Interesting TACs of the Week (February 2 – February 8, 2026)

Summary – A top-down review of interesting calls and comments made last week in Treasuries, monetary policy, economics, stocks, bonds & commodities. TAC is our acronym for Tweets, Articles, & Clips – our basic inputs for this article.

Editor’s Note: In this series of articles, we include important or interesting Tweets, Articles, Video Clips with our comments. This is an article that expresses our personal opinions about comments made on Television, Tweeter, and in Print. It is NOT intended to provide any investment advice of any type whatsoever. No one should base any investing decisions or conclusions based on anything written in or inferred from this article. Macro Viewpoints & its affiliates expressly disclaim all liability in respect to actions taken based on any or all of the information in this article. Investing is a serious matter and all investment decisions should only be taken after a detailed discussion with your investment advisor and should be subject to your objectives, suitability requirements and risk tolerance.

 

1. Markets Last Week:

What a week it was! Nice up move on Monday followed by a 3-day selloff ending with a huge short covering rally. Is the volatility past its peak? We don’t know. But we won’t be surprised if this was a violent regurgitation that might have been cleaned out by Thursday’s rout that reached its own climax. We are not that worried because we have not seen a violent correction turn into a sustained selloff in early February. Usually that happens in April. But that is but a non-logical, non-supportable feeling. 

1.1 US Indices:

• VIX up 4.8% at 17.76; Dow up 2.5%; SPX down 10 bps; RSP up 2.1%; NDX down 1.9%; SMH down 45 bps; RUT down 1%; MDY up 4.4%; XLU up 23 bps;

We have been lucky in the past beginning with the line below. Will our luck continue?

• Trader Z@angrybear168 – $SPY weekly tension closed bullish.

And,

• Seth Golden@SethCL – Friday –  Bottoming Signal Emerging – Each time P/C Ratio (top panel) got to .95 or greater AND the VIX rate-of-change above 25% (middle panel), $SPX has bottomed (bottom panel) within 7 days (trailing 1-yr) $SPX $QQQ $NYA $IWM $IGV $SMH $CPC $VIX $VVIX

 

Friday was an explosive up day with Dow up 1207 points. But Thursday was horrible & those who stepped up on Thursday to say “Buy” did their viewers good.

• Subu Trade@SubuTrade – Thu – Bitcoin is getting crushed. Bitcoin’s RSI is below 21, the most oversold since 2023. Similar oversold conditions saw Bitcoin rally 9 out of 10 times the next

What about the advance/decline line?

• Ryan Detrick, CMT@RyanDetrick – Thu – New highs on the NYSE advance/decline line yesterday. This is one of the broadest baskets of stocks you can find and market breadth just made a new high. Not bearish.

And,

• Seth Golden@SethCL – Thu – Major oversold condition for Nasdaq 100 $NDX $QQQ; Historically, this is a profound buying opportunity when in a bull market. Highest reading since April 2025, marking a bottoming point. $TQQQ $COMPQ $SPX $SPY $AAPL $IGV $XLK

 

1.2.Key Stocks:

• AAPL up 7.2%; AMZN down 12.1%; GOOGL down 4.5%; META down 7.7%; MSFT down 6.8%; NFLX down 1.6%; NVDA down 3.2%; MU down 4.9%; BAC up 6.3%; C up 6%; GS down 71 bps; JPM up 5.4%; KRE up 7%; EUFN down 3 bps;  SCHW up 1.1%; APO down 1.1%; BX down 8.9%; KKR down 9.7%.

Momentum stocks?

• Mike Zaccardi, CFA, CMT 🍖@MikeZaccardi – Fri – $MTUM momentum ETF best day since the April bottom

What about IGV & actually about its best component?

• Seth Golden@SethCL – Thu – Microsoft’s $MSFT forward P/E is near 24X. The lowest of the range seen during this bull market. The last 2 times valuations reached these levels, the stock staged a rebound. If Software sector $IGV is going to go, it starts with MSFT. $NOW $PLTR $ORCL $SNOW $QQQ $SPY $CRM $ADBE h/t @Bluekurtic

But what about IGV itself?

• Mike Zaccardi, CFA, CMT 🍖@MikeZaccardi Thu – $IGV approaching long-term support near $75… I remember plotting ‘next support’ on $XLF in 2008-09 too; More from me on software suffering: https://articles.stockcharts.com/article/the-claude-crash-how-ai-triggered-a-historic-selloff-in-software-stocks/ @stockcharts

Whether the message of the market was “market broadening” or otherwise, Richard Bernstein, one of the “really good guys” deserved to beam. 

 

1.3 Dollar, Commodities & International Stocks:

Dollar was up 60 bps on UUP & up 48 bps on DXY: 

• Gold up 2.2%; GDX up 3.4%; Silver down 14%; Copper down 1.2%; CLF up 7.1%;  FCX up 73 bps; MOS up 4%; Oil down 3.5%; Brent down 4%; OIH up 5.4%; XLE up 4.3%;

International Stocks:

• EEM up 1.6%; FXI down 98 bps; KWEB down 3%; EWZ up 1.4%; EWY up 1.9%; EWG up 97 bps; INDA up 3%; INDY up 2.8%; EPI up 2.8%; SMIN up 2.3%;

Second week in a row, Indian Stocks rallied & outperformed. Last week, David Rosenberg labelled India as “one country that is sticking out“. This week Larry Fink, excuse us, Mr. Lawrence Fink went so far as to say:

• “… when you think about the growth of India, it’s not a quarter, it’s not a day or week, it’s not a year, it’s over a long horizon. And you could say maybe this is the era for India and over the next 20 25 years“. 

We sincerely concur with Mr. Fink. Jeffrey Gundlach used to say put money in Indian stocks & don’t look at them and your grandkids would thank you. He will be proved right as well. We urge all to view the long clip below that features both Larry Fink and Mukesh Ambani, the head of Reliance & Jio.

 

Another luminary we respect also spoke about EM in general this past week. When asked how he was positioned ahead, Rick Rieder of BlackRock said on Bloomberg:

 

2.5 Treasuries & Interest Rates:

• TLT up 47 bps; EDV up 1.1%; ZROZ up 1.2%; HYG down 38 bps; JNK down 43 bps;
• 30-year Treasury yield down 3.8 bps on the week; 20-yr yield down 3.5 bps; 10-yr down 4.3 bps; 7-yr down 5.2 bps; 5-yr down 4.2 bps; 3-yr down 2.8 bps; 2-yr down 3.1 bps; 1-yr down 3.4 bps;

The 10-yr yield did barely close above 4.2%, a key spot for the below:

• Mike Zaccardi, CFA, CMT 🍖@MikeZaccardi – $TNX 10yr yield... is that a bearish Batman pattern playing out? @StockCharts – 4.20% key spot

In contrast, Bob Michele of JPM Asset Management says the 10-yr yield will break below 4%. He said:

• “when we look at the bond market, we see economy running at trend this year; we see inflation a little bit higher at 2.5%, nothing that’s going to get the Fed worried & may be the Fed will on hold for awhile; the bond seems to have priced all of that in…”
• “companies we lend to … they are very cautious about price increases ; they would see sales fall … we see base effects of tariffs starting to roll off & companies being thoughtful about price increases going forward”
• “if the administration is genuinely interested about getting mortgage rates down & unlocking the housing market, one way to do that is to bring the 10-yr down by cutting the amount of supply in 10-yr & 30-yr Treasuries…”

 

Greg Davis of Vanguard was clear in saying that he doesn’t see tremendous value in domestic equities today; they are advising people who have been in 60-40 portfolios to move to 40-60 portfolios with 60% in bonds. He added that we have seen a significant rise in interest rates at 4.2% – pricing a nice premium to where inflation is today; this decade going forward you are earning a yield by investing in bonds adding Bonds Are Back!

 

 

2. Geopolitical Musings

2.1 Xi vs. Youxia

Last week was an interesting week for Asia with no resolution in sight for the Xi Jin Ping vs. Zhang Youxia & his supporters in the PLA. It is somewhat clear that this is now an event that has repeated often in China – the power struggle between Communist Party & the Chinese Army. It even goes back to Chairman Mao to be repeated with Deng Xiaoping and a couple of other occasions. As an analyst with years of experience remarked last week that previous such conflicts have been marked by Chinese army attacking its neighbors, the last major one being the PLA’s disastrous invasion of Vietnam.

The fresh clip below offers a different angle from Xi’s point of view. The biggest recent shock to China was the abduction of Maduro of Venezuela and the fact that it was done by an agreement with the Venezuelan military. The analyst involved is the Former Foreign Secretary of the Government of India:

From a different angle, during the last week of December 25, a Chinese spokesman threatened India with war if India did not stop its buildup of defenses on its line of control with China.  And General Zhang Youxia himself gave a speech that admitted a huge strategic mistake by China – the mistake that China kept thinking of India as a large country with a large land army that is critically dependent on military imports. Translation was that India was incapable of waging a non-short conflict with China. Gen. Youxia admitted that the cardinal mistake of China was to not understand that India was becoming a theater power with high precision weapons. His unstated point was that it was too late to stop India’s development as a theater-power. This clip, as we discovered while writing this, has been removed from YouTube.

Around that time, specifically on December 26, 25, we saw the following clip emerge that tracks a potential 4-month war between China & India. Launched as a quick lesson to India by Xi Jin Ping, it becomes a 4-month war that ends in a ceasefire with no real change to the line of control. It is an interesting clip   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7hT23lcJ84 that tracks the original 2-pronged Chinese attack in Ladakh in the west & Arunachal Pradesh in the east. 

The bottom line is that the war in Ladakh & Arunachal Pradesh was a draw with India playing defense but the Indian Navy proved that they could close the Malacca Straits causing serious economic damage to China. The real interesting point is that this clip emerged just when Gen. Youxia was making his points about China ignoring India’s military rise to a theater-power. 

 

2.2 Balochistan-Khyber Pakhtunkhawa-NaPakistan

We have been writing about the struggle for independence or democratic rule in Balochistan since 2022. All that pales into insignificance given the 11 coincident attacks by Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) last week. Allow us to serially point out why Balochistan is important & how the struggle reached a new military & political level last week.

2.2.1 Why is Balochistan critical for USA?

Just look at the map below. Everybody knows how Iran has become a major issue for America & right now there is a US naval taskforce in the middle east waters to deal with Iran if necessary.  The Balochis were broken up into those living in Sistan province in Iran (in orange above) and a larger group living in the Balochistan province in Na-Pakistan. 

If you were a military strategist/commander would you not try to persuade the Balochis inside Napakistan to enable access to Iran from Napakistan? More importantly, would you not demand that Na-Paki military, so dependent on US funding & political support, enable operations into Iran-Sistan from Napaki-Balochistan?

Now look at the size of Balochistan province (yellow in the map below right)  inside Na-Pakistan? Balochistan has 44% of the land of Na-Pak with only 7% of the people. So lots of room to for military operations, right? Apparently both Israel & Turkey are present inside Na-Paki Balochistan. And there is now talk in the Indian free web-media that the Pakistani Army and Erdogan of Turkey double-crossed USA & informed the IRGC in Iran about US plans to enter Iran thru Na-Paki Balochistan.  Is that why the Na-Paki military leaders are now cast aside from the good graces of the USA? 

 

2.2.2 BLA attack at 11 Na-Paki military installations across Balochistan

The map below should help understand the geographical scale of the BLA attacks:

Begin at Gawadar port that has been leased out to China under the China-Pakistan-Economic Corridor project & go up the green -red road map to Quetta, the regional capital of Balochistan. 

Eleven different Na-Paki military installations were attacked with ferocity & they held the regional capital of Quetta for a 1-2 days. It is reported that the Generals in charge & their Brigadiers flew out of Quetta in military helicopters to Islamabad just before the Balochi forces attacked Quetta. At the other end in Gwadar, there were reports of Chinese suffering casualties in the attack on Gwadar. And soon there were reports that the Chinese were pulling out of Gwadar, at least temporarily. 

Imagine how Beijing feels? They invested $60-$70 billion in Venezuela which has doubtful residual value now; they invested a similar amount in CPEC with its prize of the Gwadar port & that now has limited residual value. 

Short time after the Balochi attacks, we recall seeing a line item go across saying the USA is willing to consider new nation in Balochistan & Khyber-Pakhtunkhawa essentially splitting the current Napaki state into 2 vertical halfs. Wow! Doesn’t that say that the US does NOT think the current NaPaki state has any chance of rebuilding its authority inside Balochistan!!

2.2.3 – Entry of Balochi Women 

Two women fighter-commanders gained national stature in this BLA attack – Hawa Baloch & Asifa Mengal. The story of Hawa Baloch is sheer gruesome – reportedly her two younger sisters were raped by the Na-Paki forces; they were then killed & their bodies were thrown away by the side of the road as a gesture of contempt. That made Ms Hawa Baloch join the BLA. Asifa Mengal has a similar tragic tale. There is a saying that when the women begin to fight against the oppressor, the battle is nearly over.

2.2.4 – a la Afghanistan?

The Balochi fighters (BLA+BLF) do not have enough people to hold the cities they attacked & seized. So they are fighting the way the Afghans fought; the cities remained under the physical occupation of foreign forces but the countryside & the nights belong to the fighters. Reminds you of Afghanistan?

The state above Balochistan is Khyber Pakhtunkhawa (KP), the state of the Pakhtuns inside Na-Pakistan. The Pakhtuns have essentially banned the Na-Paki army from entering KP. And now they are physical allies of the Baloch. Now you understand why the US sensibly has said they might be willing to recognize a new state comprising of KP + Balochistan & leaving Panjab & Sindh as a vertical partition of Na-Pakistan. If that happens, the US aid might change direction & flow into the new Balochi-KP state, leaving Na-Pak even more destitute than it is today. And what if China makes a deal with the Baloch for Gwadar port, what revenue remains with the remaining Na-Pak?

 2.2.5 – A terrorist runt-state?

Reportedly the Napaki army has made a deal with the LeT & ISIS terrorist Sunni Jihadi factions to fight the breakaway Balochis & Pakhtuns.  And what did ISIS do as their first task? They bombed a Shia Mosque inside Islamabad, the capital of Na-Pakistan killing 31.

 

Think! The Balochis attack Na-Paki military in their posts inside Balochistan; in response the Na-Paki military run government in Islamabad seeks ISIS Help & that help comes in the form of suicide attack on innocent Shia worshippers inside Islamabad, the capital!!!

Thank heavens that most of the nuclear weapons of the Napaki-military were destroyed in the 4-5 day war by Indian military & any weapons that remain are presumably under the control of the US Military! 

2.2.6 – But fear not, they still have Karachi, right!!

Look at the map above and see that the province of Sindh is till fine and it has the financial capital of Karachi. So that’s fine, right? The Na-Paki state can use Karachi to get back to some sort of stability, right? Guess again!

And, by the way, the people of Karachi & generally the people of the province of Sindh absolutely hate the Panjabi-run state of Na-Pakistan! And Karachi has more Pushtuns than any other city in the world. 

2.2.7 Sheer Coincidence, right?

Readers must be fed up of us writing about the film “Dhurandhar”. But bear with us a bit. On January 31, the film “Dhurandhar” was released on Netflix in the entire land of Na-Pakistan. And, within a day, Dhurandhar became No.1 on Netflix, Na-Pakistan.

And what is Dhurandhar about? The rise of the Baloch into a position of supremacy in Karachi about 15 years ago. So the most successful film ever in that napaki land about the rise of the Baloch is released & the Balochi Liberation Army rises up in an attack against the Na-Paki military installations?

And guess what is the main complaint by the fans inside this Na-pakistan? That just 1 song in Dhurandhar cost more to make than any entire film made in Napak!!! Watch the opulence of this happy wedding song, the song that is now sung & danced to in every marriage celebration in that land!!

 

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