On Tuesday technology led for a second session. The S&P 500 gained 0.6% to 7,723 while its equal-weight version added only 0.1% and the Dow finished flat, the Nasdaq rose 1.2% and the Russell 2000 1.2%. The driver was a run of large AI financing announcements over two days, an equity sale, an IPO filing and two project financings, which eased the worry that the capital for the data-center build-out was drying up. A third of the way through the third-quarter season the results have been decent, with price increases and cost control offsetting input costs, and sentiment has swung from the sour tone of mid-October to a more constructive one in two sessions. Treasuries were little changed, the two-year yield rose 0.01 percentage points and the ten- and thirty-year yields closed where they started. The dollar index gained 0.3%, Brent fell 1.7%, gold climbed 1.1% and silver 0.9%. Wednesday brings the UK budget, the Fed decision at 2pm Eastern with no change expected and a December hike already priced, and the Microsoft and Alphabet reports after the close. Thursday follows with the ECB, the first estimate of third-quarter GDP, the September PCE and Amazon.
The cycle board under that tape leans further to one side than at any point since this series began in April, with eighteen markets on the floor side and three on the ceiling side. The model has put floors under the whole US equity complex at once, with uranium one step ahead as the market where that sequence has already run its course. The S&P 500, the two Nasdaq indices, the Russell 2000 and Nvidia all carry floor readings between +77 and +93, which means the model sees each of them in a time window where the October decline could end. The Russell 2000 is furthest along. Its stage reads bear exit, the decline has lost its drive and appears to be turning, and the index has gained 3.6% from its October 16 low. The two Nasdaq indices and the S&P 500 sit one stage behind at bear fatigue, the downward move is grinding to a halt, and all three posted two higher closes into the Fed decision. In plain terms, the model called floors under the October slide before Tuesday’s rally, and the price has begun to agree. Uranium is the finished version. Its floor reading is the model’s strongest at +100, its stage has also moved to bear exit, and the ETF has gained 5.2% from its October 22 low. Picture a tide that has already turned on one stretch of shore while the rest of the beach still sits at slack water. The metals remain the open question, gold has two higher closes off Friday’s low while platinum and palladium still make new lows inside their windows.
These floors come with a paper trail. The Russell floor was called on September 26 and told again on October 21 and October 25 with the same 121-day cycle at its trough; Tuesday’s close of 2,819 is its highest since October 6 and sits 0.7% under the close on the day of the call, so that loop is one session from paid. Uranium entered the list on October 21 and stood at bear exhaustion on October 25, the sellers had overreached with no counter-move yet. Two sessions later the stage reads bear exit. The DAX closes a round trip of its own, the ceiling warning of September 3 paid 4.6% to the October 8 low, and the 79-day cycle that carried that warning sits at its trough now, 52 days later, half its length, with the index 3.2% above that low. The twenty-year yield’s ceiling call of October 3 has paid and normalized, the yield fell from 5.71% on October 7 to 5.35% on Monday and its reading has eased to -65, still a ceiling alert but well off the extreme, with neutral momentum. Still waiting for a price answer are the Hang Seng floor of October 10, with the index 4.8% below the close of its call day, and the euro, which closed Tuesday at its lowest since May 2025 inside an open window.
Our daily scan puts roughly 45 markets through a cycle consensus engine and gives each of them a Consensus Score between -100 and +100, the model’s summary reading for a possible turn. Readings above +60 mark a time window in which a decline could end, readings below -60 a window in which a rise could stall or reverse, and only those readings reach the tables below, the critical zone in which the model raises its alarm. Let’s take a closer look.
