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Welp?

I’ve used this AI-generated guy lately to express my feelings on a couple different subjects. In this case, opening NFTRH 913, I am using him to express an attitude of ‘make your best guess, do your best to align with it, and let the chips fall where they may’.

I was this guy as I took another partial hedge on gold stocks yesterday. I was this guy because I can’t trust what comes out of the mouth of the other guy. The guy, and his DoW hand puppet, who told us we won the war two months ago.

So… welp!? I am doing the best I can, given so many non-market signals flying around in the media. Somehow, it is working out so far. But a large part of that is because I’ve mostly stayed one step ahead of the news cycle.

Last week I expressed war fatigue as pertains to my investing/trading. That is ongoing. But we are all in the same boat and I for one intend to keep the boat afloat. So I’ll continue using my market indicators, including nominal TA, but especially the internals, which have been guiding bullish for quite a while now.

Summary

Precious Metals (bull market)

Correction still technically in effect for gold, silver and GDX/HUI. Bounce hit and pulled back from a would-be point ‘B’ of a would-be A-B-C bull market correction, with would-be ‘C’ down still to come. GDX logically paused at a normal but minor support area. Then last week it failed, as anticipated. Current plan is that gold stocks are “nothing special, at best” fundamentally, over the balance of 2026.

Last week we added discussion about potential end of correction sooner than expected. Watch silver. We also now bring forward the 2016 experience, when the sector bottomed and took off. With its fundamentals degrading and being led by silver, the play kept going until one day, it stopped (in alignment with the funda).

US Stock Market (bull market)

SoH/war wax on, SoH/war wax off. Market up, market down. When the war enters its resolution stages a bull phase is expected to resume for much of the balance of 2026. Market internals are bullish here and now.

Global Stocks (bull market)

Still a mixed bag of relatively strong and relatively weak global markets. Global has bottomed vs. the US stock market on the longer-term picture. Subject to the war’s wax on, wax off inputs in the short-term. A weaker USD tends to help global relative to US. A strong USD tends to be the opposite.

L/T US Treasury Bonds (bear market)

The view is still for an interim rise in bonds/decline in yields if/as a bullish 2026 engages. As with other markets, bonds will have to clear the acute war phase first. Long-term, it’s a major bear market. Meanwhile, what they are calling “inflation” (war’s effects) continue to pressure the bond market, short-term.

Commodities/Resources (bull market)

Commodity-related stocks should play a primary role in a post-war, bullish broad market scenario. We are no longer narrowly focused on the precious metals. Individual commodities are all over the place. Oil is a war-related wildcard. Critical and specialty commodity producers/explorers are favored. These include u3o8, Cu, REE, Li, Ni and eventually, Ag as well.

US Dollar (cyclical bear market, L/T still a technical bull market)

During the war, players have driven into USD not because America is winning (“duh”), but because the tattered reserve currency is where liquidity is found. USD will be subject to the emotions of the war, as with most other items. The more fear and strife, the better for the reserve currency as a liquidity haven. That has been the theme in the interim to USD’s cyclical bear market.

USD got hammered, post-FOMC. If it continues that way, broad markets should benefit. If not, the waiting game continues.

US Stock Market

Gold/SPX ratio declining within its big picture bull status. This was expected. Gold/Copper, same. Growth/Value still constructive after bouncing. SPX is still rising hard vs. Healthcare sector. NDX ramping vs. SPX. SOX ramping vs. NDX and SPX. Consumer Discretionary is still bouncing vs. Staples. Junk bonds are bullish relative to Investment Grade bonds.

Each of the above conditions flash “bullish” beneath the broad market’s surface.

Broad US/Global Markets

Last week I cobbled further afield, and further into diversity, buying back copper stocks, FCX and ARG.TO, increasing Bitcoin dividend payer BTCI, buying back Silver/Gold stock CTGO, Gold/Silver Royalty WPM, Materials play CBT (ref. NFTRH+ update), and old fashioned industrial company APH, which is actually now a growth play, given its AI relevance. Also added was Singapore-based consumer services company GRAB (bottom feed).

Former holding GILD was added back after a previous sale and subsequent decline toward the 200 day average. Shares were reduced in AI-relevant Semis MRVL and ALAB, and those funds were re-seeded into future “me-too!” play SYNA (as a sort of follow-up to the QCOM buy).

Fertilizer play IPI was bought back to join the downtrodden MOS. Per reasons given in the notes on Monday, I got grabby with watch list item CRML, adding to critical commodities (REE) holdings. Also added was the ‘Shroom’ ETF, PSIL, the chart for which we reviewed in #912.

All shorts were covered for a good profit in JDST and a not good loss in SPXS. I am loath to re-short SPX, given the market internals noted above. But gold stocks have not proven to me yet that they will go unscathed in the short-term, so I took a last minute partial hedge per Friday’s notes.

On a sad note, I got shaken from RDDT just before it blasted off on earnings. Sad, even embarrassing. But it’s show biz, and I’ll just place it back on watch for opportunity.

I probably did other trimming here and adding there. But you get the picture. Holdings are diverse and you can review them in the Portfolios segment. Aside from having a bone to pick with RDDT and maybe a couple other interests, I think I am about set in the US market. But there is a whole world out there, and I’d like to add new items to the aforementioned GRAB along with FXI, BABA, ASML and multitude of Canadian stocks I hold. Also, commodity related stocks are favored.

However… I need to be right about the stock market. Given the market signals in play, I cannot not be bullish or I’d be going against some of my favorite and dependable indicators. But if I am wrong, I am way over-exposed. That’s the markets, I guess. Pick a view and lean into it.

That is where I am right now and I just wish that Donald John Trump were not so involved in my business. It’s a wildcard that I don’t care for. But…

We will eventually work our way through this and get back to stricter management of market signals with less background noise.

Sentiment

Not surprisingly, sentiment is chasing the market’s bullish price activity. Just as the rally began from a less intense depth than the 2025 correction, sentiment has rebounded from over-bearish but not bleakly over-bearish, as per the 2025 correction.

The components of the Fear/Greed index show momentum gathering, breadth having rebounded, volatility hammered down and Junk bond spreads quite sedate. All of these are indicative of risk-on and contrary bearish.

Stocks vs. Treasury bonds is indicative of a wildly risk-on situation. But in my opinion, that is likely attributable to the effects of inflation fears on bonds rather than a voraciousness for stocks and risk-on mentality. In other words, longer-term Treasury bonds are currently not considered safe. Therefore I don’t see it as a particularly “extreme greed” reading when macro signals are causing people to flee bonds (and cash) due to inflation fears. What’s left? Stocks and other assets.

While Put/Call ratios are somewhat elevated and indicating fear, puts are often a hedge. Since I’ve been hedging along the way, I guess I see that as normal. <insert the “welp?” guy here> :-)

NAAIM (investment managers) are chasing the rally, at 94% bullish. That is a bearish contrary indicator.

AAII (individual investors) have started to pop after also registering sentiment depths that were not quite as low as 2025. The Bull/Bear ratio is rising but not yet dangerous.

Sentiment Bottom Line

As we know, sentiment simply runs with market direction after the turning points. At significant turning points sentiment will always be offsides. So while sentiment is currently moderately over-bullish and rising, it is normal for a rally that is now quite obvious.

We are now in a place where volatility would be normal to periodically beat down sentiment during the rally. But sentiment is not at what would normally be “show stopper” levels.

Precious Metals

Again, please see the NFTRH+ update (Watch Silver) linked in the summary above. The correction is still in force, but could end at any time. If silver gathers itself and leads a rally, it would fit well with the inflationary macro situation. Except that it is not inflationary, now is it? It is oil and other prices rising due to human conflict in the modern economically connected world.

As a side note, this could imply that another of our views carried to this point – that there will be one more decline in yields and easing of inflation anxiety into disinflation – could be incorrect. If so, silver would likely pick up on that sooner rather than later. Meanwhile, all views remain intact but open to change in a dynamic macro.

So here we have your letter writer, always stickling for accuracy of terminology. But if we view this as not inflation (which is created by central banks <monetary> and disseminated by governments <fiscal>) while 95% of the world fears “INFLATION!!!”, guess who’s gonna win; the 95%.

If a world full of bugs and momos pile into silver, they are not stopping to ask about the textbook definitions of inflation. They are pile driving and momo’ing.

So we can simply “watch silver”, and in particular watch the region of the yellow circle and the April 17th high of 83.06. It’s not rocket science. I would have a level of caution until that is taken out. If it is taken out and held, silver could be looking at a test of, or new highs.

Much like we did in spring of 2025, when anticipating a recovery and rally in the Silver/Gold ratio after the spike down during the broad market correction, we will follow the ratio again.

If it has made a low and is preparing to rise again, it’s a great bet that commodity and resources related stocks will rally hard. As will precious metals stocks. Markets of largely ‘commodity economies’ like Canada, Australia and certain EM areas would also likely outperform.

And so, we can continue with the drudgery of evaluating the potential of an A-B-C correction in progress. But while doing this we’ll “watch silver” and note that volume on GDX has been declining since the ‘A’ low was put in. That painted the ‘B’ high as terminal, which it was. But if volume continues to decline on this potential test of the rising SMA 200 (orange) and retest of support (81-83), perhaps GDX will have been sold out.

The view is now day to day after having been week to week.

The gold price continues to look “not good” * below its 50 day moving average. But it has already Fib retraced 62% of the rally from the 2025 sideways consolidation. So as with silver, that is good work. If silver rallies, we’d expect the miners and gold to follow.

* Here of course, I insert my usual dogma, “gold is not about price, it is about value”. But insofar as people want the gold “price” managed, there you go.

Precious Metals Bottom Line

I have been appropriately bearish from the highs in the complex (ref. epic and rare trade in SLV puts and ongoing hedging). But we have come to a juncture where it is possible I could get wrong, very wrong, if I continue on like a robot. So I am now open to a view of bullish sooner than expected. It has already been a “multi-month correction” after all. That was the original view. It is ongoing. But… watch silver.

The Continuum

It occurs to me that I might consider changing the nickname I long ago gave the long-term chart of the 30yr Treasury yield. The “continuum” in yields was busted in 2022. Be that as it may, the breakout in the yield led to a sideways consolidation, within which it is still contained.

A subscriber requested a word or two on the breakout in the yield, which can be seen on this daily chart. You can see the blue shaded box (ref. above) within which the yield is traveling. What I would say is that it is another hint of a potential “inflation trade” sooner rather than later. Like a “watch silver” and the Silver/Gold ratio (SGR) type thing.

This is another would-be indication that our analytical course (anticipating an interim resumption in disinflation or a deflation scare) would need adjustment rather than staunch bias. It would rhyme with a rise in the SGR in that it is the product of an inflationary macro, or a macro gripped in inflation fears.

I am glad that the gentleman made this request because it got me digging deeper to make sure there is validity behind a potential change in macro timing. The yield and the SGR were inversely correlated into October, 2025. But then they became quite well correlated well into Q1, 2026.

The common denominator? Inflation expectations (IE)! When IE declined last year, yields tended to decline while SGR began to recover. When IE rose last year, both SGR and yields also rose. When IE declined earlier this year, yields and SGR both declined. Today we have “expectations” rising and the yield potentially breaking to the upside. et tu, SGR?

So in highly analytical terms, lets’ “watch silver”. An inflation trade could kick in sooner than previously expected. If so, I may be just catching on, analytically, but it would likely be early days with plentiful opportunity ahead.

I cannot simply alter course because I “think” something may be at hand. I have to produce evidence of it as a potential to be taken seriously. I think the chart above and other items in this week’s report do that job to a satisfactory degree.

Portfolios

Gold is long-term risk management & monetary value/stability in a balanced portfolio.

Taxable “Savings” Account

In order of position size. Diverse and ready for a more widespread rally. However, this is “savings” and risk will be managed strictly if/when needed.

The taxable account carries high cash levels as long as cash and equivalents are paying out. This is considered a savings account of sorts, rather than a speculation or even investment vehicle. The goal is to speculate around the periphery. In another market phase (e.g. post-correction/bear/crash), the account may get more in the game.

Trading Notes

Trading account is patiently all in cash, retaining its 2026 profits and laying in wait for the next perceived ‘no-brainer’. Of course there is no such thing. It’s the markets. But I shall wait like a mother hen if I have to for the next clear, low risk/high reward opportunity. Whether it be bearish or bullish, coming soon or after a long wait.

Roth IRA (non-taxable, no contributions)

The chart continues to grind it out, waiting for a decision on the big, broad rally scenario. The 2026 view shows a quick failure and recovery of the support area I want to see held.

Cash is 20%, short-term & inflation protected Treasury is 38%, long equity is 38% and short/hedge is 4% (doing the work of 8% at ‘2x’). IRA is prep’d for a rally. Now let’s see if it happens. It’s a <insert “welp?” guy here> macro, after all.

Cash & income-generating Treasury bonds are at levels that are right for me and my real-world situation. Your situation is different. Cash will be adjusted as needed.

Refer to the In-Week Notes under the NFTRH Premium menu at nftrh.com for market talk and occasional trading info, if interested. Also, you can follow on X @NFTRHgt for notice of updates.

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Notes From the Rabbit Hole (NFTRH) is a weekly market report in which we provide analysis on financial markets.  We make every effort to provide accurate and high quality content, but this analysis ultimately represents our opinions and these opinions are provided without warranty or guarantee of any kind.  See full terms & conditions of service under the ‘About’ heading in the main menu.