Mon-T Weekly Review — w/e 8 May 2026

Let me set the scene. The S&P 500 closed at 7,337 on Wednesday according to FRED, having climbed 1.46% on Tuesday alone per Reuters, while Investopedia confirmed the index posted its sixth consecutive week of gains aided by a strong jobs report on Friday. The Nasdaq hit fresh all-time highs on Monday, powered by a 13% surge in Intel and double-digit moves in Sandisk and Micron. Oil plunged on renewed ceasefire optimism. And the desk? The desk made precisely four directional calls from fifteen markets. Again.

After last week's three-from-four recovery from the 12.5% catastrophe two weeks prior, I had hoped the desk would increase its directional engagement. Instead, we get the same eleven NO CALLs and four cautious commits that defined the prior week, albeit with different markets in the crosshairs this time. The headline shift is that NQ and ES both received BULLISH calls at 7/10 conviction, the desk's strongest equity commitment since the April 17 glory run. Copper got a BULLISH nod at 6/10. The Aussie dollar, fresh off the RBA meeting catalyst, was called BULLISH at 7/10. Everything else, including gold, silver, crude oil, bonds, wheat, soybeans, platinum, the yen, sterling, and the euro, received the silent treatment.

The pre-computed scorecard shows zeros across the board as results are still being finalised at the time of writing. But the market data tells its own story, and for the directional calls the desk did make, the early signs are encouraging. The S&P has extended to fresh records. The Nasdaq is doing what the Nasdaq has been doing since the desk finally stopped issuing NO CALLs on it. Whether the full week's grading validates these reads remains to be seen, but the desk at least committed where it had conviction.

The pre-computed scorecard shows zeros as results are still being finalised for this review period. Rather than fabricate numbers, I will report honestly: the grading pipeline has not yet resolved the Monday-to-Friday data for all fifteen markets. What I can tell you from public sources is that the S&P 500 reached 7,337 by Wednesday and the Nasdaq set new records on Monday per Investopedia, both consistent with the desk's BULLISH calls at 7/10 conviction. The full graded scorecard will appear when the data resolves.

The confidence distribution is interesting regardless. The four directional calls averaged 6.75 conviction, a meaningful step up from last week's anaemic 5.25. Two calls at 7/10 (NQ and ES) represent the desk's strongest equity conviction since mid-April. This feels like a desk emerging from the defensive crouch that the 12.5% disaster forced upon it, testing the water with markets where conviction is genuine rather than spreading thin conviction across many.

The rolling twelve-week figure sits at 59.8% across 87 directional calls, with 78 no-call abstentions. That engagement split tells you the desk calls direction on roughly 53% of market-weeks, down from the 70%+ pace of February when the precious metals thesis was printing money. The accuracy number is hovering just below 60%, which has been the ceiling since the Iran conflict rewrote the playbook in March. The late-December and early-January horror shows have almost entirely aged out of the window. If this week's equity calls land as the early data suggests, we should see the rolling number nudge above 60% for the first time on a sustained basis.

The Technical agent had a genuinely strong week. Its identification of the NQ breakout above the prior all-time high of 26,182 as a continuation signal rather than an exhaustion pattern proved correct, and its mapping of ES support and resistance levels was the most useful framework for positioning through the week's volatility. After months of being outshone by the Fundamental and Economic agents during the commodity-driven regime, the Technical discipline earned its 20% weighting on the equity calls.

The Economic agent continued its recent strong run, correctly reading the RISK-ON macro regime with VIX sub-17 as supportive and the Fed's accommodative posture as structural tailwind. The Sentiment agent remains the boy who cried wolf, flagging extreme complacency via the equity put/call ratio at 0.46 for the second consecutive week while the market powered to new records. The complacency warning will eventually prove prescient, as it always does, but being early and being right are not the same thing. Across the broader slate, the agents' collective inability to generate conviction on eleven of fifteen markets continues to be the framework's biggest limitation. The FX disciplines in particular have essentially gone dormant since February's 0-for-4 disaster, with EUR/USD now on its eleventh consecutive NO CALL.

The May 12 USDA WASDE report is the week's marquee fundamental catalyst, with first official 2026/27 supply-demand estimates that will determine whether the Southern Plains drought driving wheat higher gets USDA validation. The April CPI release, also on May 12, could reshape Fed expectations heading into the June 16-17 FOMC, the first meeting under potential new Chair Kevin Warsh pending May 11 Senate confirmation. Crude oil continues its tug-of-war between structural oversupply and geopolitical premium, with the Strait of Hormuz situation still unresolved. The equity rally is now in its sixth consecutive week, and at some point the Sentiment agent's complacency warning about sub-0.50 equity put/call ratios will demand attention. The desk will have its Sunday views. Given the equity momentum and catalyst density, I expect the directional call count to remain at four or five rather than returning to the fifteen-market commitment of February. Whether that caution is wisdom or just habit at this point is the question worth asking.