- Quant Weekly – Up over 50% since June 2025
- Quant 30 – Up over 50% since June 2025
- Legacy – Up over 280% since April 2023
- Education – Position trading concepts and practical lessons
USA Stock market week ending 04/17/26
Major Index Performance (Weekly)
- S&P 500:+4.5% – Closed above 7,100 for the first time ever
- Nasdaq Composite:+6.8% – Best performer, extended winning streak to 13 days
- Dow Jones Industrial Average:+3.2% – Strong gains, but lagged tech-heavy indexes
- Russell 2000:+5.6% – Small caps surged on improving economic outlook
Takeaways
- Growth and small caps led, signaling a broadening rally beyond mega-cap tech.
Market Drivers this Week (04/20/26 – 04/24/26)
- Monday, April 21:
- Iran ceasefire deadline hits—this is the whole ballgame. If talks fall apart, oil rips higher and stocks get smoked. If they extend it, you’re looking at a straight-up relief rally.
- Housing starts at 8:30 AM—quick read on how the homebuilders are feeling. Soft number means caution, strong print gives cyclicals a little juice.
- Tuesday, April 22:
- Tesla earnings after the bell—main event, no question. Deliveries already missed, so now it’s all about margins, Robotaxi talk, and that massive AI factory spend. Stock’s gonna move, guaranteed.
- ServiceNow earnings—big test for the software space. Stock’s been crushed this year, so a beat could wake the whole sector up. Miss it, and forget about it—more downside.
- Google Cloud Next kicks off (3 days)—AI, chips, cloud deals, all that good stuff. Anything big here moves Alphabet and the whole cloud trade.
- Wednesday, April 23:
- Jobless claims at 8:30—labor market check. If claims start jumping, recession chatter gets loud real quick.
- Core PCE inflation—this is the Fed’s favorite number. If it comes in hot, rate cuts get pushed out and growth stocks feel the heat. Biggest macro datapoint of the week.
- Thursday, April 24:
- Final GDP read for Q4—backward-looking, yeah, but it sets the tone. If it gets revised down, stagflation talk starts creeping in.
- Michigan consumer sentiment at 10—people feeling squeezed from gas prices. Weak read hits consumer stocks and raises more questions about the economy.
- All Week (Big Picture):
- Earnings flood—150+ S&P companies reporting. This is what decides if the market keeps pushing highs or starts rolling over. Focus is shifting to big tech and industrials now.
- Oil and the Strait of Hormuz—this is the backdrop to everything. Oil’s still elevated, and any headline—ships moving or tensions flaring—moves markets instantly. This is the driver behind inflation, Fed policy, and overall risk mood.
The CNN Fear and Greed Index ends the week at Greed 68. The Index went from Fear 38 to Greed 68 since last Friday. This massive turnaround mirrors the huge rally in the stock market as risk-on took over from risk-off based on optimism about a peace deal in the middle east war.
The Quant 30 and Quant Weekly Model Portfolios had a great week with all three Portfolios making all time highs! The Quant Weekly and Quant 30 are now up 50% from the 6/27/26 start date and Quant Legacy up 348% from the April 2023 start date. All three Portfolios are packed with quality momentum stocks and when the market enters a risk-on phase, these stocks lead the way up.
Note: You are enjoying the free subscriber newsletter. Paid subscribers enjoy instant access to weekly Model Portfolio updates upon release and a Top Quant Stocks list. Free subscribers get access to Portfolio updates after a three-week delay but no Top Quant Stocks list. Want timely access to the new Adds/Removes and Top Quant Stocks list? Subscribe at $20 a month or $119 a year.
Model Portfolio Quant Alpha Weekly
Any newly added stock is being released to Paid Subscribers today. Below are the updates from three weeks ago. This Portfolio continues to significantly outperform its benchmark, 50% versus 19%. It has 23 members.
Top five Quant stocks in the Portfolio (Paid subscribers only).
No changes to the Portfolio this week
Add (03/27/26) : None
Remove (03/27/26) : None
Outperformers: SSRM (SSR Mining) up over 90%, MU (Micron Technology) up over 190%, VISN (Vistance Networks) up over +140%
Click here for the Quant Alpha Weekly details
Model Portfolio Quant 30
This week’s new update, if any, is being released to the paid subscribers. Shown below is the update made three weeks ago. This Portfolio continues to beat its benchmark by a wide margin, 50% to 19%. It has 30 members in it.
Top five Quant stocks in the Portfolio (Paid subscribers only).
One change to the Portfolio this week
SNDK (Sandisk) entered the portfolio three weeks ago at $615.83 and is now $920.99 a 49.6% increase. Paid subscribers had the opportunity to grab this for a big gain. Free subscribers missed out!
Add (03/27/26): SNDK (Sandisk)
Remove (03/27/26): LASR (nLIGHT)
Outperformers: MU (Micron Technology) up over 270%, GFI (Gold Fields) up over 100%, LITE (Lumentum Holdings) up over 270% and KGC (Kinross Gold) is up over 120%.
Click here for the Quant 30 details
Model Portfolio Quant Alpha’s – Legacy
The portfolio is up over +280% since it began in 2023. It has around 18 stocks in it. Powell industries is now a 12 bagger. Celestica is now a 15 bagger.
Top five Quant stocks in the Portfolio (Paid subscribers only).
Remove (03/27/26): None
Outperformers: AGX (Argan) up over 700%, STRL (Sterling Infrastructure) up over 600%, POWL (Powell Industries) up over 1200% and CLS (Celestica) is up over 1500%
Click here for the Quant Alpha’s – Legacy details
Performance to 04-17-2026
Click here for the Live Quant scorecard
Up to 10 stocks each week from different areas of the market. Paid subscribers only.
Position trading concepts and practical lessons
Some takeaways from the book “Fundamental Analysis and Position Trading: Evolution of a Trader” by Thomas N. Bulkowski .
- What Position Trading Actually Is: Forget the day-trading noise — position trading means you’re holding for weeks to months, riding structural trends, and tuning out the garbage that shakes out weak hands every other Tuesday.
- Read the Market’s Architecture, Not Just the Tape: Bulkowski hammers home that you need to know what phase the market is in — accumulation, trend, or distribution. Trade with the underlying structure, not the intraday drama. If you can’t tell which phase you’re in, you’re not ready to put on the trade.
- Fundamentals Are the Foundation — Full Stop: This isn’t a chart-only game. Earnings power, growth trajectory, and macro drivers are what build durable trends. If the fundamentals don’t hold up, the trade doesn’t hold up. Simple as that.
- Use Technicals to Pull the Trigger, Not to Build the Case: The fundamental story tells you what to buy and why. Moving averages, trendlines, volume, and pattern breaks tell you when. Get that order right and you’ll stop chasing garbage setups.
- Risk Management Is the Job — Everything Else Is Commentary: Wide but disciplined stops, position sizing tied to your actual risk tolerance and volatility, and never — not once — fighting the dominant trend. Stubbornness doesn’t pay in this business.
- Your Head Is Part of the Trade: Patience and conviction are non-negotiable. You will sit through pullbacks that feel terrible. The position trader who can’t hold through short-term pain gets shaken out right before the move. Build the mental game or stay flat.
- Stack the Factors Before You Enter: Bulkowski isn’t interested in one-trick setups. You want a fundamental catalyst — an earnings upgrade, a macro acceleration — confirmed by a technical breakout. When multiple factors line up, the entry is cleaner and the conviction is higher.
- Exits Require as Much Discipline as Entries: You don’t exit because you hit some arbitrary price target. You exit when the trend structure breaks down, the fundamentals start deteriorating, or the chart gives you a hard technical invalidation — like cracking the 50-week moving average. Know your exit criteria before you’re ever in the trade.
- Macro and Sector Rotation Aren’t Optional: Rates, credit cycles, bond flows, commodities, currency moves — these aren’t background noise for the position trader, they’re the current that carries the boat. Miss a sector rotation and you’re holding yesterday’s leadership in tomorrow’s laggard.
- Get Better or Get Humbled — Your Choice: The best position traders journal every trade, dissect what worked and what didn’t, and constantly refine the rules. Bulkowski frames the whole thing as an evolution — you bring structure and discipline, but you stay flexible enough to adapt when the market teaches you something new.
The Bottom Line — Five Rules to Tape to Your Monitor
- Think in weeks and months, not hours and days.
- Let fundamentals justify the trade; let technicals execute it.
- Respect the bigger trend at all times — the market doesn’t owe you a reversal.
- Manage risk first, every single time. Profits are the byproduct.
- Emotional resilience and patience matter as much as anything on the chart or in the spreadsheet.
Position Trader educational blog posts
Position Trader – blog post user guide
All content on this site is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Consult relevant financial professionals in your country of residence to get personalized advice before you make any trading or investing decisions. This post was written with the assistance of artificial intelligence. The original ideas and final review are human-generated. Disclaimer
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