Even with a few short-lived roller coaster rides, the stock market had a strong week. Though there was some selling on Friday, the S&P 500 ($SPX) and Nasdaq Composite ($COMPQ) closed up over the week as a whole, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average ($INDU) closed lower by 0.07%.

Earnings season has started on a positive note, with big banks and Netflix, Inc. (NFLX) reporting better-than-expected earnings. Inflation remains relatively tame and the labor market remains resilient. This has helped fuel the stock market’s higher trajectory, with sectors such as Technology, Industrials, and Financials showing strong upward moves.  Even small-caps are hanging in there, although they have pulled back a bit.

This price action supports broad participation in the market. The S&P 500 Equal-Weighted Index ($SPXEW) is also holding strong, trading above its 20-day exponential moving average. This tells us that participation isn’t limited to a handful of giants.

A Look Under the Hood

Overall growth still takes center stage and, so far, July is following its seasonality pattern. The seasonality chart below shows that in the last 10 years, the return in July was positive every year, with an average gain of 3.30%.

FIGURE 1. SEASONALITY CHART OF THE S&P 500. July is a strong month for the index, but August, September, and October paint a different picture.Image source: StockCharts.com. For educational purposes.

Switching to a same-scale line chart (with a few years removed for clarity) you can see that even in 2020 and 2022, when the S&P 500 was in negative territory, July was still a strong month.

FIGURE 2. SAME-SCALE SEASONALITY CHART FOR S&P 500 FROM 2016 TO 2025. July is a strong month for stocks, although some years the latter part of the month has seen a decline.Image source: StockCharts.com. For educational purposes.

Seasonality shifts notably as we move into late summer and early fall. That doesn’t guarantee a weak August, but it does argue for staying alert. It’s like driving into a stretch of winding road. You don’t slam the brakes, you just keep both hands on the wheel.

How to Track the Overall Market’s Performance

For a bird’s-eye view, the StockCharts Market Summary is your go-to page, but, after drilling down, one chart I often visit in my Market Analysis ChartList is the 3-year weekly chart of the S&P 500, with its Bullish Percent Index (BPI) and the percentage of S&P 500 stocks trading above their 200-day moving average.

FIGURE 3. WEEKLY CHART OF S&P  500 WITH MARKET BREADTH INDICATORS. From a weekly perspective, the S&P 500 is still trending higher. Breadth indicators support the bullish move.Chart source: StockCharts.com. For educational purposes.

The trend is still higher, although the range between the open and close is relatively narrow. The BPI is above 50 but is flattening out, and the percentage of stocks trading above their 200-day moving average is also declining. Neither breadth indicator suggests we’ll see a massive selloff in the coming days.

The Cboe Volatility Index ($VIX) is low, and investor sentiment leans bullish (you can confirm this in the Sentiment panel of the Market Summary page).

Will Growth Lead For the Rest of the Year?

There are lots of variables that can change from now to the end of the year, from government policy to geopolitical tensions. These changes will be reflected in the market breadth and sentiment charts.

Tip: StockCharts members can download the Market Summary ChartPack to include the charts from the page in their ChartLists. You need to keep an eye on these charts for leading signals of change in the market’s price action.

End-of-Week Wrap-Up

Stock Market Weekly Performance

• Dow Jones Industrial Average: 44,342.19 (-0.07%)
• S&P 500: 6,296.79 (+0.59%)
• Nasdaq Composite: 20,895 (+1.51%)
• $VIX: 16.41 (+0.06%)
• Best performing sector for the week: Technology
• Worst performing sector for the week: Energy
• Top 5 Large Cap SCTR stocks:  AST Spacemobile, Inc.(ASTS); Nuscale Power Corp. (SMR); Robinhood Markets Inc. (HOOD); Avis Budget Group (CAR); Symbiotic, Inc. (SYM)

On the Radar Next Week

• June Home Sales
• June Durable Goods Orders
• Several Fed speeches
• Earnings from Alphabet, Inc. (GOOGL), Tesla, Inc. (TSLA), AT&T Inc. (T), Intel Corp. (INTC), International Business Machines (IBM), and many more.

Disclaimer: This blog is for educational purposes only and should not be construed as financial advice. The ideas and strategies should never be used without first assessing your own personal and financial situation, or without consulting a financial professional.

In this video, Mary Ellen spotlights the areas driving market momentum following Taiwan Semiconductor’s record-breaking earnings report. She analyzes continued strength in semiconductors, utilities, industrials, and AI-driven sectors, plus highlights new leadership in robotics and innovation-focused ETFs like ARK. From there, Mary Ellen breaks down weakness in health care and housing stocks, shows how to refine trade entries using hourly charts, and compares today’s rally to past market surges. Watch as she explores setups in silver and examines individual stocks like Nvidia, BlackRock, and State Street.

This video originally premiered on July 18, 2025. You can watch it on our dedicated page for Mary Ellen’s videos.

New videos from Mary Ellen premiere weekly on Fridays. You can view all previously recorded episodes at this link.

If you’re looking for stocks to invest in, be sure to check out the MEM Edge Report! This report gives you detailed information on the top sectors, industries and stocks so you can make informed investment decisions.

One great habit to develop as an investor is regularly scanning the stock market. Whether you’re checking for stocks that are outperforming a benchmark, gapping up, reversing, or breaking out of a trading range, scanning keeps you in the loop and, importantly, helps you stay sharp and spot potential opportunities early on. 

During one of our routine scans, one stock stood out: Rigetti Computing, Inc. (RGTI), a company in a fast-moving quantum computing space. On Wednesday, RGTI closed the day up 30%, which turned some heads. What’s behind the move? Rigetti announced significant improvements in its platform, better performance metrics, and the 36-qubit system, a technical milestone in the quantum world.  

Should You Invest in RGTI?

If you ran any of the bullish predefined scans on StockCharts, you may have noticed RGTI popping up. That alone is a good reason to take a closer look at RGTI stock’s price action.

Looking at the daily chart of RGTI, the stock had a nice ride in late 2024. However, things cooled off in early January 2025 and, since then, the stock has been trading sideways until this week. On Wednesday, RGTI gapped up with strong volume, breaking out of that sideways range.

FIGURE 1. DAILY CHART OF RGTI STOCK. Since its rise in late 2024, the stock has been trading sideways until Wednesday, when it broke out of that range. Chart source: StockCharts.com. For educational purposes.

Back in June, RGTI bounced off its 50-day simple moving average (SMA), which is starting to slope upward—a healthy technical signal. With Wednesday’s price move, RGTI is above its May 27 and July 8 highs.

RGTI’s price isn’t too far from its all-time high, set in January. If the stock breaks above that level and has strong momentum, we could see it push to new highs. The Relative Strength Index (RSI) and Percentage Price Oscillator (PPO) are showing early signs of positive momentum.

On the other hand, if the stock pulls back and Wednesday’s gap up doesn’t get filled, RGTI could reverse either at the May 27 or July 8 high. A reversal with a rise in momentum would confirm an upside continuation. If RGTI falls below these levels, fills Wednesday’s gap up, and finds support at the 50-day SMA, it could go back to trading sideways, waiting for the next catalyst. A decline below the 50-day SMA would invalidate the uptrend.

A Rising Tide in Quantum Stocks?

Other stocks in the Quantum Computing space, like IonQ, Inc. (IONQ) and D-Wave Quantum, Inc. (QBTS), also saw gains on Wednesday.

Quantum computing stocks can be a bit of a roller coaster; they rallied at the end of 2024, dipped earlier this year, and are now gaining ground, thanks to encouraging news on quantum computing developments. The technology is in its early stages and could take years before it’s truly mainstream. So while these stocks are gaining attention now, the momentum may not be consistent.

If you’re a long-term investor with patience and curiosity, it may be worth adding RGTI, QBTS, ION, and others to your ChartLists. Track them regularly and watch for continued technical strength or signs of trend reversals. 

Disclaimer: This blog is for educational purposes only and should not be construed as financial advice. The ideas and strategies should never be used without first assessing your own personal and financial situation, or without consulting a financial professional.

There is no denying that the broad markets remain in a resilient uptrend off the April 2025 low.  But if there’s one thing I’ve learned from many years of analyzing charts, it’s to remain vigilant during bullish phases.  Even though I’ll assume the uptrend is still intact, that doesn’t mean I can stop looking for signs of potential weakness!

With that in mind, here are three bearish candle patterns that often pop up during bullish market phases.  By looking for these patterns in the stocks and ETFs that you own, you can hopefully get ahead of any corrective moves and take profits before it’s too late!

The Shooting Star Pattern

If you see a long upper shadow, little to no lower shadow, and the open and close are close together near the bottom of the day’s range, then you have identified a shooting star candle pattern.  If you’re familiar with the hammer candle pattern, then you can think of this as a hammer candle but basically everything is upside down!

The chart of AT&T (T) has featured a number of shooting star candles so far in 2025.  Just before the selloff in early April, there was a clear shooting star candle after the March rally.  Then during the rally off the April low, a shooting star pattern in early May suggested that the uptrend phase was nearing an exhaustion point.

The Bearish Engulfing Pattern

One of the most recognizable patterns in the candlestick library, the bearish engulfing pattern represents a short-term rotation from accumulation to distribution.  Basically, a large up candle is followed by a large down candle, and the second day’s “real body” (the open-to-close range) engulfs the range of the first day’s real body.  

Look at the strength in the uptrend for Paramount Global (PARA) going into early June.  Then just before the 4th of July weekend, a bearish engulfing pattern suggests a change of character as the bears take control.  It’s worth noting that these candle patterns are not long-term signals, but rather indicate short-term dynamics.  So a bearish engulfing pattern suggests weakness for the next one to three bars.

The Evening Star Pattern

If you took the bearish engulfing pattern, and then added another small candle in the middle of those two days, then you’d have an evening star pattern.  Now most candlestick textbooks will tell you that the “star” day in the middle should include a gap, so there’s no overlap between that day’s range and the other two candles.  In practice, I’ve found most people ignore this detail and rather look for patterns with enough similarities to this basic structure.

Going back to the AT&T chart we used earlier, we can see an evening star pattern at the end of June.  A big day is followed soon after by a big down day, with a small candle in the middle.  This is a great example of where additional weakness led the price below the 50-day moving average, serving to confirm the bearish outlook as represented by the evening star pattern.

It’s so easy to become complacent during an extended bull market rally.  Investors that regularly scan for bearish candle patterns have an edge, as they can anticipate potential turning points before the uptrend changes in dramatic fashion to a new downtrend phase!

RR#6,

Dave

PS- Ready to upgrade your investment process?  Check out my free behavioral investing course!

David Keller, CMT

President and Chief Strategist

Sierra Alpha Research LLC

marketmisbehavior.com

https://www.youtube.com/c/MarketMisbehavior

Disclaimer: This blog is for educational purposes only and should not be construed as financial advice.  The ideas and strategies should never be used without first assessing your own personal and financial situation, or without consulting a financial professional.  

The author does not have a position in mentioned securities at the time of publication.    Any opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author and do not in any way represent the views or opinions of any other person or entity.

Join Tom as he covers key inflation data, earnings season highlights, and sector rotation trends. He breaks down recent price action in major indexes like the S&P 500 and Nasdaq, with a close look at the 20-day moving average as a support gauge. Tom spotlights standout industry groups such as gambling, semiconductors, software, and aerospace, and shares charts of top-performing stocks like Goldman Sachs, Johnson & Johnson, and PNC. Tom highlights under-performing areas like insurance brokers and home improvement, then reviews several strong earnings reactions, including Monarch Casino’s 15% after-hours gain.

This video was published on July 17, 2025. Click this link to watch on Tom’s dedicated page.

Missed a session? Archived videos from Tom are available at this link.