The Markets in 7 Charts

Good morning:

I have been at my daughter’s swim meet all morning. That was quite an experience. All of the pools around here are named after Michael Phelps, as he swam here during his youth.

As a result, we have many parents who are convinced their child will be the next Michael Phelps. (Narrator: They won’t be.)

I’d advise these parents to take up trading… because they’re going to have a lot of free time while their kids are swimming two hours a day out here in the heat. There’s a cabana here, and internet. And if you can trade from anywhere… why not?

It’s a great time to get active. Which is why I’ll give you a breakdown of what I’m seeing in the markets in seven charts…

First, the Nasdaq 100 (QQQ) just triggered its first golden cross since March 2023, with the 50-day moving average crossing above the 200-day.

Barchart

The last time this happened, the index ripped 82% over the next 23 months.

Are we going to get something BIG?

It largely depends on liquidity, which is still expanding to record highs…

Golden crosses make for great headlines and even better PowerPoint presentations.

But remember that they’re confirmation, not prediction.

Don’t confuse a technical setup with a guarantee. We are just one headline away from something silly happening. On Monday morning, I’ll walk you through the numbers to show you why this rally is likely to continue through the summer… but the exact places where you need to hedge accordingly.

Momentum is real, but it’s not magic.

2. Greece Just Won the Gold Medal

While everyone is obsessing over mega-cap tech, Greece has quietly become the year-to-date champion of country ETFs. It’s up 45.8%.

Yeah, Greece. The same country that nearly brought the eurozone to the brink of collapse a decade ago.

Mike Zaccardi, CFA, CMT, MBA

This isn’t some feel-good recovery story.

It’s a reminder that when everyone is crowded into the same trades, the real money is made in the forgotten corners.

Poland’s up 41.4% – and you know I’ve been bullish on EPOL since we first started doing Market Masters.

Spain’s crushing it at 38.6%.

The U.S. is sitting pretty at a modest 1.9% gain.

The lesson?

Diversification isn’t just about asset classes.. it’s about not being the last person at the party when the music stops.

3. Foreign Treasury Holdings: What They’re Saying

The adage goes that foreign sellers are going to dump positions in U.S. Treasuries…

Foreign holdings of U.S. Treasury securities have been on a relentless climb since 2000, reaching record levels recently.

Bloomberg

The narrative says foreigners will dump everything and crash the bond market.

Except they haven’t. Not yet, anyway.

This chart indicates that we’re more dependent than ever on foreign capital to fund our spending habits.

When your largest creditors start having second thoughts, the party comes to a quick end.

The Treasury market isn’t just about interest rates… It’s about confidence in American fiscal responsibility.

Spoiler alert: that confidence isn’t infinite.

4. Oil’s Reality Check

Crude got absolutely demolished this week, dropping nearly 13% as the Israel-Iran conflict apparently “ended.”

www.zerohedge.com, Bloomberg

WTI erased every penny of its geopolitical premium. It was fast and furious.

This wasn’t just a news-driven selloff. It was the market’s way of saying we’d gotten a little too comfortable pricing in worst-case scenarios.

The energy trade got crowded, and crowded trades have a nasty habit of reversing when you least expect it

This is why discipline is so important. I’ve warned about chasing and instead focusing on the crossovers on the primary moving averages when they break. It was clear that certain traders knew what was coming.

They were first in the door… and first out the door.

5. Palladium’s Moment in the Sun

Last weekend, I beat the drum on Palladium. That 200-day moving average was fascinating and gave me feelings of a breakout coming.

FinViz – Monthly chart

While oil prices were being crushed, palladium had its best week since October 2024.

The aberdeen Physical Palladium ETF (PALL) added 6.1% this week.

ZeroHedge…

It’s a perfect example of how commodity markets can move in completely different directions for completely different reasons.

Palladium doesn’t make headlines like gold or crude, but it’s essential for automotive catalysts and industrial applications.

When it moves, it’s usually telling you something about manufacturing demand that the equity markets haven’t figured out yet.

Sometimes the most important signals come from the metals nobody’s watching.

And all we have to do is keep a close eye on those long-term movements.

6. Central Bank Interest Rate Theater

The G10 central bank policy rate chart is a masterpiece of coordination and confusion.

Every major central bank marched rates higher in lockstep, and now they’re all trying to figure out how to get down from this mountain without causing an avalanche.

The U.S. sits at 4.38%, still near the top of the pack.

Switzerland’s at zero, Japan’s barely positive, and everyone else is somewhere in between, trying to thread the needle between inflation and recession.

We are still trying to contain this era where central banks thought they could solve every problem by printing more money.

That playbook is officially retired. And now the Federal Reserve is in a box…

7. Robinhood’s Top 10: They Most Active Names

On Market Masters… I’ve explained that all of the top stocks in the S&P 500 are getting the love and attention from institutions. But retail traders are in a frenzy too…

The most popular stocks on Robinhood tell you everything you need to know about retail sentiment. Tesla, Apple, Amazon, Nvidia…

These are the greatest hits album of the last bull market.

Syz Group

This is why you’re not only seeing lots of new ETFs emerging… It’s why we’re seeing tons of leveraged ETFs around these stocks… And we’ll soon start to see 0DTE options around these names in the months ahead.

Some people will call that innovation. I’ll call it what it is – a retail frenzy.

I’ll be live on Monday at 8:45 ET, covering these trends… and more.

Be sure to bookmark this link and join us live…

Stay positive,

Garrett Baldwin

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