Aiphetlea
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ALPHATICA WEEKEND UPDATE | July 18, 2026
SPY closed $743.29. Down 0.99% Friday. Here's the full read heading into next week.
THE STRUCTURE:
The shock absorber: -$1.1B. Negative. Still amplifying moves in both directions. The monthly OpEx cleared 2.72 million puts Friday but the structure remains negative.
The flip: $751.00. 1.1% above price. Price is below the positive regime boundary. The structure is in negative gamma. To return to the positive regime, price needs to reclaim $751.
8 of 10 top GEX levels are accelerators:
$740: -$140M (0.4% below)
$735: -$119M (1.1% below)
$745: -$96M (0.2% above)
$730: -$94M (1.8% below)
$750: -$83M (0.9% above)
$725: -$78M (2.5% below)
$710: -$72M (4.5% below)
$720: -$64M (3.1% below)
$760: +$65M magnet (2.2% above)
$800: +$68M magnet (7.6% above)
Only two magnets. Both far above price. The near-term structure is entirely accelerators. This is the weakest magnet read since the June rebalancing.
THE ENGINE:
Net dealer delta: +3.0M shares. Barely positive. The engine survived but just barely. For context, this was +134M at the cycle peak two weeks ago. The forced-buying loop is running at minimum power.
THE FLOW:
Net daily delta: -35.4M. Bearish. $1.86M puts opened vs $1.36M calls. Net premium: -$269M put-heavy at 44% call. The institutions are buying puts, not calls. The flow is directionally bearish.
IV: 14.8%. Normalized from the 25-33% post-close spike Friday evening. Realized vol at 14.2%. The IV/realized spread at +0.6% is FAIR. Not elevated. Not cheap. Neutral pricing.
Skew: +1.06%. Mild bearish. Puts slightly more expensive than calls. The bullish skew that preceded prior recoveries is absent.
Max pain: $739. 0.6% below price. Expiration gravity pulls down slightly.
THE PATTERNS (SHIFTED):
The pattern picture changed this week. The net bias moved from heavily bullish to MIXED.
TOP BUYS:
1. Double Bottom (7/7 STRONG): 88% success. Target $796.78. Neckline $756.68. The strongest bullish pattern. The two lows at $722.59 and $716.58 form the base.
2. Reverse Head and Shoulders (5/7 MODERATE): 90% success. Breakout $754.54. Target $792.51. Stage 3: complete, neckline test. The head at $716.58, right shoulder at $739.51.
3. Cup and Handle (5/7 MODERATE): 84% success. Breakout $755.58. Target $794.58. Stop $740.80.
TOP SELLS:
1. Distribution (5/7 MODERATE): 69% success. Average decline -6.3%. Six lower highs detected. Average down-bar volume exceeding up-bar volume.
2. Double Top (5/7 MODERATE): 66% success. Breakdown $722.59. Target $686.87. The two highs at $758.31 and $756.68.
3. Bear Flag (5/7 MODERATE): 65% success. Breakdown $740.80. This is a NEW bearish pattern that appeared this week.
THE PROBABILITY COMPARISON:
Bullish patterns average: 87% success rate.
Bearish patterns average: 67% success rate.
The bullish patterns still carry higher base rates. But the gap narrowed from the prior weeks where bullish averaged 90%+ and bearish averaged 62%. The shift reflects the structural deterioration from the Google Gemini delay and the Warsh comments.
THE CRITICAL LEVELS:
$754.54: Reverse H&S breakout. Above this: the 90% pattern confirms.
$751.00: GEX flip. Above this: positive regime returns.
$743.29: at price.
$740.80: Bear flag breakdown AND Cup & Handle stop. Below this: bearish patterns activate.
$739.00: max pain.
$722.59: Double Top breakdown. Below this: $686.87 target.
The $740.80 level is the most important on the chart. It's simultaneously the bear flag breakdown, the cup and handle stop loss, and sits near the $740 accelerator at -$140M. A close below $740.80 activates the bearish patterns and invalidates one bullish pattern. A hold above it keeps the bullish thesis alive.
MONDAY:
Monday's 0DTE expiration strips an estimated -$191.8M of negative gamma. 263K contracts (126K calls, 137K puts). That improves the shock absorber from -$1.1B toward roughly -$908M. A modest improvement. The structure remains negative. The real catalysts are earnings and whether the Google Gemini delay gets digested over the weekend.
Tech companies start to report. The Google Gemini question (company-specific or thesis-wide) gets answered as competitors report their AI progress. Each earnings report either confirms or contradicts the AI capability concern.
WEDNESDAY (ONE OF THE HEAVIEST EARNINGS DAY OF THE QUARTER):
Five major names report on the same day: GOOGL, TSLA, IBM, TXN, and NOW.
GOOGL is the one the market is watching most. The Gemini delay drove Friday's selloff. Wednesday's earnings call is where management addresses it directly. Did the delay cost revenue? Is the timeline to launch defined? Is the AI thesis intact? The market's answer to "company-specific or thesis-wide" starts here.
TSLA reports the same day. The consumer demand bellwether alongside the AI infrastructure names.
IBM and TXN provide the enterprise and semiconductor data points. Both names we track in our Earnings Quality Signal.
NOW rounds out the software side. The AI monetization story from the enterprise software perspective.
THURSDAY: INTC reports. The turnaround story with the foundry pivot.
We will have earnings coverage on all six names. Flow data, structural reads, and signal updates before and after each report.
THE BOTTOM LINE:
The structure is negative. The patterns shifted to mixed. The flow is bearish. The engine is barely positive. Two new bearish patterns appeared.
But the bullish patterns still carry higher success rates (87% vs 67%). The $740.80 level determines which set of patterns wins.
This is the most contested setup since the rebalancing began. The data is mixed. We report it as mixed. Both sides have levels. Both sides have probabilities. $740.80 is the line. Next week resolves it.
$743.29 is at price. $751 is the flip. $740.80 is the line. Earnings next week.
$SPY $QQQ $GOOGL
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