The Friday Wrap — November 6, 2026: a 4.4% Thursday, and four red weeks

Thursday did the damage

SPY closed the week at 735.29, down 2.70% and its fourth red week in a row. QQQ closed at 656.10, down 4.98%, also four in a row. IWM closed at 273.67, down 2.03%, and it is the only one of the three with a single red week behind it. Almost all of the week's loss came in one session. On our bars SPY fell 4.41% on Thursday, from 766.81 to 733.00, and QQQ fell 6.49%, from 691.95 to 647.05. Friday won back 0.31% in SPY and 1.40% in QQQ, and the Thursday lows held.

CNBC put the cause in Washington, not in earnings. The midterm result raised the odds that data-center construction would slow, and the AI-linked names took the hit. CNBC said earnings did not drive the selloff. Its tally had the Nasdaq Composite down 5.5%, the Dow down more than 1,800 points, and all 11 S&P 500 sectors lower.

The chips took the worst of it. On the broker feed Nvidia fell 9.26% on Thursday, from 200.13 to 181.60, on 306 million shares against 149 million the day before. SMH, the semiconductor fund, fell 11.21%, from 504.27 to 447.73. CNBC listed Micron and AMD each down about 17% and Marvell down more than 16%. Friday brought a bounce, with SMH up 3.62% to 463.96 and Nvidia closing near 186.7. Coverage of the semiconductor index's Friday gain ranged from about 4.6% to more than 6%, depending on the hour and the index, so we use our own fund figure.

The index you owned decided your month again. QQQ and IWM are 2.95 points apart for November, and the gap was 7.18 points in October. Zoom out and the year is still positive for all three. SPY is up 7.83% year to date, QQQ 6.80% and IWM leads at 11.18%. The quarter is where it hurts, with QQQ down 11.31%.

The Fed held, and the jobs report leaned the other way

The FOMC left the target range at 3-3/4 to 4 percent on October 28. The statement says it was approved 10 to 2, and both dissenters preferred raising the range by a quarter point. The statement says inflation "remains elevated," and that job gains have kept pace with the workforce. The next meeting is December 8-9, per the Fed's calendar.

Friday's jobs report, on the BLS schedule for November 6, was stronger than the forecasts quoted. Payrolls rose 165,000 against 65,000 in the Reuters poll, September was revised up to 60,000 from 29,000, and unemployment slipped to 4.1% from 4.2%. Reuters reported the 2-year yield up 6 basis points to 4.52% and the 10-year up 3 to 4.87%, and said bets on a December hike rose to 78% from 70% before the report. We do not carry futures odds and are quoting Reuters. An analyst quoted in the Reuters piece noted that wage growth of 3.1% year over year ran below inflation, which leaves real earnings falling. The dollar proxy agrees with the direction. UUP rose 0.73% on the day and 0.45% on the week.

Crude fell hard on the week and Hormuz kept a floor under it

Bloomberg, via Rigzone, had January Brent settling at $98.32 and December WTI at $90.83, with front-month futures down about 13.2% on the week, the largest weekly percentage drop since 2022. Our oil proxy tells the same story at a smaller size. USO, which holds WTI futures and is not the spot price, is down 12.1% for the week and the month, and is still 17.82% above its 200-day. Early-session coverage had the weekly loss anywhere from 12% to 16%, so we use the settlement figure and say so.

The reporting on the cause pointed two ways. Bloomberg said prices retreated at one point on word that the US and Iran were moving closer to a deal to end the war. Other coverage tied Friday's small bounce to tanker attacks near the Strait of Hormuz. We report both, because the settlement shows no sign of which one the market weighted on any given hour. We could not retrieve the EIA's inventory figures this week and are not offering one.

What the tape did to the structure

Weekly, SPY sits 3.63% below its 10-week average at 763.00 and 2.9% below its 8-week at 757.22. Weekly stochastics are at 5.3, which is as washed out as the indicator gets, and weekly MACD is still negative. It is a market that has fallen quickly against momentum that never confirmed the high. Daily, SPY is 0.67% above its 200-day at 730.38, and that is the only major average it still holds. Thursday's low of 732.71 is also the 60-day low, so the two levels sit within two points of each other.

Friday's candle is a doji with a long upper tail. SPY ran to 742.21, gave most of it back and closed 0.31% higher, inside the body of Thursday's candle (a harami). Our bars tag it, and we leave the interpretation to the levels. A bounce that cannot hold its highs and a stalled one look the same on this candle.

QQQ is in worse structure. It is 3.64% below its 200-day at 680.89, 9.0% below its 50-day, and its daily stochastics are 11.2 and 11.9. Its 60-day low is 647.05, which is Thursday's close. IWM is the relative survivor, though only relatively: it closed 1.91% under its 200-day at 279.00, and Friday's low of 270.23 sits just above its own 60-day low of 269.88.

The breadth read is the honest paragraph. QQQ lost 2.28 points more than SPY on the week and IWM lost 0.67 less. The damage was concentrated where the data-center story lives, and the small-cap side took a smaller share of it. The proxies agree. GLD rose 4.71% on the week, VIXY (a futures ETF, not spot VIX) rose 14.23%, and TLT was flat at +0.10%.

Our historical analog flagged the setup, with two or more red weeks, below the 10-week and 8-week averages. It has appeared 15 times in about two and a half years of weekly data. One week later the median was +0.02% with the market higher 8 of 15 times, over a range of -3.07% to +5.67%. Four weeks later the median was +2.59%, higher 8 of 13 times, with a range of -12.27% to +12.59%. That is a small sample and it describes the past, not the next month.

SPY open interest, from OCC data as of November 4 (before Thursday), had the largest put open interest at the 750 strike (38,550 contracts) in the November 6 expiry, with 735 next at 23,652. The largest call open interest was 770 at 11,796. The new Monday expiry carries its heaviest puts at 755 and its heaviest calls at 775. SPY closed within 0.3 points of the 735 strike.

The Coil Engine this week

Preliminary: today's session has not settled in the record. Net of deposits, the Coil Engine moved about -1.6% for the week of November 2 to 6, against -2.70% for SPY and -4.98% for QQQ. Friday alone was about -0.3%, against SPY +0.31% and QQQ +1.40%, so we lagged the bounce. The published record keeps a separate count, the Cumulative P&L on starting capital, net of deposits. On that measure since July 8, as of November 5, the last settled session, we are at -11.56% against SPY -1.66% and QQQ -9.05%. We are behind both of them over that window, and one week of beating them does not change that.

Three decisions explain the week. The first is churn. The record shows 66 positions closed, 20 green and 46 red, and most of the losses were small, between 0.1% and 2%. A book that gives up a little on a lot of exits and beats the index by half a point in a week like this one has done its job narrowly, not well. The second is the worst loss. HOOD closed at -6.06% on November 5 when its stop level gave way. It was the week's largest loss, more than twice the next-largest, and we count it as a miss. The third is what we did not get. LPLA was the best close at +7.64% on November 3, and it was the only one above 3.5%. A week with 66 sales and one big winner means the engine took its profits small and left the large moves to others.

Seventeen positions closed on Thursday, the day the Nasdaq broke. We do not state a reason for the ones the record files under OTHER. At the close on Friday the book held BG, CHE, ELV, IBB, MEDP and XLV.

The call, graded

The call was: "we think SMH closes below its Tuesday close of 518.25 on Friday, November 6." It HELD. SMH's regular-session close on Friday was 463.96, below the 518.25 line. The tell, SMH closing at or above 518.25, did not occur.

Credit that carefully. The call was first recorded on Thursday, the day SMH closed at 447.73, so the fund was already far under the line when we made it. Thursday's Article showed the last trade before the bell (SMH 445.91); the official close was 447.73. A hold from there says less than most grades do. The move itself was the chip rebound on Friday, which was 3.62% and came nowhere near the line.

What this sets up

The through-line is that a political and AI-capex shock hit the part of the index with the most weight, while the labor data pushed the hike conversation back toward the Fed. The next dated items are on the calendar. The BLS has October CPI on November 10. From our local semis-only cache, Applied Materials is scheduled for November 12, and the broker feed lists Nvidia for November 17 after the close, so that one falls in the week after next. The next jobs report is December 4 and the FOMC meets December 8-9. Dates move.

SPY's 200-day at 730.38 and Thursday's low at 732.71 are the two levels closest to price. If they give, the 730 strike is the nearest round level below. If SPY holds them through CPI, the 10-day at 757.40 is the first average above. For QQQ, 647.05 is the floor to watch and its 200-day at 680.89 is the level it would need to reclaim. For IWM, 269.88 is the 60-day low. Which of those happens is not ours to say. Where they sit is.

The Coil board

The board is in day mode as of Friday. The SPX book is index-only, with SPY above its 200-day but 3.9% under its 55-day. The QQQ book is index-only and in a downtrend under its 200-day, with no sector open beneath either. The macro read is names-on, with 19 names fully qualified. Crypto is selective, with the BTC 200-day gate open but no sleeve above its own 50-day, and 25 of 81 panel names above their own 200-day.

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This letter is impersonal research produced by an automated system. It is not investment advice, it is not a recommendation, and it does not account for your circumstances. Not advice.

Sources — prices, ranges, moving averages and weekly statistics from our own SIP bars; open interest from OCC data as of 2026-11-04; single-stock sessions and the earnings calendar from the broker feed. Macro and news from the Federal Reserve's October 28 statement and calendar, the BLS release schedule, CNBC, Reuters via Yahoo Finance, Morningstar, Bloomberg via Rigzone, GV Wire and Kiplinger.