Near-term and Intermediate-term technical trends remain bullish for US Equities, and the push back to new all-time highs this past Thursday helped to reverse the minor downtrend that had begun to emerge earlier in the week for DJIA and Equal-weighted SPX. Technology’s strength has helped to drive recent performance and has solidified this sector as being the best performing out of all major S&P sectors on a 1-week, 1-month, 3-month, and 6-month basis. However, the strong relative strength in other sectors like Financials and Industrials has helped to add some appeal to this rally over the last month, and the broadening out helps to add conviction to its durability. Despite the minor bounce in both Treasury yields and the US Dollar in recent weeks, no deterioration has happened to risk assets, and sentiment has not yet become bullish despite a 25% SPX rally in the last 14 weeks. Overall, it’s still right to favor that this rally can continue into August before some consolidation gets underway, which gels with post-election year seasonality.
Tuesday’s trading proved to be quite strong for the broader market, despite Technology having lagged in trading for much of the session.
While many investors might have viewed the trading day as lackluster, market breadth was over 2/1 bullish as of 12:00 EST on Tuesday, with nine of 11 sectors showing gains.
A coming test of all-time highs looks likely for both RSP 0.59% as well as DJIA 0.23% , and ^SPX likely finds little resistance until price eclipses 6400 into August.
The chart below highlights AAPL -0.07% , which was discussed yesterday given its bullish cyclical composite for 2H 2025 along with a promising relative chart vs. Equal-weighted SPX which looked to be near support.
As can be seen below, AAPL -0.07% ’s recent trading range has shown some minor improvement given the stock’s lift to the highs of its recent channel from late June into early July.
Moreover, now following just a minor consolidation, AAPL -0.07% looks to be turning back higher, as daily charts show the stock price having pushed up to multi-day highs.
This is promising towards thinking the stock is beginning a period of relative strength, which should result in a coming breakout of $216 into August. This likely can fuel stock gains up to challenge mid-January 2025 former lows at $219.38.
Upon getting over this level, which I expect can happen technically, AAPL -0.07% should begin a period of outperformance vs. Technology, and rise to test and eventually break out to new all-time highs.
Thus, at a time when many have grown frustrated regarding AAPL -0.07% ’s lagging tendencies of late, it might be time for a second look at AAPL -0.07% getting over $216 on a daily close. This would help price action start to confirm the bullish cycle composite (shown yesterday) and help the stock begin to outperform the Equal-weighted ^SPX in a more robust fashion between now and the end of the year.
Apple Inc.
Homebuilders have begun to kick into gear again after a lackluster 1H 2025
Homebuilders look deserving of a close look by investors following XHB 0.68% (SPDR Series Trust Homebuilders ETF) bottoming near key intermediate-term support.
Despite concerns about challenging affordability along with macro concerns about the strength of the economy, Homebuilder stocks like PHM -0.15% along with DHI -0.22% both handily beat earnings estimates.
Thus, while Homebuilders might be in a challenging environment, my thinking is that expected falling long-term interest rates in the back half of the year should serve to benefit the housing market.
As shown below, XHB 0.68% fell to just under $85 which directly intersects an intermediate-term trendline extending back since the 2020 lows. Since that time, XHB 0.68% has managed to rally to exceed May peaks from two months ago.
This is a bullish development which likely can help XHB 0.68% rise to $112 in the short run, with further strength eventually expected back to challenge $125.
Stocks such as PHM -0.15% , MHO 0.65% , TOL -2.28% , GRBK -0.49% , TMHC -0.39% , CVCO 5.50% , DHI -0.22% look best among the Homebuilder and Building Construction group.
SPDR Series Trust SPDR Homebuilders ETF
VIX looks to be close to bottoming, and likely could trend higher in August
Despite ^SPX having traded marginally higher since 7/10/25 (the day the VIX made its lowest low for July so far), we see that VIX actually is nearly 5% higher over the last eight trading days.
This is interesting, and it’s often important to see when VIX starts to turn higher despite SPX also rallying.
As this daily VIX chart by Symbolik shows below, VIX index (CBOE Volatility index) which measures implied volatility looks to have begun a bottoming process in the last month given a series of higher spikes despite a steady SPX rally.
DeMark’s TD Combo and TD Sequential indicators (Counter-trend indicators which measure upside and downside exhaustion) have given three counter-trend “13 Countdown” buy signals since 6/26/25 on daily charts and might signal a fourth signal upon VIX puling back to test and possibly undercut 7/10 lows at 15.70 in the next couple weeks.
I expect that a low is approaching in VIX, given the minor uptick in momentum which has been brought about by some notable stabilization in VIX in recent weeks.
Overall, I feel that VIX likely can rise to the mid-20’s and possibly mid-30’s by October, meaning that implied volatility at current levels is currently cheap, in my view.
Further erosion in VIX over the next few weeks would represent an appealing option for owning implied volatility (whether it be for hedging, or speculative purposes) on a 2-3 month timeframe.
Bottom line, any move down to 14-15.50 would signal an appealing risk/reward opportunity for investors who utilize low implied volatility for hedging or speculation, and it’s important to keep track of VIX in the weeks ahead.
CBOE Volatility Index – VIX
