The Trading Post | 06.26.26

June 26, 2026

Good morning,

Tech and AI names are still under pressure, jobs data and rate-hike odds are moving back to center stage, and crude is sliding as Hormuz shipping normalizes. Translation: the market is trying to decide whether this is a healthy pullback, a rotation, or just another trap door wearing a tasteful blazer.

Let’s jump in.

Yesterday’s Post-Market Performance

As of 06.25.26 market close.

Market News

  • Global Tech Rout Deepens As AI Chip Leaders Wobble: Nasdaq futures are extending losses as high-multiple AI and semiconductor names lose momentum, with Apple, Microsoft, and other megacap leaders dragging the tape lower. While Micron is clinging to gains after a blowout print, the broader chip trade still looks fragile. Traders can stay short-biased or underweight crowded AI/semi leaders while NQ and SOX remain below recent highs. Watch failed bounces into broken support or declining 10/21 EMAs for cleaner short entries. Bloomberg / Reuters

  • Micron Euphoria Runs Into The Reality Wall: Micron’s earnings pop helped spark some excitement, but the broader AI trade is still dealing with cost pressure, valuation gravity, and the minor inconvenience of everyone already being on the same side of the boat. Traders can express downside or hedges through QQQ, NQ futures, targeted puts, or call-credit spreads in crowded semi names. Intraday rallies into prior gap areas are potential fade zones if volume dries up. TheStreet / Bloomberg

  • Jobs Data And Rate Bets Move Back To Center Stage: Wall Street is closing a solid first half, but traders are recalibrating risk around labor data, inflation, and the possibility of another Trump-Fed rate increase. Treat the upcoming data as event risk: reduce gross exposure, use SPX/SPY or NQ/QQQ hedges, and be careful chasing the first post-number spike. The first move after macro data is often the market’s way of checking who forgot to wear a seatbelt. U.S. News / Benzinga

  • Higher-For-Longer Risk Keeps Pressure On Growth: If the market starts pricing a stickier rate path, high-duration tech could see renewed multiple compression while value and cash-flow names get relative support. Watch financials, homebuilders, utilities, and megacap growth for outsized moves as the curve reprices. Pairs traders can look at long banks/short growth or the reverse depending on how Fed-funds futures react after the data. Reuters / U.S. News

  • Crude Extends Slide As Hormuz Shipping Normalizes: Oil continues to weaken as shipping conditions around Hormuz improve, pressuring energy stocks while giving a potential tailwind to transports, airlines, logistics, and select consumer discretionary names. Energy equities and crude-linked ETFs remain short-biased while WTI keeps printing lower highs and lower lows. Use breakdowns below prior swing lows, with stops above the last failed rally. Yahoo Finance / Moomoo

  • Cheaper Oil Opens The Rotation Door: Lower crude can help fuel-sensitive areas of the market, especially transports and consumer names that benefit when energy costs stop acting like a second mortgage. Traders can watch airlines, truckers, logistics stocks, and sector ETFs for relative strength if crude keeps slipping. Options traders in energy names can consider calendars or diagonals to play continued drift lower while allowing for headline-driven volatility spikes from the Gulf. Reuters / Moomoo

Trade Ideas

Automatic Data Processing, Inc (ADP), Astera Labs, Inc (ALAB), Amazon.com, Inc (AMZN),
AST SpaceMobile Inc (ASTS)

International Business Machine (IBM), Microsoft Corporation (MSFT), Workday, Inc (WDAY), Automatic Data Processing, Inc. (ADP)

Want to learn how we trade these? Learn the setup we call the “High Volatility Switchback” trade.

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Daily Moment of Zen

❝

The main purpose of the stock market is to make fools of as many men as possible.

Bernard Baruch

Why It Matters:

A market selloff is never just a selloff. It is also a group psychology exam, a liquidity stress test, and a live-action reminder that confidence has a shorter shelf life than gas station sushi.

When tech is wobbling, crude is sliding, and macro data is waiting around the corner with a folding chair, the goal is not to be the smartest person in the room. It is to avoid being the most overleveraged person in the room.

The market does not need to be fair. It does not need to explain itself. It does not even need to be internally consistent before lunch. It only needs to move.

Your job is to trade the move, manage the risk, and resist the urge to turn every red candle into a personal betrayal.

Very spiritual. Very annoying. Very useful.