When Optimism Fades — Fin Mkts 7/22/26

[00:00:05]All smiles from Alphabet Google reporting earnings after the close today doubling AI infrastructure spending topping estimates revenue surging and the stock price after hours.

[00:00:25]Uh-oh.

[00:00:28]Welcome to the show everybody. It's Wednesday, July 22nd, 2026. Our first headline today is when optimism fades.

[00:00:36]With all of that good news on Google as I record, we're down around half of a percent in the after hours.

[00:00:45]And this is already after falling for the day a quarter percent and a quarter.

[00:00:50]And it wasn't the only company to disappoint after hours today. Texas Instruments also reported earnings and is currently down 3% in after hours.

[00:01:00]And adding to the pile of disappointment, Tesla also down about 2 and 1/2% after hours.

[00:01:07]I want to add regarding Tesla, their revenue's been flat since 2023.

[00:01:14]Their earnings have been going down. Yet in the circus of a market that we're in right now, uh we're a lot higher in price.

[00:01:23]It makes sense for overvalued stocks to fall.

[00:01:28]And when the headlines can't even keep it up, maybe we're entering a period when optimism fades.

[00:01:36]Our second headline today is Treasury yields move higher.

[00:01:40]The two-year, starting with the two-year Treasury note yield, we're currently at 4.3%.

[00:01:45]We are at a high not seen since February of 2025.

[00:01:50]So, we are have confirmed that we are still in a pattern of higher lows and now a new higher high.

[00:01:59]The 10-year also rose other three basis points today. Sorry, let me get myself out of the way.

[00:02:08]A really quick, yesterday's headline and intro uh a little little error I want to correct.

[00:02:14]I said that the 10-year was the highest we've seen in 20 years, and it's not far off. Let's be honest. But, we had a few days higher all the way back in 2023. I was looking at the 30-year bond yield and sort of assuming they were a little more together, or I mean, I was thinking of the 30-year bond yield when I was talking about the 10-year. Sorry for the error uh because the third the 30-year is at close is uh higher than it's been in 20 years, except for that one day back in May. But, anyway, uh I digress.

[00:02:47]The 30-year Treasury bond yield also rose today.

[00:02:51]Again, only eclipsed by one day within the past 20 years.

[00:02:57]19 to be exact. The 30-year bond yield sits now at 5.15%.

[00:03:03]Now, yesterday's show I also said, you know, I'm trying to figure it out with you guys, like, why is the 10-year really going so much higher right now, specifically? It has obviously more to do with fiscal spending increasing and the Iran war potentially continuing, you know, war is expensive, and you got to get the money from somewhere, and the United States you know, whether you believe it or not, they create debt. They borrow money. They don't just print it out of thin air, not exactly. So, when borrowing is expected to increase, then yeah, yields can can go up. I think that really might be the main driving factor uh at this point.

[00:03:45]And so, you know, one of the questions to bring up that Jamie Dimon recently uh brought up in an interview he did is the ultimate question. You know, is the market on the long end of the curve pricing in already what's expected to happen or is it pricing in what will happen?

[00:04:05]And then what will change when things do happen?

[00:04:09]One big piece of this is, you know, boots on the ground in Iran.

[00:04:14]Is this turning into like, you know, a real uh bigger war?

[00:04:20]And is that already priced in?

[00:04:23]Anyway, our community topic today, moving on, what moves did you make today if any? Did you buy anything? Did you sell anything?

[00:04:31]Are you holding on to anything with diamond hands for dear life? Rothschild sits on hands. I have been adding a little bit to my TMF. It's a leveraged version of TLT lately just to maintain the 45% allocation. I have a full 45% allocation to Treasury bonds right now.

[00:04:52]What are you doing? What are you selling? What are you buying? Discuss in the comment section below. It's great hearing what you guys are up to. Coming up, if you thought today's earnings was big, wait till you see what's coming next week.

[00:05:07]PayPal, Coca-Cola, Boeing, UPS, Visa.

[00:05:11]That's all just on Monday. SoFi, Procter & Gamble.

[00:05:15]We got Microsoft, Meta, Hood, Qualcomm, Starbucks, Chipotle, Carvana all on next Wednesday and Thursday. MasterCard.

[00:05:28]Altria.

[00:05:30]And after the close Thursday, some really big ones. We got Apple, Amazon, Coinbase, MicroStrategy.

[00:05:37]And if that wasn't enough, Friday Chevron and Exxon.

[00:05:42]Hold on to your hats, guys.

[00:05:46]It's going to be a absolutely wild week.

[00:05:49]Before we hit the charts, thank you for watching, liking, subscribing, sharing, commenting, and all of your support. Greatly, greatly appreciated for all your support.

[00:05:59]Many of you are very, very generous, and I appreciate it very much.

[00:06:04]All right, on to the charts starting with SPX, the S&P 500. It was a battle day. We went very, very flat. In the afternoon, we reached the upper implied volatility move for the day, at least as of the open, and then we pulled back down to right where we started. In after hours, as I record, you know, considering these earnings that are coming out, yeah, we're basically flat on the market overall, ES1, totally flat. And NQ1, the Nasdaq futures, also basically flat.

[00:06:35]Bitcoin, the professor, Bitcoin, the liquidity oracle, pulled back about a percent today. We're almost at 66,000.

[00:06:44]Still so far away from all-time highs, especially compared to the S&P 500.

[00:06:51]Crude oil continues to rise.

[00:06:55]My trend line guy uh doesn't expect crude oil to continue higher from here.

[00:07:01]With all the risks going on in crude oil, I mean, I have no idea where we're going from here, but this is a heck of a move to the upside um that we've been having.

[00:07:12]And yet, we remain still again below most of the previous part of the Iran war.

[00:07:21]I'm stealing this chart from Figuring Out Money is another YouTuber. I love his work. If you haven't seen him, check him out. Figuring Out Money. One thing he's repeatedly said and is right about is taking a look at XLE, the energy sector. This is very closely tied with crude oil, and dividing it by SPX. And the idea here is that when you divide them by each other, and it's going up during periods that it's going up, it tends to lead the S&P 500 to go to the downside. I'll show you examples in a moment, but just explain the mechanics of it. Even if SPX is Even if XLE is falling, but the SPX is falling faster, then this actually goes up because it's XLE divided by SPX.

[00:08:13]So, just to scroll out, um, to see times when this has happened, you can see, for example, from the end of 2021, when XLE really started outperforming the S&P 500, the S&P 500 went down. How come I can't draw on it? Well, you you can see it.

[00:08:37]Again, right here, from uh, June of 2023, this started going up. What happened? Consolidated, go down. We go down.

[00:08:47]This goes up, this goes, you know, flat to down is the point. We have this run right here, starting, uh, December of 2024, and the S&P 500 rolls over. And then, starting December of 2025, you can see XLP's outperforming the S&P 500. What does S&P 500 do?

[00:09:09]Consolidates and it rolls over to the downside. And so, you know, this is a cool chart that I've added to my the daily things that I check. Notice how the S&P 500's been going flat, and it's a smaller time frame, but, you know, since the beginning of July, XLE's been really outperforming the S&P 500.

[00:09:31]If it continues to do so, it will likely put more pressure on the S&P 500 to roll over here as it tends to do.

[00:09:41]Copper after rising a lot yesterday, basically is flat where it's 652 pound. Silver continued up a little higher where it's 59.77 an ounce.

[00:09:53]Still about 50% off of all-time highs.

[00:09:57]This isn't the worst possible time in history to be buying silver. Although I can't get myself to buy any silver or silver miners yet.

[00:10:06]So, what I mean by this by the way is for example, the 200 week moving average of silver.

[00:10:15]Going through history, it's not uncommon for the price of silver to be below or even significantly below the 200 week moving average.

[00:10:28]As much as silver has gone up and stayed elevated, right now the 200 week moving average is all the way down at 36.70.

[00:10:40]You're not going to convince me that silver's never going to get below its 200 week moving average ever again. Just to illustrate the example further, so that you know, when it had one of its biggest runs ever in the '80s when we went up 900% and then fell by 90% you know, we went well below the 200 week moving average and stayed below it for a long time.

[00:11:07]As scrolling forward to the great financial crisis, we were way above it. We were actually went below it before skyrocketing higher in 2011. And then what happened after that? We went well below it.

[00:11:21]What enough below it to get the 200 week moving average to curl over for years, for like a decade. There are times when it's obvious that you know, silver is very, very cheap. It's when nobody wants it.

[00:11:37]I It's too hot for me still at this price. But again, 50% off it's not always 50% off of the all-time highs.

[00:11:47]Moving on to gold, gold is also up still near $4,000 an ounce.

[00:11:52]I wanted to re-bring up Space X just because I talked about it yesterday.

[00:11:57]We're down another 6.7% down to $115.26.

[00:12:02]With all of this optimism fading like our main headline says, again, what don't be surprised. You You heard it first here on Rothschild to see Space X fall as low as $20 a share or below.

[00:12:18]At some point, normal valuations matter like price sales, like price book ratios.

[00:12:24]Valuations have gotten so extreme that it's not entirely hyper hyper Sorry, hyperbole that Rothschild is currently a quadrillionaire because of his uh he refuses to sell it for less than a quadrillion dollars.

[00:12:39]Anyway, that's all from me and my crystal ball. Hope you enjoyed. Thank you for watching and see you next time.

[00:12:43]Rothschild.