I track 163 liquid US names continuously, and this is my read of the whole tape as of July 18, 2026 — the backdrop I am selecting into, not a trade list. I care less about where the index closed than about how it got there: who is participating, where money is rotating, and where positioning has stretched far enough to matter. The discipline is the same every week, but the conclusions are not — the framework keeps learning, and so do I.
Here is how I read the backdrop: volatility is cheap at 16.7 — barely 1.05% a day — and cheap vol is exactly where I watch crowding hardest, the 10y−2y curve has steepened to +0.41, a quieter vote of confidence in duration, high-yield spreads at 2.71 are still contained, so credit is not yet contradicting the tape, and the S&P's trailing month is +0.3%, the trend I am actually trading against.
Volatility is the first thing I price, because it sets the size of every other bet. I scale gross exposure inversely to realised vol — target the risk, not the notional — so a calmer tape lets the book breathe and a violent one pulls it in automatically:
Source: fred · as of 2026-07-17
Across 163 names in the tracked universe, breadth measures how much of the tape is participating in the trend rather than a handful of leaders. Participation is the share of the universe trading above its own moving averages:
Breadth is my lie-detector for a rally: it tells me whether the index is being lifted by the many or faked by the few. As I read it, 66% of the universe is above its own 50-day line, which is broad enough that I trust the move's footing, advancers lead decliners 103:60 (an A/D ratio of 1.72), and 13 names are overbought against 3 oversold, the internal tension I weigh for mean-reversion risk.
I count participation and the advance/decline split directly, so the claim is checkable rather than asserted:
My read maps to a posture; the exact breadth thresholds that set position sizing stay proprietary and withheld.
Capital is leaning into Chemicals (+17.8% on the trailing month) and away from Metals & Mining (-15.0%). That 32.8-point spread is the rotation I am trading: I want the weekly book overweight where both price and participation agree, not where one is dragging the other.
Average 20-day return and SMA50 participation by sector — the raw rotation map under the read above.
| Sector | Names | Avg 20d | % > SMA50 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chemicals | 9 | +17.77% | 62% |
| Diversified Consumer Services | 1 | +15.06% | 100% |
| Life Sciences Tools & Services | 2 | +14.91% | 100% |
| Insurance | 1 | +12.39% | 100% |
| Financials | 1 | +12.36% | 100% |
| Road & Rail | 4 | +11.91% | 100% |
| Energy | 10 | +9.86% | 70% |
| Biotechnology | 7 | +9.44% | 83% |
| Consumer products | 2 | +7.42% | 100% |
| Financial Services | 13 | +6.28% | 82% |
| Banking | 8 | +5.00% | 100% |
| Pharmaceuticals | 6 | +4.99% | 75% |
| Health Care | 7 | +4.84% | 83% |
| Textiles, Apparel & Luxury Goods | 2 | +4.31% | 0% |
| Real Estate | 11 | +4.26% | 70% |
| Logistics & Transportation | 2 | +4.01% | 50% |
| Retail | 10 | +3.53% | 56% |
| Technology | 5 | +3.32% | n/a |
| Media | 10 | +3.01% | 40% |
| Utilities | 10 | +2.44% | 30% |
| Telecommunication | 4 | +0.73% | 25% |
| Beverages | 2 | -0.58% | 50% |
| Hotels, Restaurants & Leisure | 7 | -0.78% | 57% |
| Industrial Conglomerates | 2 | -1.13% | 100% |
| Machinery | 7 | -1.72% | 86% |
| Aerospace & Defense | 4 | -2.84% | 50% |
| Automobiles | 1 | -3.94% | n/a |
| Communications | 1 | -4.64% | n/a |
| Electrical Equipment | 3 | -4.70% | 33% |
| Semiconductors | 9 | -10.84% | 80% |
| Metals & Mining | 2 | -15.02% | 0% |
The strongest names — DD, PYPL, VLO — are where momentum is already doing my work, and I respect a trend until it breaks rather than fading it on a hunch and the laggards — ORCL, INTC, ALB — I read as either falling knives or set-ups, and I refuse to confuse the two without a catalyst.
| Ticker | 20d | RSI |
|---|---|---|
| DD | +182.52% | 52.6 |
| PYPL | +34.45% | n/a |
| VLO | +29.03% | 56.7 |
| MPC | +27.72% | 58.6 |
| PSX | +23.65% | 72.8 |
| ADBE | +20.83% | n/a |
| DLTR | +18.30% | 59.5 |
| WELL | +17.87% | 55.4 |
| Ticker | 20d | RSI |
|---|---|---|
| ORCL | -31.11% | n/a |
| INTC | -28.98% | 65.3 |
| ALB | -27.56% | 29.8 |
| MU | -25.00% | 66.9 |
| QCOM | -24.02% | 56.8 |
| NEM | -15.04% | 37.1 |
| FCX | -14.99% | 56.2 |
| ISRG | -14.12% | 29.5 |
I read sentiment as a crowding gauge, not a green light. Where the crowd is most bullish I ask what is left to buy; where it is most bearish I ask what is left to sell. The extremes below are useful precisely because they are uncomfortable — they tell me where positioning, not fundamentals, is setting the price.
| Ticker | Sentiment | 20d |
|---|---|---|
| KMI | +0.98 | +3.13% |
| ESS | +0.96 | +9.77% |
| D | +0.91 | +4.44% |
| NTRS | +0.89 | +5.54% |
| ECL | +0.88 | +1.49% |
| DG | +0.88 | +15.72% |
| EQR | +0.86 | +6.78% |
| KNSA | +0.84 | +16.08% |
| Ticker | Sentiment | 20d |
|---|---|---|
| TMO | -0.97 | +15.27% |
| ESTA | -0.39 | +9.99% |
| YUM | -0.33 | -4.02% |
| TMUS | -0.30 | +6.02% |
| CBC | -0.25 | +8.50% |
| CE | -0.25 | -10.83% |
| CHTR | -0.14 | -0.48% |
| RTX | -0.14 | +0.45% |
This is my survey of the whole universe I track, not a trade recommendation. Breadth, the advance/decline split and the RSI extremes are standard, publicly defined measures, and I show them in full so you can check my arithmetic. What I keep back is how I combine these readings into position sizing and risk posture — that blend is the edge, and it recalibrates as the evidence does.