The Trading Post | 07.20.26

July 20, 2026

Good morning,

Chip stocks remain under pressure, oil is climbing alongside renewed Middle East tensions, equity funds are seeing outflows, market leadership is rotating beyond megacap tech, and earnings are about to determine whether the AI trade is resting—or quietly being taken behind the barn.

Let’s jump in.

Pre-Market Performance

As of 07.17.26 market close.

Market News

  • Chip Weakness Lingers: US futures are stabilizing after semiconductor selling triggered equity-fund outflows, but crowded AI momentum remains vulnerable to failed bounces into resistance. Reuters

  • Friday’s Damage Was Real: Stocks ended last week under pressure as the chip rout deepened and the Dow fell roughly 0.77%, pushing traders toward defensive positioning. Reuters

  • Oil Adds Another Headache: Crude remains elevated as the US-Iran conflict intensifies, reviving inflation concerns and creating another obstacle for long-duration growth stocks. Reuters

  • Rotation Is Still Alive: Small caps and equal-weight indexes continue to outperform despite weakness in semiconductors, suggesting this is not yet a full-market breakdown. CNBC

  • Earnings Take the Wheel: Wall Street enters a crucial reporting stretch that could determine whether the AI-led rally regains leadership or discovers gravity. Reuters

Earnings We’re Watching

  • Domino’s Pizza, Inc.  (DPZ) - Monday (BMO)

  • AMC Entertainment Holdings, Inc.  (AMC) - Monday (AMC)

  • Crown Holdings, Inc.  (CCK) - Monday (AMC)

  • Steel Dynamics, Inc.  (STLD) - Monday (AMC)

  • W.R. Berkley Corp (WRB) - Monday (AMC)

Trade Ideas

Adobe Systems Incorporated (ADBE), SPDR Gold Trust (GLD), Robinhood Markets (HOOD),
Intel Corporation (INTC)

QUALCOMM Incorporated (QCOM), Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. (RCL), Shopify Inc (SHOP),
Tesla Motors, Inc (TSLA)

Visa Inc (V), Adobe Systems Incorporated (ADBE), SPDR Gold Trust Inc (GLD),
Robinhood Markets, Inc (HOOD)

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

Get these ideas delivered to your inbox daily with Trade With Rob. It’s 100% free. Sign up here.

Daily Moment of Zen

❝

The single most important element to being successful in the stock market over the long term is having a philosophy and the discipline to stick to it.

Seth Klarman

Why It Matters:

A trading philosophy is simply a set of rules for how you interpret risk, find opportunity, and decide when to do absolutely nothing…a wildly underrated position.

Without one, every red candle becomes a crisis, every green candle becomes proof of genius, and every loud person online becomes your temporary portfolio manager. That is not a strategy. It is emotional outsourcing.

Discipline does not mean stubbornly defending a bad trade. It means consistently following a tested process while remaining flexible enough to admit when the evidence has changed. Your setups may evolve. Your risk limits should not mysteriously disappear because “this one feels different.”

The market will spend years tempting you to abandon what works in favor of whatever worked yesterday. Long-term success belongs to the trader who can tell the difference between adapting a philosophy and betraying it.