I track 163 liquid US names continuously, and this is my read of the whole tape as of July 30, 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 sits mid-band at 18.2 (about 1.15% a day), neither complacent nor panicked, the 10y−2y curve has steepened to +0.35, a quieter vote of confidence in duration, and the S&P's trailing month is -0.2%, 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 2026-07-29
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, 74% of the universe is above its own 50-day line, which is broad enough that I trust the move's footing, advancers lead decliners 113:50 (an A/D ratio of 2.26), and 13 names are overbought against 1 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 Diversified Consumer Services (+15.1% on the trailing month) and away from Automobiles (-29.1%). That 44.1-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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Diversified Consumer Services | 1 | +15.06% | 100% |
| Insurance | 1 | +13.72% | 100% |
| Energy | 10 | +13.70% | 80% |
| Financials | 1 | +12.36% | 100% |
| Technology | 5 | +10.18% | n/a |
| Financial Services | 13 | +9.49% | 91% |
| Life Sciences Tools & Services | 2 | +9.21% | 100% |
| Telecommunication | 4 | +9.01% | 75% |
| Industrial Conglomerates | 2 | +8.86% | 100% |
| Beverages | 2 | +7.92% | 50% |
| Textiles, Apparel & Luxury Goods | 2 | +7.49% | 0% |
| Consumer products | 2 | +7.47% | 100% |
| Road & Rail | 4 | +6.84% | 100% |
| Pharmaceuticals | 6 | +4.95% | 75% |
| Retail | 10 | +4.90% | 78% |
| Aerospace & Defense | 4 | +4.55% | 75% |
| Biotechnology | 7 | +4.34% | 100% |
| Real Estate | 11 | +4.05% | 80% |
| Media | 10 | +3.95% | 80% |
| Health Care | 7 | +3.04% | 83% |
| Banking | 8 | +2.94% | 86% |
| Hotels, Restaurants & Leisure | 7 | +1.68% | 57% |
| Chemicals | 9 | +0.69% | 62% |
| Utilities | 10 | -0.63% | 50% |
| Logistics & Transportation | 2 | -1.97% | 50% |
| Metals & Mining | 2 | -3.37% | 0% |
| Communications | 1 | -4.23% | n/a |
| Machinery | 7 | -6.03% | 57% |
| Electrical Equipment | 3 | -6.78% | 67% |
| Semiconductors | 9 | -18.60% | 60% |
| Automobiles | 1 | -29.06% | n/a |
The strongest names — PYPL, ADBE, ICE — 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 — INTC, AMAT, MU — I read as either falling knives or set-ups, and I refuse to confuse the two without a catalyst.
| Ticker | 20d | RSI |
|---|---|---|
| PYPL | +35.22% | n/a |
| ADBE | +28.52% | n/a |
| ICE | +25.46% | 70.8 |
| PSX | +22.35% | 65.8 |
| MPC | +21.03% | 58.6 |
| CME | +20.31% | 64.4 |
| CRM | +20.26% | n/a |
| ABT | +19.19% | 72.9 |
| Ticker | 20d | RSI |
|---|---|---|
| INTC | -41.30% | 65.3 |
| AMAT | -39.58% | 62.7 |
| MU | -35.88% | 66.9 |
| TSLA | -29.06% | n/a |
| CAT | -26.45% | 65.4 |
| AMD | -26.07% | 67.2 |
| ORCL | -19.66% | n/a |
| QCOM | -15.76% | 56.8 |
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 |
|---|---|---|
| PEG | +0.94 | -4.21% |
| NTRS | +0.93 | +2.19% |
| TJX | +0.88 | +6.65% |
| TFC | +0.87 | +5.01% |
| PNC | +0.82 | +0.95% |
| CVS | +0.80 | +2.37% |
| DLTR | +0.79 | +6.63% |
| DOV | +0.75 | -11.69% |
| Ticker | Sentiment | 20d |
|---|---|---|
| SHW | -0.40 | -0.01% |
| ESTA | -0.39 | +9.99% |
| PSA | -0.37 | +3.62% |
| ALB | -0.32 | -15.65% |
| CBC | -0.25 | +8.50% |
| HLT | -0.23 | -2.51% |
| O | -0.23 | +5.82% |
| SLB | -0.20 | +5.37% |
The picture this week is one of breadth outrunning price. With 73.6% of the universe above its 50-day and 71.4% above its 200-day, and advancers beating decliners more than 2-to-1 (113 vs 50), participation looks broad and healthy. Yet the average 20-day return across the universe is basically flat at 3bps, and SPY's own 20-day return is slightly negative — so a lot of names are technically "up trend" without much actual price thrust behind them. That combination (wide participation, weak aggregate return) usually means the tape is being held up by a large number of small grinders while a handful of high-beta names do the damage on the return side — and that's exactly what the leader/laggard list shows: semiconductors (INTC, AMAT, MU, AMD, QCOM) and autos (TSLA) are down 15-40% over 20 days, dragging the average down even as breadth stays constructive elsewhere.
That divergence matters against a VIX at 18.2 — not cheap complacency, not stress, just mid-range — and a positively sloped curve (35bp 10s2s). Nothing in the macro read screams risk-off, which fits with breadth holding up, but it doesn't explain why semis and autos are being punished this hard while cyclicals like energy, financials, and insurance lead. That looks idiosyncratic/rotational rather than macro-driven: capital is leaving crowded, previously extended growth/semi names and rotating into financials, insurance, and energy, which also happen to show some of the highest pct-above-SMA50 readings (80-100%) alongside strong 20-day returns. The overbought count (13) versus oversold (1) suggests the rotation destination — not the semis selloff — is where crowding risk is now building.
Sentiment adds a wrinkle rather than confirming this. NTRS and TFC (financials) score high on sentiment and sit within a sector that's also leading price — a case of sentiment and price agreeing. But PSA and O (REIT-adjacent) show among the most negative sentiment despite real estate's respectable 4% average 20-day return and 80% above-SMA50 breadth — sentiment lagging or fighting the tape there. And SHW's negative sentiment doesn't line up with anything overtly weak in the sector data given. So sentiment is confirming the rotation story in financials but is noisier and partially contradictory elsewhere — I'd weight the sector/breadth combination over single-name sentiment extremes this week, since the former is internally consistent and the latter isn't uniformly so.
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.