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Weekly Recap: October 9, 2026

This Week's Market

Wednesday's Fed minutes read more hawkish than expected and put one more rate hike this year back on the table. Small caps had a rough day: the Russell 2000 closed down 1.31%, with the 10-year yield touching 5.36% that morning, a 1-year high. On Thursday, Brent crude pushed back over $100 a barrel on headlines out of Iran, up 4.07% with a high of $105.92, and chips and AI names led the market lower. The semiconductor ETF (SMH) fell 2.84%, NVDA 2.94% and the Nasdaq 1.25%. Even after the rate scare and the oil scare, Friday closed with a bounce, the S&P 500 up 0.60% and the Nasdaq up 0.64%. For the week, measured from the October 2 close, the S&P finished up 1.16%, the Nasdaq up 0.64% and the Russell 2000 down 0.91%.

Good Trade

BIYA, a low-priced runner on Wednesday, October 7. It had an old breakout level right at $2 in the pre-market, and I bought there at 9:34, then added more as it bounced. My stop was just below $1.80, where the buyers kept holding the price. The sellers tried twice to break it, getting it to $1.84 at 9:36 and $1.82 at 9:50, then lost control, and the buyers ran it to $2.40 by 9:57. I sold there for about 40 cents a share. I had some FOMO on the entry: waiting for the hold near $1.80 would have cut my risk to the same stop from 21 cents to about 6.

Bad Trade

APLD, Thursday, October 8, a short during the tech flush. It made money, and it was still a bad trade. I shorted $23.25, a prior resistance level, without waiting for the price action to confirm it. It squeezed against me to $23.78 at 12:17, popped on that one bar, and the sellers slammed it right back down. That rejection was the real entry. The sell-off took it under $23 and I covered at $22.86. The trap was anchoring: I had to be right about $23.25, and if it had broken above $24 that would have been a loss that didn't need to happen. The fix for anchoring is patience.

What to Watch Next Week

  • Place your stop behind real buyers. On a long, set it just below the price buyers keep defending. If that level breaks, the buyers are out and the sellers are in.
  • Look for buyers defending a level at least twice. A double bottom like BIYA's $1.84 and $1.82 is a great place to look at getting in.
  • Let the level prove itself before you pull the trigger. It may cost you a few cents on either side, and it's worth paying for the confirmation.

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.