Let Me See Your Trade War Face

It is shaping up to be a rather amusing tidbit, regarding this week's price action in equities, that one of the few victories bears can claim is that failure of Tesla Motors to not only cement a runaway short squeeze higher after a promising rally in June, but TSLA then lost its 200-day simple moving average amid high volume selling as its quirky CEO engaged a business journalist on Twitter for much of yesterday. 

Beyond TSLA, though, as noted bulls have done what they needed to do in order to convert the constant "Trade War" headlines from some type of potential bearish catalyst into the proverbial bullish wall of worry. 

Naturally, bulls will need to hang onto most of these gains, as we are keying off 2,742 on the S&P 500 cash index now as a logical level for buyers to defend into dips next week. 

But with the strength in biotech, consumer, tech, energy and materials, not to mention the downtrodden banks catching a bid, all while the VIX unwinds a bit here, bears will need to rise to the occasion next week and truly show us their "Trade War Face" to instill more fear in this tape than those headlines have, heretofore. 

Also note how this rally consists of much more than simply Facebook continuing to act well, along with most other "FANG" types of names. Indeed, bulls are threatening a more broad-based move. 

One segment we have noted before is worth revisiting: The online travel agent space. BKNG (Priceline, formerly) was not quite ready to break higher a few weeks back. But smaller peers EXPE and TRIP have both made promising technical strides and look appealing here, with TRIP sporting a better technical picture than EXPE--The latter is still trying to emerge from its deep correction while the former is much further along. 

We will flesh out these ideas and concepts, and plenty more, for Members headed into next week.

Enjoy your summer weekend.