It only took 30 days into July to finally see a big up day in July. The theme yesterday was that July has been pretty bearish so far and the expectation was that it would continue – while I still think that is true, MAG 7 earnings might put a pause on that.

MSFT saved the day and got a lot of help from the chip and memory stocks. We know those stocks have been heavily beat up, as was highlighted in the post yesterday. Today we saw names like SNDK rally nearly 25% while MU was up almost 20%. The market leaders were once again market leaders.

So yeah, SPX popped 120 points to the upside and almost made it back to the 7450 high from yesterday. It’s as if the big drop from yesterday never happened. Is this a dead cat bounce? Is this a temporary relief rally on the backs of the heavy hitting MAG 7 stocks? I think today raises a lot more questions than it answers.

With the exception of yesterday’s long body candle to the downside, we now have just about 6 candles in a row that have gone no where. You can clearly see the pattern of sideways action from the last 6 candles, but the numbers back it up as well. Last Thursday, SPX closed at 7408. Today, it closed at 7437. It has barely moved in a week, and yet it feels like we have been everywhere as well.

Intra-day volatility is incredibly high, but somehow SPX has made little to no progress on a week to week basis.

We looked close at the 7450 level yesterday, and it once again came into play again today. The high on SPX today was 7448. Since last Thursday’s gap down, this level has been the critical one that SPX is unable to break over.

To the downside, that 7375 level seems to be the important one. Price briefly broke below it yesterday but today it obviously snapped right back. If we break to the upside tomorrow, will it be another fake out like we had to the downside?

One of these breaches is going to run and we have to assume each break is the one that does. If 7450 breaks cleanly tomorrow then a run towards 7500 is entirely possible.

Our good friend NQ has bounced from the grey box area we have been tracking all week, and the bounce today was incredibly. NQ rallied 1000 points today and ended up retaking the June low. This is actually pretty bullish for the time being and probably pretty unexpected to happen so quickly.

NQ is a high flyer and a complete wild card on where it goes next.

So far it doesn’t seem like AAPL will save the day as it is currently down nearly 8% after earnings. AMZN is up but the two are likely to cancel each other out.

The chip stocks had a huge bounce today and if that continues, then tomorrow should be another huge rally.

SNDK and MU are more important than AAPL and AMZN. Try explaining that to someone in 2024.

Tomorrow is the end of July and this one was a disappointment for the bulls, but an amazing one for traders. Let’s see how it ends.

Good luck!