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What I'm Watching: QQQ 700, the Equal-Weight Breakout, and a VIX That Barely Moved
What I'm Watching · November 1, 2026
Thursday was a strange day. 80% of S&P 500 stocks rose, 9 of 11 sectors were green, and the equal-weight S&P gained 1.2%. The S&P still fell 0.30%, because the Nasdaq 100 lost 1.4% on Alphabet, ServiceNow and the memory names. That's rotation: money moving between stocks, not leaving the market. Here are the three charts I'm keeping on my screen. They're through Thursday's close, so treat the levels as the map, not the score.
QQQ: 700 Is the Whole Story
QQQ fell 1.42% to 715.34 on Thursday. It's back below its 50-day (725.41) and 20-day (731.14), and sitting just above the 700-to-710 demand zone. The September low is 700.00, and the low the week before was 701.16.
Hans's take: Above 700, this is rotation. A dip too far below it and we enter the correlation zone, where everything gets sold together, the good with the bad. That's the snowball I'm watching for. 690 is where I'd get defensive.
Equal Weight Broke Out While the S&P Fell
The equal-weight S&P (RSP) jumped 1.2% to 220.04 and broke above the 217-to-219 area it broke down from in September. The cap-weighted SPY fell 0.38% to 769.36 and is sitting on its rising trendline from the summer.
Hans's take: This is the healthiest thing in the market right now. The average stock is doing well. The problem is concentrated in a few mega-caps, and those mega-caps are most of QQQ.
The VIX Barely Moved
The VIX rose 0.29 to 17.20 after dipping to 16.21. It's below its 200-day (18.23) and right in the middle of its Bollinger Bands. That's on a day Alphabet lost 12.6% and ServiceNow lost 27%.
Hans's take: Single stocks are melting and index protection is cheap. That's exactly when I want hedges on.
Put the three together and you get the market right now. The average stock is fine, a handful of giants are doing the damage, and protection is still cheap. Rotation is healthy as long as it stays rotation.
What I'm watching from here: whether QQQ holds 700, whether RSP stays above 217 to 219, and whether the VIX stays this cheap while single stocks keep moving this much. My plan is simple. Respect the rotation, keep selling premium where it's rich, and keep hedges on while they're cheap.
Want every chart, every night? The full Chart Room, every trade as I take it, and my read on volatility all day are inside Trader63, my pro trading community.
Trade smart, stay hedged. — Hans
This material is for educational and informational purposes only and is not investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Options involve risk and are not suitable for all investors. Past performance does not guarantee future results.
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