THIS WEEK IN TREND: 24 July 2026

The question this column left open a week ago has an answer. Energy held its breakout and led the board again, up 3.51 percent as Crude Oil Brent added 9.85 percent and Crude Oil WTI 9.21 percent on top of the double-digit gains they had already posted, with Heating Oil up 2.85 percent, though the advance narrowed as Gasoline RBOB stalled at 0.09 percent and Natural Gas fell 1.37 percent. The rest of the commodity complex turned up behind it. Metals rose 1.38 percent as Silver gained 4.58 percent, Grains firmed 1.30 percent with Corn up 4.38 percent and Soybean Meal 4.09 percent, the Meats recovered 0.72 percent with all three contracts higher, and Soft Commodities edged up 0.35 percent as Lumber rose 3.07 percent. The financial sectors moved the other way and moved together: the Equity Indices eased 0.47 percent in a shallow pullback, Currencies fell 0.58 percent as the US dollar strengthened against six of the seven other contracts in the basket, Bonds dropped 0.81 percent across the whole curve with the 30 Year Bond off 1.51 percent, and Bitcoin fell 1.71 percent. The VIX dropped 4.67 percent, unwinding the jump it made a week earlier. Contract-level breadth did not move at all, holding at 23 of the 49 contracts higher against 26 lower, exactly as it had the previous week.

The TTU Trend Barometer added just 2 points to 52 percent, the overall trend strength classification holding at Strong but the reading staying inside the upper part of the Neutral band, three points short of the 55 percent threshold into a favourable environment for a second consecutive week. The five-week sequence now reads 55, 64, 39, 50, 52, and the 10-day rate of change moved up from Neutral to Rising Weakly, the near-term pace turning higher without much force behind it. The barometer measures the share of markets generating medium-to-strong trends, not this week’s direction, so a board where most contracts closed lower can still lift the reading. It rose because established moves firmed and lengthened rather than because new markets joined them: crude ran into its second week, Bonds fell across all four contracts in strict order of duration, the dollar strengthened against almost the entire basket, and four grains contracts advanced together.

The lesson sat in the gap between how little conditions changed and how much the returns did. The SG Trend Index added roughly 2.38 points to reach 10.47 percent year to date, and July turned from a loss of 0.95 percent to a gain of 1.24 percent inside the month, a weekly return of close to 2.2 percent. Breadth had not moved at all and the barometer had advanced by two points on a scale of a hundred, yet the index swung from giving back roughly half a point to adding well over two. The difference was not the environment. It was that the moves on the board were continuations of positions already carried rather than reversals against them. Crude extended a breakout that was two weeks old, so books that had rotated into energy early were carried rather than chasing. Bonds fell across the curve in the same gradient they have traced for weeks, the dollar extended a trend running since the spring, and the grains complex pushed further up ranges it has climbed all year. Portfolio returns depend less on how many markets trend than on whether the trends already held survive, and this week they survived. A book positioned along the energy advance, short the curve and long the dollar needed to do nothing at all to be paid.

The week leaves a divergence worth watching. Metals ranked second on the board, but the gains came from Gold, Silver, Platinum and Palladium bouncing at the lows of declines that have run since February, not from those declines turning. Copper was the exception, holding near the top of a climb it has extended all year. Grains offer the contrast, four contracts advancing at or near the top of long uptrends where the weekly percentages and the chart structure agree. Whether the bounce in the precious metals develops into a genuine turn against the positions that have just been paid, or fades back into the move that has held for months, is what the coming weeks will decide. For trend followers, the signal to watch is persistence, not direction.

Top Movers (Up): Crude Oil Brent (Energy) plus 9.85 percent Crude Oil WTI (Energy) plus 9.21 percent Silver (Metals) plus 4.58 percent Corn (Grains) plus 4.38 percent Soybean Meal (Grains) plus 4.09 percent

Top Movers (Down): VIX (Volatility Index) minus 4.67 percent Oats (Grains) minus 4.09 percent Cocoa (Soft Commodities) minus 2.84 percent Coffee (Soft Commodities) minus 2.03 percent Nasdaq 100 (Equity Indices) minus 1.71 percent

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