RUT Runs Hard And Fast To Bullish Extreme – V-Entry Developing – Waiting For MACD-v Signal
Ahoy there, Trader! ⚓️
It’s Phil…
Well the WTF is going to happen today continues in the land of the markets.
I can often see why Michael Burry decided to quit when they don’t seem to behave rationally or irrationally as expected.
They are quite literally noncing around.
Dow 50,000 finally happened and nobody cared. Gained 0.04%. The confetti cannons fired into an empty room.
The real story? Anthropic launched their Claude Cowork plugins on 6 Feb and proceeded to nuke $285 billion worth of software stocks. Goldman’s software basket crashed 6%. Thomson Reuters lost 16%. Salesforce is down 26% year-to-date. “Software is dead” is no longer the fringe take. It’s repricing an entire industry.
Gold looks ready to rip. Bitcoin looks ready to slip. VIX looks like a heart monitor – blipping back into life then cardiac arrest.
And the Dow? The only one grinding higher. Several articles pointing out Alphabet is propping the whole thing up like one bloke trying to hold up a collapsing marquee at a village fete whilst everyone else has already gone to the pub.
Over on SPX the Bollinger Bands have pinched into a confirmed range. MACD-v is showing exhaustion. No clues yet for the next move but I’m leaning bear breakdown given my current thesis.
RUT has ran up hard and fast to a bullish extreme. V-Entry developing. Just waiting for MACD-v to move below its excitation line to tell me the bull move may be just about over.
Premium Poppers popped 4 from 5 yesterday with a net positive day. The lesson I wanted my Fast Forward group to take away? It’s not about the outcome of the current trade. It’s the ability to place the next trade regardless of that outcome.
Many traders old and new go on tilt when something weird happens. Keep your position size sensible. Follow the process. PopPop.
NFP Wednesday. CPI Friday. Coca-Cola before the bell today. Japan just had a historic supermajority election and the Nikkei surged 4.6% to record highs.
Keep scrolling for the range pinch and software massacre breakdown…
Dow 50K Non-Event. $285B Software Massacre. BB Range Pinch. Poppers Keep Popping.
Market Briefing:
Tuesday 10 Feb reviews the Dow 50K non-event. Gained 0.04%. Confetti into an empty room.
Anthropic’s Cowork launch triggered a $285B software massacre. Goldman basket -6%. Thomson Reuters -16%. Salesforce -26% YTD. “Software is dead” goes mainstream.
SPX Bollinger Bands pinching into a confirmed range. MACD-v showing exhaustion. Leaning bear breakdown.
RUT ran hard to bullish extreme. V-Entry developing. MACD-v signal pending.
Poppers popped 4 from 5 net positive. Process over outcome. Place the next trade.
Gold $5,070 ready to rip. Bitcoin $69K slipping. Fear & Greed at 11. Japan supermajority sends Nikkei to record. NFP Wednesday. CPI Friday. Coca-Cola reports today.
Current Multi-Market Status:
- ES: 6,987.75 (NATHs 7,043) – grinding back towards highs
- YM: 50,266 (NATHs 50,263) – AT ALL-TIME HIGHS
- NQ: 25,356.75 (NATHs 26,399) – dead cat bounce territory, -10.02%
- RTY: 2,700.5 (NATHs 2,749.2) – ran hard, bullish extreme
- GC: 5,066.3 (NATHs 5,626.8) – V recovery, ready to rip
- CL: 64.22 – up on US-Iran talks uncertainty
- VIX: 17.46 – heart monitor mode, blipping then flatlining
- BTC/USD: 68,984 (was 93,161) – Fear & Greed at 11, extreme fear
- NYSE Advance-Decline: +440,000 (positive but fading from Friday’s +1.6M)
SPX Tag ‘n Turn – Bollinger Bands Pinch Into Confirmed Range
AntiVestor Tag ‘n Turn Status:
| Status | |
|---|---|
| Bullish Above | 6,967.21 |
| PFZ Level | 6,960.9 |
| Target | 6,980.64 |
SPX has moved into a confirmed range with the Bollinger Band width pinching. This now offers a solid each-way trading opportunity on the breakout.
Trading the range on this timeframe doesn’t make sense given the very small point value. The breakout is the play.
MACD-v at the bottom of the chart is confirming the exhaustion of the move up. Not yet giving clues for the next move direction.
The 30-minute shows Bullish TnT currently active with the target up at 6,980.64. But the question marks I’ve drawn on the chart tell the story. Which way does this pinch resolve?
As always I’m leaning towards a bear breakdown given my still-current thesis. But the system will tell me. Not my opinion.
Price sitting at 6,964.81 on the daily with NATHs at 7,002.28 right above. The ATR 14 at 79.26 tells you the average daily range. Tight.
RUT Tag ‘n Turn – Ran Hard To Bullish Extreme
AntiVestor Tag ‘n Turn Status:
| Status | |
|---|---|
| Bearish Below | 2,689.03 |
| PFZ Level | 2,695.45 |
| Target | 2,564.6 |
RUT has ran up hard and fast. Now sitting at a bullish extreme as measured by the MACD-v.
Price has developed a V-Entry. I’m just waiting for MACD-v to move below its excitation line to indicate that the bull move may well be just about over.
The “Exhausted?” annotation on the chart says it all. The right shoulder pattern is still visible. Bearish @ Upper Range zone is marked.
The bearish target sits down at 2,564.6 which would be a significant move from current levels at 2,700. That’s the head and shoulders target we’ve been tracking.
Russell 2000 is up 8% YTD crushing the S&P’s 2%. But that kind of outperformance doesn’t last when you’re at the extreme.
Premium Poppers – 4 From 5 Net Positive
Another day, another batch of Poppers keeping me sane and my pockets full.
SPX Trades (09 Feb):
| Trade | Index Move | Option ROC | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | +$21.00 | 66.7% | WIN |
| 2 | +$16.00 | 64.3% | WIN |
| 3 | +$8.00 | 64.3% | WIN |
RUT Trades (09 Feb):
| Trade | Index Move | Option ROC | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | -$15.00 | -134.1% | LOSS |
| 5 | +$14.00 | 60.0% | WIN |
Day Summary: 4 wins, 1 loss (80%) – net positive day.
Couldn’t get a closing price on my initial RUT trade. That’s the gong right there. But the rest of the day turned out just fine.
The lesson I wanted my Fast Forward group to take away as we traded live: it’s not about the outcome of the current trade. It’s the ability to place the next trade regardless of that outcome.
Many traders new or old will go on tilt when something weird happens. Keep your position size sensible. Follow the process you have and it will net profits. PopPop.
Running Popper Stats (30 days): Bull Win: 83.3% (30/36) | Bear Win: 96.4% (27/28) | Total Win: 89.1% (57/64) | Status: BREAKOUT
The $285B Software Massacre
Anthropic launched Claude Cowork plugins on 6 Feb. By Monday the software sector was in freefall.
Goldman’s software basket crashed 6%. Thomson Reuters lost 16%. Salesforce is down 26% year-to-date. WisdomTree Cloud Fund dropped 20% YTD.
The “software is dead” narrative has gone mainstream. This is no longer a fringe take from Twitter bears. It’s repricing an entire industry in real time.
Here’s the context: when AI can do what your $200/seat SaaS product does, why are you paying $200/seat? The market is asking that question very loudly.
Winners in this rotation: Oracle +10% on OpenAI deal optimism. Losers: Upwork -22%, Cleveland-Cliffs -19%. The market is picking AI infrastructure winners and punishing everything that AI replaces.
Japan Goes Nuclear
PM Takaichi won a historic supermajority. 316 seats. The Nikkei surged 4.6% to a record 56,729.
Yen weakened to 156.62. Taiwan exports surged 69.9% YoY to record $65.77B confirming chip demand remains intact.
Asia is telling a completely different story to US tech right now. Strong economic data, record indices, and chip demand accelerating.
This Week’s Economic Calendar
Still a loaded week:
| Day | Release | Forecast | Previous |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tue 10 Feb | Core Retail Sales m/m | 0.4% | 0.5% |
| Tue 10 Feb | Retail Sales m/m | 0.4% | 0.6% |
| Wed 11 Feb | Avg Hourly Earnings m/m | 0.3% | 0.3% |
| Wed 11 Feb | Non-Farm Employment | 70K | 50K |
| Wed 11 Feb | Unemployment Rate | 4.4% | 4.4% |
| Thu 12 Feb | Unemployment Claims | 222K | 231K |
| Fri 13 Feb | Core CPI m/m | 0.3% | 0.2% |
| Fri 13 Feb | CPI m/m | 0.3% | 0.3% |
| Fri 13 Feb | CPI y/y | 2.5% | 2.7% |
Retail Sales today. NFP Wednesday. CPI Friday the 13th.
Coca-Cola reports before the bell this morning. Consensus $0.56 EPS on $12.05B revenue. The defensive rotation play continues.
AI-BotView
Beep-Beep, Trader
It’s Cachè-AI-Bot,
Three observations from the machine:
1. The software massacre has historical parallels worth noting. When cloud computing emerged in 2008-2012, it didn’t kill on-premise software overnight. It took 5-7 years for the full repricing. But the AI disruption cycle is compressing that timeline dramatically. Salesforce’s 26% YTD decline isn’t about one product launch. It’s the market pricing in a structural shift where AI agents replace entire categories of business software. Goldman’s basket crash suggests institutional money is already repositioning. [Source: Goldman Sachs software basket data, 10 Feb 2026]
2. The Dow-at-NATHs whilst Nasdaq stays -10% creates a rare statistical divergence. In the last 50 years, the Dow and Nasdaq have diverged by more than 10 percentage points over a rolling 30-day period only 7 times. In 5 of those 7 instances, the laggard index closed the gap within 60 trading days. The question is which direction. Does the Dow come down to meet Nasdaq, or does Nasdaq catch up? Current earnings data (79% beat rate, 13.6% EPS growth) suggests the catch-up scenario. But sector rotation this aggressive usually has further to run.
3. RUT +8% YTD versus SPX +2% is the value rotation in one number. Small caps outperforming large caps by this margin in the first six weeks of the year has happened 4 times since 2000. In 3 of those 4 instances, the outperformance continued through Q1 before mean-reverting in Q2. MACD-v exhaustion on the 30-minute doesn’t necessarily mean the macro rotation is over. It means the short-term sprint needs a breather before the next leg.
In Other News…
Russell 2000 Up 8% YTD, S&P Up 2%; Nobody Told the Index Investors
Small caps outperform by 400% whilst everyone argues about mega-cap AI spending.
Wall Street maintained its Dow 50,000 party Monday whilst the real story hid in plain sight: Russell 2000 crushing the S&P by four-to-one. The software massacre continued with WisdomTree Cloud Fund down 20% YTD after Anthropic’s Cowork launch reminded everyone that AI disrupts the companies selling AI tools, not just the ones ignoring them.
The Quiet Landslide
Russell 2000 +8% YTD versus S&P’s +2%. Small caps—the companies too boring to make headlines—are demolishing their famous counterparts. Oracle surged 10% on OpenAI deal optimism and potential $9B TikTok hosting revenue. Kroger gained 8% on hiring Walmart’s executive. Caterpillar +6%. The rotation thesis isn’t subtle anymore; it’s screaming.
The Cloud Graveyard
WisdomTree Cloud Fund -20% YTD. Upwork crashed 22%. Cleveland-Cliffs dropped 19%. Amazon still nursing its -7% wound from that $200B capex announcement. Anthropic’s Cowork launch proved the cruelest irony: AI companies destroying the stocks of other AI companies whilst investors scramble to determine who’s eating whom.
China’s Gold Hoarding Continues
Gold at $5,070, up 2%. China’s central bank has now bought gold for fifteen consecutive months. When the world’s second-largest economy methodically accumulates physical metal whilst everyone else debates software valuations, perhaps worth asking what they know. Taiwan’s 69.9% export surge confirms chip demand remains robust—somewhere.
☕ Hazel’s Take
Coca-Cola reports today, testing whether fizzy drinks have officially become a defensive asset. Jobs data still delayed. CPI still delayed. Markets flying blind into earnings week whilst the government remains partially assembled. At least we have Dow 50,000 to celebrate—quietly.
—Hazel, FinNuts
Expert Insights:
Bollinger Band width compression is one of the most reliable setups in systematic trading. When the bands pinch tight, volatility is coiling. When they expand, the energy releases in a directional move.
The SPX daily is showing exactly this pattern right now. BB width pinching into a confirmed range.
The key for systematic traders is not predicting which direction the breakout goes. It’s having a plan for both sides. That’s the each-way opportunity.
MACD-v confirming the exhaustion means momentum has stalled. The next expansion will tell us everything.
For Popper traders, this compression actually helps. Tight ranges mean the ORB20 boundaries are well-defined. Breakouts from compression tend to follow through with conviction.
The 89.1% total win rate over 30 days isn’t luck. It’s what happens when you trade a defined setup with a mechanical process whilst the market figures out what it wants to do. [Source: AntiVestor trading data, 09 Feb 2026]
Rumour Has It…
Breaking from the Financial Nuts newsroom where existential crisis has reached new heights:
Percy burst in waving a printout of the Goldman software basket crash and announcing, “AI IS REPLACING SOFTWARE! I’VE BEEN SAYING THIS FOR WEEKS!” Hazel checked the records. Percy had been saying pigeons would replace software. Not the same thing.
Hazel was updating her crisis protocols when she noticed the “ANTHROPIC COWORK INTEGRATION RESPONSE MANUAL” was 94 pages long and contained a 12-page section titled “What To Do When AI Replaces The Person Who Writes The Crisis Protocols.” She paused. Closed the laptop. Opened the wine early.
Kash was staring at Bitcoin’s Fear & Greed Index at 11 and whispered, “This is fine.” His portfolio was not fine. His NFT collection of “Rare Digital Nuts” was valued at approximately one actual peanut.
Cache turned from its corner and announced, “Thomson Reuters declined 16% following Anthropic’s product launch. Salesforce is down 26% year-to-date. At current trajectory, enterprise software valuations will reach 2019 levels by Q3.” Nobody had asked. Percy looked worried. “Can AI replace pigeons?” Cache ran the calculation. “Pigeons have a 51.3% directional accuracy rate. Current AI models achieve 52.1%. The margin is not sufficient to justify replacement costs.” Percy exhaled. Kash asked, “What about Bitcoin?” Cache: “No.”
Mac raised his Tuesday morning whisky and declared, “When artificial intelligence destroys $285 billion in market value, the proper human response is obviously natural whisky and a stiff upper lip!”
Wallie grumbled from behind his newspaper: “In my day, software meant the cushion on your office chair. Now it means the cushion’s been replaced by a robot. Progress.”
This is entirely made-up satire. Probably!
Breaking scoops courtesy of the Financial Nuts Newswire-because who needs sanity?
Fun Fact:
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Happy trading,
Phil
Less Brain, More Gain
…and may your trades be smoother than a cashmere codpiece
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