remains $595 at the intersection of the POC, prior demand zone, and short-term moving average cluster.

• A clean defense here would validate the idea that capital is broadening back out into mid-tier names after months of narrow leadership from the top-weighted tech stocks.

Russell 2000

% over 20 EMA: 40.58% | % over 50 EMA: 47.25% | % over 200 EMA: 57.48%

• The small caps (IWM) have now taken over as the top-performing capitalization segment, showing a clear shift in leadership from the mega-cap heavy Nasdaq to the broader market.

• This kind of transition is critical as the IWM tends to lead during early-stage bull resumption phases, as liquidity rotates from institutional defensiveness into higher-beta names.

• The ETF gapped and ripped off the Point of Control (POC) near $241, the exact level that acted as a demand base throughout August and September.
  This bounce had volume expand sharply, price reclaimed the 10- and 20-day EMAs, and the candle structure confirmed decisive demand right where it mattered.

• Since 2003, in every major cyclical uptrend, small caps have outperformed the S&P 500 by an average of +12–18% in the first 3 months after a risk regime shift (2009, 2016, 2020 being the clearest examples).

• Each of those periods started with IWM reclaiming its short-term EMAs and bouncing from high-volume shelves- exactly what we’re seeing now.

• This segment matters more than most traders realize. These are also the environments where the largest swing trades tend to appear, given their volatility, range, and sensitivity to capital flows.

FOCUSED STOCK
AGI: Precious Metals Are Still King

ADR%: 3.27% | Off 52-week high: -4.4% | Above 52-week low: +96.2%

• For those who read yesterday’s report, we highlighted ORLA as a potential long, and it exploded higher almost immediately, confirming the precise read on gold sector leadership.

• Today, we’re turning our focus to Alamos Gold (AGI) which is another top-tier gold leader that’s setting up cleanly in what appears to be the next volatility contraction pattern (VCP) inside a Stage 2 continuation phase.

• Gold continues to rally relentlessly, with sustained inflows into hard assets as traders hedge against both geopolitical and currency uncertainty.
  This environment has historically fueled sustained leadership in high-quality miners, and AGI is emerging as one of the strongest relative strength names in that space.

• Technical Structure:

  • AGI broke out of a massive base back in August 2025, launching a textbook Stage 2 advance.

  • Since then, price has formed a secondary contraction pattern by tightening under a short-term descending trendline, sitting above all key moving averages.

  • The volume profile shows a clean shelf of accumulation between $33–34, suggesting active institutional absorption ahead of potential range expansion.

  • A breakout through $35 with volume confirmation could trigger the next leg up in the broader gold rotation.

FOCUSED GROUP
PBW: Clean Energy Going Parabolic

• The Invesco WilderHill Clean Energy ETF (PBW) which captures leadership across wind, solar, biofuels, and geothermal energy, is showing one of the most impressive structural reversals of 2025.

• After spending over two years under pressure, PBW has gone almost straight up since April, staging a persistent Stage 2 breakout that’s now gaining serious institutional traction.

• The key moment came just two weeks ago: PBW broke decisively above its declining 200-week EMA for the first time since 2021 - a massive technical milestone that marks a long-term trend regime shift from distribution to accumulation.

• Yesterday’s action was particularly important as the ETF bounced perfectly off the $32 Point of Control (POC), the same level that aligns with that newly reclaimed 200-week EMA, and demand stepped in instantly.

• Volume expanded sharply, confirming that buyers are defending this breakout zone with conviction.

• This behavior is characteristic of early-cycle leadership: when capital begins flowing into clean energy, it often signals broadening risk appetite and early speculative rotation.

• The combination of rising energy transition spending, favorable policy tailwinds, and improving breadth in small/mid-cap renewables has created the strongest setup for the group in years.