On Thursday, Delta Air Lines Inc. (DAL), the first major airline to report Q2 earnings, delivered robust earnings and an optimistic full-year outlook. DAL cited better than expected financial results, strong demand for premium and international travel, and restored full-year guidance, leading to the DAL’s stock to shoot up almost 12% for the day. The stock is still a 3 for 5'er and has shown relative weakness against its peers. However, this event triggered a broader ripple effect across the airline industry, with other airline stocks seeing notable rallies, as shown by the chart below.

United Airlines Holdings Inc. (UAL) is set to report earnings after market close on July 16, 2025. UAL is a 4 for 5’er, after moving into a positive trend earlier this month, and ranks in the top half of the aerospace airline sector matrix. Following the 14% spike on Thursday, the stock reversed into a column of Os on Friday, providing a pullback opportunity for those looking to gain exposure. The technical picture for UAL is strong and improving. Initial support can be seen at $80, with additional support and the bullish support line seen at $77. Investors are closely watching UAL’s earnings, as its performance could set the tone for Southwest Airlines (LUV) & American Airlines (AAL), which are set to report July 23 and July 24, respectively, after market close.

Although not commonly cited in NDW’s analyst observations, it should be noted that airline stocks carry elevated volatility, as quantified by their RRisk & Beta. For diversified exposure to the global airline industry, consider investing in the U.S. Global Jets ETF (JETS), which tracks a broad range of airline stocks worldwide. The ETF’s top four holdings include UAL, DAL, AAL, and LUV, with each of them representing just over 10% of the fund’s total weight. JETS moved into a positive trend in mid-May and currently sits on its third consecutive buy signal. Along with a strong fund score of 5.35, JETS also has a positive score direction of 3.80. This means that JETS has moved up from a fund score low of 1.55 within the past 6 months to a fund score of 5.35. The weekly OBOS indicates that the fund is nearing overbought levels, but is still within favorable levels. Long exposure can be considered here. Initial resistance can be at $27, its multi-year high. Initial support is at $21.50, with additional support at $19.

Markets have rung in Q3 with a slew of new all-time highs, bringing with it a handful of interesting psychological biases. For us trend followers, the lack of resistance for major domestic equities makes it a bit more difficult to pinpoint specific price targets on charts. From a psychological standpoint, this presents itself in a handful of well-studied theories, namely the anchoring bias which uses previous/initial information (in this case previous highs) as an anchor point to make other data (new-all time highs) seem comparatively “unrealistic.”  Some other clients may not wish to play into the “Greater Fools Theory” which suggests that an asset's value can be artificially inflated as long as one person can find someone else “dumber” to buy it at a higher price. Both of these can subconsciously impact all of us, but even more so our clients who watch the headlines day in and day out. Skepticism of “perceived value” of markets can cause clients to doubt their investment roadmap you have built for them, sending them off track over the course of their lifetime. Today’s article will attempt to give you ammo to speak to different clients about how “staying the course” around all-time highs is critical over time.

We will start our study by introducing three hypothetical portfolios. Each starts in January of 1950 with $100. At the end of each month, each portfolio will aim to add an additional $500 to the pot, simulating a respective client contributing to an account over the course of their lifetime. The first portfolio will do this, month in and month out, without question. This will be our “Average Joe” portfolio (baseline.) The second portfolio, nicknamed our “Skeptical” Investor,” will add $500 to the portfolio as normal unless markets are at/near all time highs (within 5%) and overbought (SPX with weekly OBOS of >70%.) In this case, he will skip out on his monthly and investment and roll it over until the next month, when he will try again. He isn’t in a rush to buy something overvalued, so if markets stay overbought for multiple months, he will wait. When things do eventually cool down and aren’t overbought, he will deploy all his saved up cash into SPX at once. Finally, our third investor, nicknamed “scared investor” will add $500 to his portfolio as normal, unless markets are previously defined “overbought.” At that point, he will start getting nervous, saving his monthly contributions for the “big pullback” his neighbor recently told him about. He will continue saving until he is convinced markets are now oversold, defined by a weekly OBOS reading of <-70 for SPX, at which point he will regain confidence and dump all his saved contributions into the market.

Obviously, this isn’t completely realistic. In the real world, contributions will change over time and can happen at any point throughout the month. Regardless, the sandbox scenario provides some insight into how your different client types can react around all-time highs. The table below details each portfolio’s value over time, ending with data through 7/15. Putting aside immense success of each portfolio (each grew to over 20 million on their initial $100 with monthly contributions,) the “Average Joe” who bought regardless of market condition saw the best performing portfolio over the entire study. Again, its worth noting that our “skeptical” and “scared” clients still did quite well… but in their attempts to avoid overbought markets at all time highs, they wiped out 950k-1.3 million from their ending value. Some would make the argument that starting in 1950 is entirely impractical. The math holds true for more realistic starting points. A similar study starting in 1980 (initiation of traditional 401k contributions) or 2000 (more “modern” times) reveal very similar statistics.

All of this to say, we can’t stop our clients from getting nervous around all-time highs (or any other market environment for that matter.). We can, however, provide a roadmap to explain that more often than not, simply continuing to buy into a strong market can pay off (or at least doesn't hurt) regardless of how it may feel to do so.

Each week the analysts at NDW review and comment on all major asset classes in the global markets. Shown below is the summary or snapshot of the primary technical indicators we follow for multiple areas. Should there be changes mid-week we will certainly bring these to your attention via the report.

Remember, these are technical comments only. Just as you must be aware of fundamental data for the stocks we recommend based on technical criteria in the report, so too must you be aware of important data regarding delivery, market moving government releases, and other factors that may influence commodity pricing. We try to limit our technical comments to the most actively traded contracts in advance of delivery, but some contracts trade actively right up to delivery while others taper off well in advance. Be sure you check your dates before trading these contracts. For questions regarding this section or additional coverage of commodities email james.west@nasdaq.com.

Data represented in the table below is through 07/15/25:

Portfolio View - Commodity Indices

Cryptocurrency Update

Cryptocurrency Video (3:15)

Daily Option Ideas for July 16, 2025