Weekly Prep for Aug 3, 2026
From CHoCH to MSS: Why the Discount Zone Is Where You Look, Not Where You Buy.
Disclaimer: This content is intended for educational purposes only and should not be considered financial advice. Any trading or investment decisions are solely the responsibility of the reader, based on their own risk tolerance and market analysis.
Today’s Update:
Market Overview and Economic Calendar
Trade Plan (Hourly): SPX, QQQ, DIA, IWM, SMH, VIX
Mag 7 Update: AAPL, AMZN, GOOG, MSFT, META, NVDA, and TSLA
Crypto: BTC, ETH, COIN, MSTR
Commodities: GLD, SLV, Crude
Macros: TLT, TNX, DXY
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New here? Start with the blog. Everything in these posts — liquidity, FVGs, SMT, market structure shifts — is built on a framework I teach at https://www.rbanalytics.net/blog. Read those and my levels stop being numbers on a chart and start being a language you can read yourself.
Discount Code for Substack.
📈 Market Overview
For the last few weeks we’ve graded this market against the same four-point checklist: sweep, SMT, MSS, and higher-timeframe FVG. Let’s run it, because after last week three of the four have moved — and one of them is the whole story going into next week.
1. Sweep — DONE. NAS ran ~1,100 points below 28,218 after FOMC, the deep capitulation flush, then reversed. SPX swept 7,290. Both pools paid. This was the step that held everything up for three weeks, and it’s complete.
2. SMT — DONE. The broad divergence played out exactly as tracked — NAS and semis made the lows while the rest of the complex held, then all turned together. Context confirmed.
3. MSS — IN PROGRESS. This is the one to watch. Both indexes printed the CHoCH — the first break against the downtrend, labeled on the charts at 28,021 on NAS and 7,451 on SPX — and made one higher high. But a CHoCH is not an MSS. The shift only confirms when the higher low holds and price drives through the higher high with displacement. That hasn’t happened yet, and it’s the single most important thing to grade next week. So we’re going deep on this one below.
4. Higher-timeframe FVG — FORMING ON 4H, NEEDS THE DAILY. The rally built bullish 4H fair value gaps on the way up. But per the timeframe rule, this is a corrective, higher-timeframe question — I want to see daily FVGs being created next week to call the higher-timeframe gate truly open. 4H gaps are the start; the daily is the confirmation.
So: two gates confirmed, MSS in progress, and the daily FVG still to come. The setup is the best it’s been all cycle — and it hinges on how the MSS resolves. That’s where the rest of this post lives.