A Healthy Pullback — or the First Crack?
By Eli Gal Levy, Series 3 broker
After weeks of fresh all-time highs across SPX, SPXEW, DJI, COMP, this week handed us the largest one-day drop of the year in the NASDAQ. The blowout monthly jobs report did the work no one was expecting — yields spiked, the short end of the curve threatened to break containment, and traders used it as the excuse to take profits in the most crowded part of the market. The S&P 500 broke its 20-day moving average around 7,500 and is sitting below it. The next reference on the way down is the May low around 7,330 — and we are still above it. Above 7,320 this is a routine wobble inside an uptrend. Below 7,320 the conversation changes.
The damage was concentrated where the leadership has been. AMD was down more than 10% on the week. Micron was down 13%. Broadcom — the company whose lackluster guidance started this whole leg — dropped 20%. The PHLX Semiconductor Index pulled all the way back below its 20-day SMA, the same kind of test that brought buyers in around mid-May. Whether they show up again is the single most informative thing the chart can tell us next week. The VIX, which printed a four-month low of 15.18 the day before, snapped higher. Bitcoin is down roughly 20% on the week and traded below its February low (~$60,000) and below the 200-week SMA (~$62,000). The green on the day was confined to the most defensive parts of the tape — healthcare, staples, utilities. Healthcare was up on no real news; it was just under-owned relative to everything else everybody was holding.
There are real reasons to step back and respect both sides of this.
The bull side is the same one that has held this rally together. The economy is stronger than expected. Yields are rising in part for the right reason — growth is better than feared and that comes with some inflation. The AI capital expenditure cycle is enormous and broadening: the four biggest hyperscalers are on track to spend close to $800 billion on AI infrastructure this year and roughly $1.2 trillion next year. That is a food chain that runs far beyond the chips — data center builders, the equipment inside the data centers, the grid, the power. The backlogs are real. A pullback inside a CapEx cycle this big is exactly the kind of opportunity bulls have been waiting for to put a shopping list together — both within tech and in the parts of the market that had been left behind. From this side of the argument, what we just saw is the first healthy pullback since March 30. Nothing more.
The cautious side is also worth taking seriously. The leadership group was historically stretched coming into the week — large air underneath the chart, very crowded positioning, and very thin price discovery on the way up. Concentration is the part that should sit in the back of your mind: the ten most influential AI-related names have accounted for something like 40% of the S&P 500’s gains. That is the kind of concentration that has historically lined up with bubble-like environments. It does not always end badly — and there is no evidence yet that this one will — but it does raise the cost of being wrong. Add the supply side: Alphabet’s historic ~$85 billion equity raise to fund AI infrastructure, META reportedly preparing a raise, and a SpaceX IPO landing next Friday at around $1.75 trillion. That is real new supply hitting at a time when investors are also raising cash by selling winners to make room. Is that broad-based demand for opportunity, or is it exit liquidity? Both readings are fair.
Here is my bias, stated plainly. I follow the market — I do not lead it. The market sold off this week, but the larger trend has not broken. A short-term top usually behaves the same way: it sells off, builds back, and then either takes out the previous high or it doesn’t. If it does, the uptrend is still in charge and the dip-buyers were right. If it can’t, that is often the start of a more meaningful downturn, and the levels start mattering a lot. I am not going to call which one we get. I am going to let the levels tell me — SPX 7,330 on the downside, the prior high on the upside, SOX behavior at the 20-day SMA, and BTC behavior around the February low. The third option is finding support and consolidation.
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