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July 31, 2026
 
     
  Troubling Signs  
     
 

The BOJ oddly did nothing overnight, and the prior day's intervention began to falter as a result (more on that below).

The S&Ps opened up about half a percent and initially slumped as the dollar began to rally, but whether by coincidence or cause, as the dollar rolled back over on chatter about the US Treasury intervening in the yen, the S&Ps rallied back and eventually made new highs for the day.

For the close, the S&Ps would go out on the best levels of the day with a gain of nearly a percent.

The dollar was a touch weaker vs. most other paper and down over a percent against the yen.

Yields, however, rose again, with 10s and 30s both making new 52-week highs in yield as the curve continues to steepen.

Commodities were mixed, although crude oil rose 2 percent.

Gold slipped overnight and eventually tumbled to as low as $4021 as the dollar index hit its high of the day early on in the US session. From there, the yellow metal recovered back up to over $4055 but remained in the red and eventually slipped back to $4043 for the close for a loss of over a percent.

Silver similarly hit its low early on in the US session and then rebounded back up to $58 before fading to $57.50 for the close and a loss of over 2 percent.

The GDX gapped down and initially slipped to within a touch of new lows for the week before rebounding to fill the gap and eventually going out back in the middle of the day's range with a loss of over 3 percent. That close also put the GDX below its 5 dma, as bulls and bears continue to grapple for control within an increasingly tight range.

Today was the perfect setup for the metals and miners to pop, but they didn't. And that's a little concerning. I learned a long time ago that when you get the perfect setup and then things don't go the way they should that it's typically a very strong warning sign that the expected direction of the move is wrong.

I'm willing to watch and give things a few more days to resolve to the upside, but this tight range that the metals and miners have been in is going to break one way or the other very soon (probably by the end of this coming week). So, the bulls better step up.

The same troubling sign happened in BTC too, where you had built a nice inverted H&S bottom on the charts over the past two months and it was poised to break out today. Instead, the pattern was likely invalidated by the 3 percent beating it took, although there is a small chance of recovery next week if it happens quickly.

My gold model remained at neutral, although it's a little troubling that the DSI moved up to 50%+ for gold and silver and yet we've seen no upside movement in price to speak of.

Positions: Short SPY, QQQ, MDY and IWM. Long DBA, IBIT and STRC.

Metlas: I punted GDXU and AGQ and went home flat.

 
     
     
 
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