S&P 500 Technicals + The Two Tony's — Portfolio Letter
Last week the streak broke. This week they bought it right back.
Last week we wrote about the first cracks in the bull market — the nine-week streak snapping, semis crashing, rates roaring back into control. Many braced for a deeper correction. Instead, the market climbed the wall of worry.
This letter is the portfolio + technical companion to today’s weekend market summary. Two parts:
The S&P 500 technical read — where the levels are, what the indicators are saying, and how we’d express it.
The Two Tonys — TonyR on the active book and TonyB on the tape, straight from what we did in this week’s trade alerts.
Every open and closed position behind it is live on your members dashboard.
Part 1 — S&P 500 Technical Read
SPY is the instrument most of us trade — but the levels read cleanest on the SPX index below. They map one-to-one (SPY ≈ SPX ÷ 10).
Current: SPX 7,431.46 (+0.50%) · O 7,410.85 / H 7,456.40 / L 7,363.01 · Chart high 7,620.90
What the chart is showing
Last week the base case was a digestion toward 7,000, with a real chance the conditioned dip-buyers force another bounce. They forced it — and early. SPX sold from the 7,620 all-time high down to roughly 7,250, tagged the rising 50-day (7,247.79) almost to the tick, and buyers stepped right back in. Price has since clawed back most of the drop to 7,431.
The pullback held a higher shelf than last week’s 7,000 base case. Tagging the 50-day and bouncing — rather than digging to the round number — tells you the dip-buy reflex is still firmly intact. The uptrend is bent, not broken.
But there’s a yellow flag underneath: price recovered, momentum did not confirm. The Ready-Aim-Fire oscillator rolled below zero with fresh down-arrows, and the TTM Squeeze thrust off the April low is fading toward zero. A classic price-up, momentum-down rebound — the snap-back is real, but it’s running on lighter fuel than the move that made the highs.
Key levels
Scenarios (probabilistic — not a prediction)
Range digestion / two-way chop — base-case lean. Chop between the 50-day (~7,250) and the highs (7,560–7,620), working off overbought sideways while momentum resets. Most likely near-term.
V-continuation to new highs. Reclaim 7,465 → 7,560 → 7,620+. It has V-snapped off every dip this year — never dismiss it — but the momentum divergence says don’t chase it here.
Failed bounce / deeper test. Lose the 50-day (7,247) on a close → opens 6,972 (150-day) and puts last week’s “first cracks” thesis back in charge.
What confirms / invalidates
Bullish: a daily close above 7,465 (20-day), then 7,560 — that would argue the bounce is confirmed and the divergence is resolving up.
Bearish: a daily close below the 50-day (7,247) — dip-buyers fail, deeper test activates.
Watch the divergence: either price keeps climbing and momentum catches up, or momentum is the early truth and price rolls back to it. That tension resolves the tape.
A second set of indicators agrees, in short: read through the Scalper, TTM Squeeze, and DMI tools, the same chart tells one story — the Scalper fired a buy right at the June 8 low (the 50-day defense), but the TTM Squeeze thrust is fading toward zero with no coiled squeeze, and DMI’s −DI has crossed back above +DI. A real-but-unconfirmed bounce running on lighter momentum. The trigger to watch: −DI rolling back under +DI with a close above 7,465 flips it cleanly bullish.
How we’d express it (options / GYP terms)
A “held-the-50-day, but prove-it-above-the-20” tape — a range-seller’s market while the divergence sorts itself out:
Sell puts on tests of the 7,250–7,300 shelf (the 50-day, where it bounced) — the income-ladder zone with a defined line below.
Sell calls / call spreads into bounces that stall at 7,465–7,620 — where the divergence makes upside chasing expensive.
7,247 (50-day) is the near-term invalidation; 6,972 (150-day) the structural one. Size and hedges respect both.
Vol cooled right back off last week’s spike — cheap insurance is on sale again. Textbook BSH timing: build the tail hedge in the calm, not after the next candle.
Technical bottom line
The dip-buyers defended the 50-day and snapped SPX back toward the highs — a stronger hold than last week’s 7,000 base case, which keeps the bull intact. But the rebound runs on fading momentum (Ready-Aim-Fire under zero, TTM Squeeze fading, −DI over +DI), and price is stalling under the 20-day at 7,465. So: lean range-seller (7,250 floor / 7,620 ceiling), let 7,465 and 7,247 be the tells. Close above 7,465 = new highs coming; close below 7,247 = last week’s cracks weren’t done.
Part 2 — The Two Tonys take:
This is how we’re actually thinking about the portfolios right now — TonyR on the active book, TonyB on the tape. Where the views converge tells you the high-conviction read; where they diverge tells you the texture worth watching.
Tony Rihan — Portfolio 1 Commentary
Last week I told you I probably went a little overboard.
As the market sold off into Friday’s lows, I got aggressive — deploying buying power and selling premium into the fear while everyone else was frozen. We had room to do it: weeks of profit-taking and rolling had left the book light, so when volatility spiked, I leaned in and rebuilt the put-income ladders across SPY, /MES, and GLD, selling into the vol instead of chasing it.
This week was the other side of that discipline.
The market did exactly what conditioned tapes tend to do — it bounced, and it bounced hard. The same dip-buyers who got caught on Friday came right back in, and the panic from a week ago got bought up almost as fast as it appeared. That’s the moment you harvest, not hope. As the snap-back developed, I closed a stack of winners across Portfolios 1 and 2. For context on size — these books trade on the order of 1 SPX ≈ 2 /ES ≈ 10 SPY ≈ 20 /MES, so the harvest was a low-single-digit percentage of the account: roughly $3,000 in realized gains — pulling risk back down while the bounce gave us the chance. Premium sold into fear, bought back into calm. That’s the whole game.
The other thing we did this week was structural, and I want to flag it honestly.
We added a brand-new strategy to Portfolio 1: VIX covered calls — in two sizes, one built for Small Accounts and one for Medium/Large Accounts. The idea, which TonyB and I walked through in the office-hours session, is to own a VIX future as the long leg and sell calls against it — a way to carry a volatility hedge that pays you to wait instead of just bleeding premium.
In full transparency: this was not an ideal entry. We put it on with VIX up in the 20 area, and our preference is to initiate this structure when VIX is below 19. So treat this one as much educational as tactical — a live demonstration of how the trade is built and managed, more than a perfectly-timed entry. We’d rather show you the mechanics on a real position than wait for the textbook setup and never show you at all.
Where that leaves us:
We harvested the bounce. We carry the new VIX hedge. The income ladders are working. And the book is light enough to lean into the next move — either direction.
As always, our job is not to be right. Our job is to be prepared. And right now, we’re prepared.
— TonyR
Tony Battista — Active Portfolio Commentary
The S&P 500 finished up about five-eighths of a percent on the week — but that number hides the ride. We took a midweek plunge on a tech selloff, then the back half of the week was a completely different story: the major indexes surged late, fueled by President Trump’s tweets on a US–Iran peace deal and, of course, the SpaceX IPO. If you can believe it, the S&P is now only about 2% below its all-time high.
Here’s the part that matters for how we’ve been positioning. With all the talk of rates, small caps led — the Russell 2000 jumped roughly 3.9% on the week. As I told you last weekend, bonds were the key to this rally — and the Russell validated us. Keep your eye on /ZB; it’s still the one playing the piano keys.
A few quick reads across the board:
Oil made its high early at 95.47 and closed Friday just over 84 (84.29) — a non-player on the week, exactly as we said.
Volatility opened in the mid-20 handle, popped over 22 by Thursday, settled around 20½ into Thursday’s close, then crashed ~4% Friday to 19.63 — just about the low for the week. The umbrella came back on sale fast.
Gold is sick. It needed a 3% rally Friday just to still close 3% below where it opened Monday. Silver held up better — basically unchanged on the week.
On the hedge: members who watched Thursday night’s video are set up to think about that /VX covered-call play in the coming days — especially with a bullish-bias book. You own the VIX future, sell a call against it, and let the carry work while you wait for the next spike. Mechanical and repeatable.
Looking ahead: /ZB holding steady in the 112 area, volatility back in the 19 handle, no earnings, and summer is here. I’m expecting a choppy, two-sided week — less volatile than the one we just lived through. It also brings new Federal Reserve chairman Kevin Warsh’s first meeting, with the market expecting rates to stay on hold — exactly as the /ZB market foretold this week.
Last week was a great week for premium selling. This week, I believe, will be more challenging. Stay mechanical. Stay patient.
— TonyB
The Bottom Line
Last week was about protection paying off. This week was about discipline taking the money.
We sold premium into the fear, and when the conditioned dip-buyers snapped the market back, we harvested the winners instead of getting greedy — a low-single-digit-percent harvest, roughly $3,000 booked across the active books. We added a new VIX covered-call hedge as a teaching structure, honest about the imperfect entry. And we let the bond market tell us the tempo the whole way. None of it was a reaction. All of it was plan.
The technicals say the same thing the trades do: respect the bounce, but prove it above 7,465 before chasing — and keep the cheap hedge on while the calm lets you buy it.
Trade your portfolio, not individual trades.
Everything we did this week is live on your dashboard — every open position with current marks, and every close we booked.
