Almost is not the same as reached

The Liquidity Map · Stock report

Almost is not the same as reached

7758 is not 7800. 138 is not a rejection from 140. And 90 is not a support, because it has never held. Three areas that decide the rest of the year, and not one of them proven yet.

August 13, 2026 · 8 min read

Key takeaways

The S&P levels were set back in February: first the drop towards 6400, then the recovery to 7400 and 7600. The year's low was 6344 on 30 March, and the two thresholds were cleared on 11 May and 2 June.
The next step was 7800. Price ran to 7758 on 7 August and stopped there, half a percent short. The level was not reached, and that matters.
SpaceX fell 48.8% from its June high and stopped at 108, just above the 100 threshold. From there it rose 28% in three sessions and is now testing the 140 area.
If 140 rejects, the structure calls for one more leg down, below 100. Below that level everything gets reassessed, not bought automatically.
On MicroStrategy I opened a long from the 90 area. The company has sold almost 6,950 bitcoin this year, with Bitcoin 49% below its high: the one who bought all the way up is now selling down here.
From September I expect weakness, and that is exactly why I also expect more opportunities. Those two do not contradict each other. They arrive together.

A plan that proves itself is not the one that gets something right once.

It is the one price moves through in order, step by step, month after month.

I set this year's levels back in February. It is worth walking through where price has been since then, because the place it stopped is more interesting than the ones it reached.

Definition

Corrective wave

When price falls, it rarely does so in a straight line. It drops, rests on a bounce, then drops again. The bounce in the middle does not cancel the decline. It gives it breathing room. The trouble is that in real time a resting bounce and a genuine trend change look identical in the first week. You tell them apart afterwards, by where the bounce stops.

S&P 500

Three levels, cleared in order

In February I said I wanted the drop towards 6400 first.

It came on 30 March. A low of 6344.

Step two was the recovery towards 7400 and then 7600. The first closed on 11 May, the second on 2 June.

These were not three separate lucky calls. It was one road, walked in the order it had been written.

That is all a useful map is. It tells you where to check whether you are still on the route. The future stays its own business.

A good map does not tell you the future. It tells you where to check whether you are still on the route.

Four months passed between March and June.

In that stretch dozens of headlines were written about recession, about a bubble, about imminent collapse.

Price stayed on the route.

I am not saying this to boast. I am saying it to show what a well built map actually does: it spares you from reacting to every headline.

6344The year's low, hit on 30 March. The level set back in February was 6400.

The S&P 500 in 2026, with the three levels set in advance.

The level

The fourth level was not reached

After the pause at 7600, the next step in the structure was 7800.

On 7 August price rose to 7758. It stopped there.

Half a percent. That is all that was missing.

It would be convenient to say I caught this level too, since price effectively got there. It did not reach it, though, and the gap between "almost" and "yes" is exactly where people start lying to themselves on charts.

A level left untouched stays an open level. Either price goes there and decides only then, or it refuses from here, and that refusal says something about strength.

That is why I say things turn unclear from here. Not because something broke, but because I no longer have an obvious next step to tick off.

The gap between "almost" and "yes" is exactly where people start lying to themselves on charts.

I have watched how this goes many times.

Someone tracks a level for months. Price comes within an inch of it, turns around, and the person tells themselves the level was hit and the thesis confirmed.

Then they build everything that follows on a confirmation that never happened.

I would rather keep the question open.

7758The high so far, on 7 August. Half a percent below 7800, so the level stays untested.

SpaceX

I want the company. Not at this price.

I think SpaceX becomes the largest market capitalisation in finance by 2034, and I want to own it.

I wrote that on 4 August, in the post about its structure, and in the same place I wrote why I am not buying it yet.

Listings have a poor track record in their first year. I laid that argument out in an earlier report, so I will not repeat it here.

What matters now is what price has done since.

From the high of 211 on 16 June it fell to 108 by 5 August. Almost half. In seven weeks.

It stopped just above 100. Not by chance: round thresholds gather orders because they gather attention.

From there it rose 28% in three sessions and is now sitting below 140.

The company can be extraordinary in ten years and the stock can still be a poor purchase today. Those two do not cancel each other out.

The numbers show how brutal the road was.

It rose 31% in its first four days from listing, up to 211.

Then it gave back 48.8% from that high.

Anyone who bought in the excitement of the first week is still sitting on a third of their money gone, even though the thesis about the company has not changed at all in the meantime.

That is the whole difference between being right about a business and being right about a price.

-48.8%What SpaceX lost from the 16 June high to the 5 August low, in seven weeks.

SpaceX since listing, with the 100 threshold and the 140 area.

Structure

What I am watching at 140

This 28% bounce is most likely breathing room, not a change of direction.

The decline before it was too long and too deep for a simple corrective step. It carries the traits of a middle move, and those are followed by a rest and only then by the final leg.

The 140 area is where this gets decided.

If rejection comes from there, the structure calls for one more leg down, and the 100 threshold comes properly into play.

Price closes above that area and holds, my reading changes. I will say so when it happens.

These levels are not targets I hand to the market. They are places where I check whether I am still right. I wrote about 125 on 17 July, and I treat them the same way.

Below 100 I do not buy automatically. Below 100 I reassess, because the conversation about what the whole company is worth changes there too.

These levels are not targets I hand to the market. They are places where I check whether I am still right.

The structure I read here is a tool for observing, not a machine for predicting.

It shows me which pattern resembles what I see, and that is all.

The more pieces of the pattern price confirms, the more confidence I put in the reading. When it stops confirming, I change it.

There is one more thing I watch beyond the chart: what the whole company is worth. The closer that gets to the one trillion mark, the closer I think we are to a real bottom.

+28%What SpaceX gained in three sessions from the 5 August low. That bounce is what gets tested at 140.

MicroStrategy

The one who bought all the way up is now selling

I opened a long on MicroStrategy from the 90 area.

The company is the cleanest Bitcoin proxy on the stock market, so this position is really another position on the crypto cycle.

The interesting part is what the company itself is doing right now.

Through 2026 it has sold almost 6,950 bitcoin, for roughly 432 million dollars. The latest tranche, 1,690 bitcoin, was announced on 10 August.

The money goes into the dollar reserve, now at 4.65 billion, and into buying back its own securities.

That is under 1% of everything it holds, so this is not an exit. It is about the timing.

Institutions buy the most at the top and sell the most at the bottom. Not out of stupidity, out of constraints.

Bitcoin sits almost 49% below its October 2025 high.

So this selling happens in the lower half of the cycle, not the upper one.

I have been saying for a while that this is the pattern that repeats: big money buys most where it feels comfortable and sells where constraints show up.

This is not a criticism. When you have dividends to pay and debt to roll, your calendar does not sync with the chart.

For me it signals something else. When the seller on duty is someone selling because they must rather than because they want to, you have an area where accumulation happens.

That is why I am accumulating here, not because I caught the low.

One thing has to be said plainly about this area: it is not a tested support.

Across the stock's whole history, price has touched the 86-94 range only a handful of times, and every one of those was on the way up, in quick passage.

This is the first time it sits there coming from above. I do not have a threshold under my feet that has held before. I have an area where accumulation happens because someone is selling out of obligation.

6,950Bitcoin sold by Strategy through 2026, for roughly 432 million dollars, with Bitcoin 49% below its 2025 high.

MicroStrategy since June 2024, on a log scale. The 86-94 area has been touched before, but on the way up.

Crude

My assumption from a week ago is being tested right now

On 4 August I wrote that if crude kept falling into September and October, then weakness would follow in equities too, after it.

Crude did not keep falling. It climbed.

From the low of 68.55 on 6 July it climbed to 84.50, which is 23%.

The cause sits in supply fear, after the discussion about traffic through Hormuz tightened again. Demand has not moved.

Crude rising out of supply fear is not a sign of a strong economy. It is a tax laid on top of everything else.

My autumn scenario stands. What changes is the road to it: through costs, not through things getting cheaper.

I stay short from the 87-92 area, with the invalidation written in advance. If that area gives way to the upside, I am out, no discussion.

Crude rising out of supply fear is not a sign of a strong economy. It is a tax laid on top of everything else.

I like showing the parts that did not go my way.

A report that only lists the levels you got right is an advertisement, not an analysis.

One link in the chain moved here, and the rest of the chain gets recalculated.

Whether this is a few weeks of noise or the start of something else remains to be seen.

+23%What crude gained from the 6 July low. The scenario called for the exact opposite direction.

WTI crude since June: the low, the high and the current recovery.

The calendar

Why I keep talking about September

Summer was good for the indices. As it usually is.

From September I expect weakness. I expect it to run towards the end of the fourth quarter.

Here comes the part that sounds odd: that is exactly why I also expect more opportunities.

They do not contradict each other. Good opportunities show up in the bad stretches, not in the comfortable ones.

I have been holding cash for precisely this. Not to sit, but so that I have something to buy with when prices get uncomfortable for everyone.

I wrote at length about what happens to rates in this stretch back in July: cuts are what tend to hurt equities, not high rates on their own.

Good opportunities show up in the bad stretches, not in the comfortable ones.

Most people do the reverse.

They buy when it is warm and comfortable, then stand aside exactly when prices turn good, because that is also when the fear is loudest.

That is why it matters to write down in advance what you buy and at what price. So you are not deciding on the day it is hardest to decide.

25%How much of the portfolio sits in cash, ready for the autumn window.

How we are positioned

In equities I hold 20% of the portfolio and I do not want to raise that weighting now.

The rest is in Bitcoin and Ethereum, plus 25% cash.

Cash is the active position here. It buys in September and October, if what I expect arrives.

On SpaceX I went long from the 108 area, where the decline stopped. I am not adding at 138. I wait for the verdict at 140 with the position I already hold.

On crude I am short from 87-92. The invalidation is written down: if that area gives way to the upside, I am out.

On the indices I am forcing nothing until 7800 is settled. A level left untouched stays an open question.

Conclusions

The February levels were ticked off in order: 6400 in March, 7400 in May, 7600 in June.

The fourth one, 7800, was not reached. Price stopped at 7758 and from there I no longer have an obvious next step.

SpaceX fell almost half, stopped just above 100 and bounced 28%. The 140 area decides whether that bounce holds or whether another leg down follows.

Crude did the opposite of what the scenario asked for, and that changes the mechanism of autumn, not the conclusion.

Strategy is selling bitcoin at half the price of its high, to cover dividends and debt. Where someone sells out of obligation, I accumulate.

From September I expect weakness and, at the same time, more opportunities than I have had all summer.

What to watch this week

S&P 500: does it run to 7800 and decide only there, or does it refuse from below? A refusal from here would be the first sign that summer ended early.
SpaceX: does the 140 area reject or give way? Rejection brings the 100 threshold into the conversation. A close above 140 that holds changes my reading.
Crude: does it stay above 84 or turn back down? That decides whether autumn arrives through costs or through disinflation.
MicroStrategy: does it hold above the 90 area? That is where my position sits, and where I see whether the accumulation holds.
September: this is where I start hunting for opportunities, not reducing. The 25% cash has work to do only from there.

Almost Doesn’t Mean Reached

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