May 18, 2026

Markets:

Stock futures fell Monday following a record-setting week, with traders awaiting quarterly results from Nvidia and major U.S. retailers. Investors also kept an eye on the U.S.-Iran war.

Nvidia is set to report earnings Wednesday along with Target, while Walmart is due to post results Thursday. Those releases come during a delicate time for stocks. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq hit fresh record highs last week, while the Dow briefly reclaimed the 50,000 level.

However, the major averages suffered a setback Friday, as sovereign bond yields around the world rose. The U.S. 30-year Treasury bond yield hit its highest level in around a year. In the U.K., the 30-year Gilt yield scaled to levels not seen since the late 1990s, along with long-dated Japanese bond yields.

Tech stocks, which had been leading the market to record highs got battered by the spike in yields. The Nasdaq-100 index dropped 1.5% on Friday, marking its worst one-day performance since March 27.

Oil prices pared earlier gains. International benchmark Brent crude futures for July added 0.79% to trade at $110.12 per barrel.

Portfolio:

We’re stepping into a strong-looking trading week with setups in TSLL, AAOX, PLUG, NVTS, MX, and ACHR. The spotlight is firmly on NVIDIA heading into Wednesday, and it’s shaping up to be a major catalyst for near-term opportunity.

The broader market still looks like it wants to push higher, but expect some turbulence along the way. That doesn’t necessarily mean a sharp drawdown—it could just as easily show up as rotation into more defensive names while high-growth areas like memory and AI compute take a breather. Given the current momentum, I’m not seeing signs of a breakdown yet, which keeps the “buy the dip” mindset intact.

Bearish gap fills should act as resistance, and the key will be whether bulls can step in quickly to reclaim those levels. If they can’t, that’s when you start watching for a more structured pullback—potentially in that 5–8% range.

For now, nothing has materially changed in the bigger picture. The trend is still intact—until it isn’t.

There are plenty of names coiled and ready to move, and new themes continue to emerge, especially with renewed interest around SpaceX and the broader space trade. But in the short term, this remains an AI-driven market, and NVDA is the key piece of that puzzle.

Patience over the next few sessions will matter. The opportunities are there, we just don’t need to force them.  Today we want to see flow and price action.  I am more interested as to where we stand tomorrow heading into the close.