Two safe-haven trades dominated Friday's headlines. Gold broke above $4,600 an ounce. It is up more than 14% in August alone — its best monthly gain since 1999. The metal trades above every key moving average. At the same time, Bitcoin posted its best week since 2023. A US crypto bill and a bond-market fix drove the rally. IBIT, the iShares Bitcoin ETF, saw elevated activity as retail and institutional buyers piled in.
ROIV options traders turned extremely bullish today. Its put-call ratio plunged to 0.48 — 4.4 standard deviations below its 20-day average of 0.82. That is one of the sharpest single-day sentiment swings seen this week. ABUS also moved higher Friday, with investors linking the gain to broader mRNA-sector momentum alongside MRNA and BNTX.
TQQQ borrow utilization hit 94.82%, near its 52-week high. Available inventory has dropped to just 33% of short interest. Shorts are running out of room. Any sustained QQQ rally could force a fast unwind. RDDT also saw the biggest 7-day short interest jump among large US stocks, rising 4.1 points to 17.6% of free float.
Retail dominates next week's calendar. Salesforce reports Wednesday. Dollar General, Best Buy, and Kohl's all report Thursday. Canada's big banks — including Bank of Montreal — round out the week. Consumer spending data from these reports will shape the autumn market narrative.
JP Morgan nearly doubled its target on MRNA to $77 but kept a Sell rating. ROST was upgraded to Buy. DE drew multiple target increases. Morgan Stanley cut its target on SO and maintained Underweight.
ORTEX Market Intelligence content is generated by AI from a snapshot of ORTEX's proprietary data. Content is informational only and does not constitute investment advice.
