Members First, One Week Earlier

Weekly Recap: October 2, 2026

This Week's Market

Monday opened with the Dow sliding as Treasury yields jumped. The Dow closed down 0.67% and the 10-year yield kept climbing, reaching 5.34% on Thursday, a 24-year high. Friday's September jobs report was a big miss: 29,000 payrolls against 84,000 expected. The market read that as less chance of an October rate hike, and the Nasdaq Composite set an intraday record at 27,354 before closing up 1.19%. Bad news was good news. For the week, measured from the September 25 close, the Dow finished down 1.26% and the Nasdaq up 0.45%.

Good Trade

NXL, a low-float flush reversal on Thursday, October 1. My first mistake was buying too early, at $8.05 at 9:31, before the buyers had shown they were back. It halted at $7.54, reopened and flushed to $6.80, then the buyers took it back over $7. A second halt froze it at $8.25. I set a limit sell at $8.99, just under the $9 pre-market high, and when it reopened at 9:55 it filled at $9.00. That is 95 cents a share, and it printed $9.90 right before halting again. The result was good. The entry was not, and I held well past my 7.75 mental stop to get it.

Bad Trade

VBIO, Wednesday, September 30, an open flush reversal that was not on my watch list. I added it live off heavy pre-market volume. It flushed from $4.39 to $3.53 at the open and I bought at $3.60 expecting the buyers to come back. The lows kept slipping to $3.47 and it could not get back over $3.80, so I called the thesis done and got out at $3.60 before my stop, a half-cent loss a share. It closed the day at $2.79.

What to Watch Next Week

  • Sell the level you planned. Mark the pre-market high before the open and put your profit order there, so the order does the selling instead of your emotions.
  • Plan the name before you buy. If it was not on the watch list before the open, it is not a trade.
  • If the stop you set breaks, the trade is over. An early entry plus an ignored stop is how one trade wrecks a whole week.

Share counts and per-share figures are shown to illustrate how each trade was managed, not as a suggested position size. Scale any example to your own account and your own risk. This is trade review and education, not financial advice.