What happened
A powerful V-recovery from the hawkish-Fed dip: the Nasdaq-100 ripped 2.5% higher, back above all its daily averages, retesting the 30,780 record. Small caps led. On price alone, a five-star bull day.
Then the asterisk — the largest of the period. Both participation gauges FELL hard during the rally: broad from 60.6% to 55%, tech from 55% to 48%. Prices pressing records while the number of participating stocks shrinks is the textbook 'stagnation divergence' — the single highest-conviction cycle-peak pattern in the framework's playbook, the same fingerprint 1999 and 2021 left behind.
The dashboard
Below the 60% line — the index is being carried by a minority of its stocks.
0.03 points ABOVE the 77.88 threshold — provisional; only the month-end close counts.
Mid-range — momentum neither stretched nor washed out.
Positive — more stocks advancing than declining on balance.
The trend at a glance
Reference levels on this date
| Reference | Level | Plain meaning |
|---|---|---|
| NDX · 200-day average | 25,832 | The long-term trend line. |
| NDX · deep-value band (QEMA5) | 25,606 | The quarterly EMA-5 — the zone that has caught nearly every major dip this cycle. |
| SPX · 200-day average | 6,903 | The long-term trend line. |
| SPX · deep-value band (QEMA5) | 6,748 | The equivalent deep-support reference for the broad index. |
Framework read
A rising index that fewer and fewer stocks agree with. The framework doesn't call tops on this alone — but it never ignores it either.