“The news has been wild lately. How’s this market action making you feel about staying invested?”
Honestly? It’s stressful. Feels like everything’s moving so fast. I’m worried I’ve already missed it, but I don’t want to buy the top.
That fear is exactly what institutions rely on.
It’s no accident that for the past few years, the market has been defined by narrow leadership and defensive posturing. Mega-cap tech, defensive staples, utilities—all the “safe” havens that thrive when money is expensive and growth is scarce.
But beneath the surface, the accumulation cycle was doing its work.
For almost three years, risk sectors built massive bases. Small-caps, financials, cyclicals—they were left for dead while institutions used every scare headline to accumulate inventory at a discount. The Drawback phase wasn’t just a clever metaphor—it was the engineered pullback that wrung out excess leverage, shook loose retail investors, and created the fuel for this next phase.
Because the tide doesn’t stay out forever.
We’re now seeing that shift in real time.
Last month, we called this market’s undercurrents a Rip Tide—pulling capital in deceptive, engineered ways to set up accumulation. This month, we’re witnessing the Spring Tide: the visible rising water as that hidden positioning begins to pay off.
Institutional Business Cycle – Breadth and Rotation
Breadth is improving. The rally is no longer just about a handful of AI names or the Nasdaq 100 dragging the index higher on its own. We’re seeing rotation into previously ignored sectors that were stuck in multi-year ranges. Financials are pushing up. Industrials are breaking out. Small-caps—long the canary for broad risk appetite—are confirming late-stage accumulation with breakout moves that signal the start of markup.
This isn’t speculative hope. It’s the logical conclusion of the institutional playbook.
📊 Chart 1 – SPY (June 2025): Weekly Breakout Into Phase E
Reaccumulation resolves as SPY breaks to all-time highs, entering price exploration with no overhead supply.
SPY is the clearest confirmation of this shift. After months of absorbing supply in a high-volume reaccumulation range, it’s breaking cleanly into new all-time highs. This transition marks Phase E in Wyckoff terms—the beginning of a new markup trend.
Price exploration isn’t about battling overhead supply anymore. It’s about letting the tape move into open territory, with institutions managing risk using tools like Fibonacci extensions and wave targets. It’s the stage where disciplined accumulation pays off, and where retail traders—scarred by the previous shakeouts—often hesitate to follow.
Volume confirms that previous fear has been absorbed and replaced with demand. Moving averages have compressed and spread into bullish alignment. RSI, which reset during repeated tests of demand zones, is now trending firmly higher.
This is classic institutional behavior.
They don’t chase strength. They build into weakness. And when the time comes to let price run, they do so with minimal resistance in the tape.
Retail can fight it, doubt it, try to short it—but the smart money knows this is the payoff for years of patient positioning.
The Drawback phase did its job. It exposed weak hands, let supply be absorbed, and created the conditions institutions need to deploy capital at scale.
Now we’re seeing that work pay off in the form of broadening participation and confirmed breakouts across key sectors and indices. SPY’s transition into price exploration isn’t a speculative bet—it’s the structural resolution of reaccumulation.
This isn’t about euphoria or chasing. It’s about recognizing when the cycle has turned. It’s understanding that markup phases don’t begin with permission or confidence—they begin with positioning that was built when conditions were hardest.
For those watching headlines, these moves will always feel late or risky. But for those reading volume and structure, they represent the disciplined reward for patience.
📊 Chart 2 – QQQ (June 2025): All-Time Highs and Price Exploration Reaccumulation range resolves with breakout, confirming rotation and institutional re-entry.
It’s not just SPY confirming this transition. QQQ shows the same institutional footprint: a reaccumulation range now resolving decisively. This isn’t a sector rotating out of leadership—it’s one rotating back into it, with supply absorbed and price free to explore higher levels guided by projected extensions rather than resistance.
It also confirms what we’ve been tracking for over a year. Back in June of 2024, we highlighted that Wall Street would begin systematically taking profit out of the Mag 7 and preparing for reaccumulation. That phase wasn’t guesswork—it was structure. Now, with this breakout, we’re seeing that process complete.
This move marks the entry into Phase E of the Wyckoff cycle—the beginning of true markup. We should expect to see a series of Signs of Strength (SoS): sharp extensions away from the moving averages that establish new highs, followed by disciplined pullbacks to test those averages for support. That’s the hallmark of an uptrend and institutional mark up: higher highs, higher lows, and a roadmap for rotation and continuation rather than euphoria or blow-off tops.
Beyond SPY and QQQ, the most telling evidence of this cycle shift comes from IWM. Small-caps are historically the most sensitive to changes in monetary policy—and this is where the institutional footprint is clearest for those watching structure.
For nearly three years, IWM labored through a deep accumulation phase, marked by a classic Wyckoff spring and a drawn-out back-and-forth designed to exhaust retail conviction. That phase culminated with a decisive break of the downtrend line that had defined supply—and crucially, a textbook backtest that confirmed absorption was complete.
📊 Chart 3 – IWM (June 2025): Breaking Supply and Retaking TrendDowntrend break and backtest complete, reclaiming moving averages with volume support.
IWM has since reclaimed all the key moving averages we track across daily, weekly, and monthly timeframes, signaling a structural transition from accumulation to the earliest stages of markup. While it still has the most work to do—nowhere close to its all-time highs—that’s exactly what makes it so important.
This is the part of the market that stands to benefit most from easing conditions, including the expected rate cuts into late 2025 and beyond. Individual names within the sector are showing the same story: wrapping up their own accumulation ranges and initiating fresh campaigns.
And that sharp, deep test of prior lows? That wasn’t failure or collapse. It was the necessary shakeout—the final extraction of weak hands before institutions could build meaningful positions without resistance. In other words, business as usual for a sector this sensitive to policy cycles.
For disciplined traders, this isn’t a late move—it’s the confirmation of a long-anticipated shift. It’s where the Spring Tide begins to spread into the broader market, bringing with it the clearest evidence that the cycle has turned.
Finally, to truly confirm this transition away from narrow leadership, we need to see rotation into the broader market. That means evidence that capital is leaving the safety of mega-cap weighting and reallocating across the index.
The RSP/SPY ratio is one of our favorite tools for reading that intent. Equal-weighted versus cap-weighted performance isn’t just a stat—it’s a direct measure of whether institutions are willing to rotate into the less obvious, less crowded trades.
📊 Chart 4 – RSP/SPY (June 2025): Potential Spring and Divergence
Emerging bullish divergence and Wyckoff’s 3rd Law confirm institutional rotation toward breadth.
What this chart shows is classic Wyckoff theory in action. We see a potential Spring—the final shakeout below support designed to test demand and clear any remaining weak hands. Notice the volume behavior on these tests: significantly more effort is now required to push the ratio lower, but the result is minimal. That’s Wyckoff’s 3rd Law of Effort vs. Result playing out in real time.
Add to that emerging signs of bullish divergenceI, and the message is clear: the relative strength of equal-weighted names is beginning to turn. This is the market’s quiet way of saying the cycle is maturing.
Institutions don’t wait for headlines to confirm this move. They position while the tape is still ambiguous, knowing that true breadth expansion is required for any sustained markup phase. For traders who understand these cues, this ratio isn’t noise—it’s the proof that The Spring Tide isn’t coming. It’s already underway.
The signs of broadening participation, breakout structures, and rotation across sectors tell us that the cycle is maturing. But markets don’t move in isolation. Institutional accumulation and breakout phases don’t happen without supportive conditions beneath the surface. That’s why understanding monetary policy is so critical. It’s the tide beneath the wave—quietly rising or falling, determining where capital will go. To truly recognize this shift for what it is, we need to look at the policy environment that’s making it possible.
“Does it unsettle you when the economic headlines say one thing but the bond market and dollar seem to tell a different story?”
Yeah. It’s confusing. One week they’re screaming about stubborn inflation, next week yields are falling and the dollar’s tanking. I don’t know what to believe anymore.
Monetary Policy – The Tide Beneath the Wave
The first and most obvious shift in monetary conditions can be seen in the US Dollar itself. For months, we’ve been writing about the artificial support that kept the dollar elevated despite global pressures. While the Fed maintained its tough talk, the real goal was always to manage the descent carefully—to avoid a sudden funding crisis or loss of confidence.
But markets don’t wait for permission. They watch the tape.
📊 Chart 5 – DXY Weekly (June 2025): Breakdown from Reaccumulation Range
USD loses all major moving averages, confirming full markdown phase.
The weekly chart shows the dollar finally breaking down out of its reaccumulation range. It’s lost all the moving averages we track and has accelerated to the downside. This isn’t about headlines blaming tariffs, elections, or rate holdouts. It’s about releasing the pressure that high rates put on interest-rate-sensitive sectors at home—and on the rest of the world.
The weakness in the dollar here is deliberate. It’s designed to improve liquidity, reduce funding costs globally, and support the very risk sectors institutions have been accumulating for the past two years.
📊 Chart 6 – DXY Monthly (June 2025): Historical Context for USD Markdown
Past markdown phases align with extended periods of easing policy.
On the monthly chart, the cycles are even clearer. Every major markdown phase in the dollar has historically coincided with extended periods of easing monetary policy. It’s important to note, every cycle’s red wave (B) represents the redistribution period. All have happened either late in the markdown process or somewhere in the middle. This cycle redistributed almost immediately keeping the pressure on interest rate sensitive sectors. Previously, when redistributed very late in the cycle, wave (A) such as in the mid 1980s or early 2000s was very extended. This cycle sets up for an extended wave (C).
It’s also important to note, every cycle has set a lower low.
This isn’t new. It’s the playbook.
And once the dollar loses its range support, these markdown phases tend to be both sharp and sustained. That’s exactly what institutions anticipate when they start rotating into risk assets: they know weaker USD means easier conditions, better funding, and higher global demand.
It’s not about the Fed’s next meeting. It’s about the underlying structure telling you that the pivot is already being priced in.
And while the Fed maintains its “higher for longer” language, the inflation data refuses to justify it.
📊 Chart 7 – US Inflation Rate (June 2025): Inflation Returns to Target Range: Headline fears don’t match the data. Does this look like an inflation problem?
For months now, year-over-year inflation readings have drifted back toward the Fed’s own long-term target range. The current level is around 2.4%, yet the policy rate remains stuck at 4.25–4.5%, exactly where it’s been since late last year.
There’s no consistent justification for maintaining this level of restrictiveness. The data simply doesn’t support it.
This disconnect between policy posture and underlying conditions is classic pre-pivot behavior. Central banks don’t announce their intent too soon—they manage expectations while letting the market do the work. That’s why yields are rolling over, the dollar is weakening, and duration is being bid.
The market sees the pivot even when the Fed won’t admit it yet.
This isn’t some sudden pivot. We’ve been writing for over a year about the yield topping process. About the signs that the tightening cycle was burning itself out and that a shift was coming.
Yields don’t just collapse in one move. They top the way any market does: with distribution phases, engineered volatility, and retail fear. That’s exactly what we’ve been documenting all year.
📊 Chart 8 – TNX (May 2025): Engineered Spikes Within Distribution
False breakouts into fear catalysts. Wall Street used volatility to reload.
This cycle hasn’t been defined by steady policy—it’s been defined by volatility shocks. And no chart exposes that better than TNX. Twice in the past 12 months, yields exploded higher without any actual change in Fed policy. First during the yen carry trade unwind in August 2024, then again during the tariff scare in April 2025.
Both events were used by the media to reintroduce fear, revive inflation anxiety, and justify broad equity weakness. But if you look at the structure, something else becomes clear: these spikes weren’t organic. They were engineered distribution tactics.
TNX has been stuck in a massive topping range since late 2022. The markup phase completed. The upthrust into 5% confirmed the UTAD in 2023. Since then, every bounce has been weaker. Momentum has waned. The chart showed classic signs of distribution resolving into markdown.
These engineered spikes were shakeouts—used to create panic, inject volatility, and allow institutional positioning while retail reacted. This is the macro version of the classic shakeout. The market wasn’t responding to Powell—it was responding to manufactured emotion.
📊 Chart 9 – TNX Monthly (June 2025): Compression Signals Breakdown Risk
Moving averages flatten as yields lose momentum and prepare for markdown.
On the monthly chart, the compression of moving averages stands out. This is classic late-cycle behavior. Instead of trending cleanly, yields have stalled and coiled, absorbing any last bursts of upside momentum. The tight bundle of EMAs doesn’t provide support—it becomes resistance that can reject price violently lower once the range breaks.
Notice the 50-month and 200-month EMAs are now flat. That’s not strength—it’s indecision resolving into weakness. Historically, this type of compression is a prelude to significant directional moves, and in this case, the path of least resistance is down.
It also begs the bigger question: Did the inflation data we just reviewed really justify nearly four years of restrictive policy? The chart says no. There’s no sign of the runaway, oil-embargo-style inflation that dominated the 1970s. What we’ve seen is a post-COVID normalization cycle that has run its course.
And yet, yields remained elevated far longer than the data would justify. Why? That’s the real institutional game: using policy messaging and media-driven fear to suppress certain sectors, keep capital bottled up, and ensure accumulation could continue quietly.
Now that process is beginning to break down. Yields aren’t being “managed” higher anymore—they’re rolling over. The bond market is telling us that restrictive conditions are ending, whether the Fed wants to admit it or not.
📊 Chart 10 – TMF (March 2025): Spring Setup at All-Time Demand Line
Volume confirms institutional accumulation as yields top.
As we’ve analyzed the potential for a decline in yields, TMF emerged as a compelling leveraged play on the Treasury bond market. This ETF aims to deliver 3x the daily performance of the ICE U.S. Treasury 20+ Year Bond Index, offering amplified exposure to the anticipated yield decline—a trade we’ve been tracking for about a year.
Our March chart captured a significant development: a Wyckoff spring pattern forming at TMF’s all-time demand line. That support level held firm despite relentless grinding price action, revealing strong underlying buying pressure.
The volume profile was particularly telling, showing clear signs of institutional accumulation. This wasn’t retail optimism. It was measured, patient positioning while headlines screamed about “higher for longer” and kept traders on the sidelines.
We called this out not as a prediction, but as a structure to watch. Springs can’t be willed—they require operators to shift the supply/demand balance in real time. By March, that shift was starting to materialize.
📊 Chart 11 – TMF (June 2025): Extended Spring Undercuts Megaphone Support
Absorption deepens as bond market positions for easing.
Since our last coverage in March, the spring in TMF didn’t resolve immediately. Instead, it extended even further—undercutting the long-term megaphone pattern in May. That’s classic Wyckoff behavior. Springs aren’t polite. They’re designed to exhaust sellers and force final capitulation before the balance of power can shift.
That deeper test only reinforced the absorption phase. Volume has remained elevated throughout this grind, showing continued institutional interest even as price action demoralized impatient traders.
From a structural perspective, this is exactly what a powerful reversal base often looks like: relentless downward pressure, repeated undercuts, and patient accumulation. As the bond market has begun pricing in rate cuts into late 2025 and 2026, TMF is quietly establishing a foundation for a move that would amplify those easing conditions.
It’s a leveraged instrument, of course, which demands disciplined risk management. But for traders tracking the macro pivot we’ve been documenting all year, TMF remains the tactical expression of the Spring Tide. The policy tide isn’t just turning quietly in rates and the dollar. It’s also showing up in the bond market’s preferred instruments, waiting for participants who understand that absorption precedes markup.
Take note of the extension from the 200WEMA (blue).
“You seem worried about missing this rally. What’s bothering you?”
Yeah. Everything’s running. I’m scared it’s too late. I don’t want to buy the top, but I also don’t want to sit here and watch it all go up without me.
Supply vs. Demand – Reading the Tape
📊 Chart 12 – HOOD Weekly (June 2025): Clean Markup and Signs of Strength
Healthy uptrend with multiple SoS confirming institutional demand.
This is exactly what late-stage accumulation and early markup should look like. Robinhood (HOOD) spent nearly two years grinding along its all-time lows, absorbing supply while headlines buried it as a broken business model. But underneath that narrative, the volume profile reveals consistent institutional accumulation along the base.
Once accumulation completed, HOOD broke out in classic markup fashion. It’s setting a series of Signs of Strength (SoS) on the weekly timeframe—sharp extensions above moving averages, consolidations that hold support, and volume surges confirming real demand.
📊 Chart 13 – HOOD Weekly Annotated (June 2025): Tracking Wave 5 and Volume Profile
EWT, fib levels, and RSI help anticipate potential reaccumulation zones.
Currently, HOOD is in what appears to be wave 5 of its initial impulsive move from the all-time low. This is the phase where traders need to be cautious about chasing strength blindly. Markup cycles are built on higher highs and higher lows, but they inevitably correct and re-accumulate.
Notice how Fibonacci levels provide context for realistic targets, while RSI warns us to watch for emerging negative divergence. The volume profile is equally critical—it shows where institutions have the most unrecognized gains and signals zones where profit-taking and reaccumulation may appear.
This is the blueprint for reading mature markup campaigns. It’s also the roadmap for other charts still in their bases: once they break out, they’ll follow a similar sequence of SoS, tests, extensions, and eventual reaccumulation.
📊 Chart 14 – BULL Daily (July 2025): High-Volume Dragonfly Doji and Spring Potential
Absorption signal suggests final testing before markup.
This is a classic example of what late-stage accumulation can look like before transitioning into markup. The daily chart of $BULL shows a high-volume dragonfly doji forming at the bottom of a prolonged decline. This type of candle is often a first clue that demand is stepping in to absorb lingering supply.
In Wyckoff terms, this setup is ideal for a potential spring. Springs are not clean or guaranteed—they’re engineered shakeouts designed to trap late sellers and confirm final absorption. This is precisely where patient institutional money often begins quietly positioning while retail investors give up.
Notice that despite the strong intraday reversal, RSI is at its highest daily reading ever—highlighting negative divergence risk. That’s critical. This isn’t a blind breakout chase. It demands careful confirmation.
Tracking setups like this teaches traders to anticipate the transition from accumulation to markup before the obvious breakouts. It also underscores the importance of volume, candle structure, and divergence analysis in reading where institutions are actually committing capital.
📊 Chart 15 – ZM Weekly (November 2024): Accumulation Complete and Anticipating BUEC
Absorption after redistribution sets the stage for markup.
Back in November, we highlighted this chart of $ZM as a textbook case of late-stage Wyckoff accumulation that had just completed its spring phase. The July low undercut the range, triggering the final shakeout and confirming institutional absorption of supply. By November, the base was mature. The markup process was beginning, with the initial Sign of Strength (SoS) showing that demand had taken control.
What we were watching for at this point wasn’t the spring—it was the anticipated back-up to the edge of the creek (BUEC). This is a classic Wyckoff pattern: after the first SoS confirms Phase D, price often retests the breakout zone to prove that demand is ready to defend the move. Our speculative path on the chart mapped this likely test. The next decisive SoS out of the BUEC would confirm ZM entering Phase E—the true uptrend, where institutional sponsorship drives sustained markup.
Recognizing these setups in advance isn’t easy. It takes experience. Studying Wyckoff theory is one thing; applying it in real-time is another. If you’re newer to advanced technical analysis, be patient with yourself. The real value often comes in the next cycle you trade. And the next one after that. Retail traders typically give up during these subtle, frustrating ranges. Don’t be one of them. Make mistakes. Diagnose them. Learn. This is the only way to improve.
We share charts like this not to say “look how perfect it was,” but to train your eye to see these accumulations as they’re developing—because that skill is what positions you before markup truly accelerates.
📊 Chart 16 – ZM Weekly (July 2025): Back-Up to the Edge of the Creek (BUEC) Test
Critical demand test before Phase E markup.
This is exactly the test we anticipated back in November. After confirming its first Sign of Strength (SoS) with the breakout across the creek, ZM is now backing up to the edge of the creek (BUEC)—a classic Wyckoff test that determines whether demand is strong enough to sustain the new trend.
This zone is the market’s decision point. If institutions step back in here, we’ll see the next decisive SoS, confirming ZM’s transition from Phase D into Phase E—the true markup phase characterized by higher highs and higher lows. That’s where trend traders want to be positioned early.
If demand doesn’t appear, ZM risks slipping back into the range and failing the test. That’s why this level deserves such close attention. It’s not just a line on a chart—it’s a real-time measure of institutional conviction.
It’s also no coincidence this is happening now. As we covered in our sections on Monetary Policy and the Institutional Business Cycle, falling yields, a weakening dollar, and a clear pivot toward easing conditions all provide the macro tailwind risk-sensitive sectors like ZM need to sustain markup.
We’re long ZM here because we expect supportive volume to confirm this test. But we remain disciplined about the possibility it fails. That’s the essence of trading the cycle with respect for structure, volume, and risk management.
These setups aren’t magic—they’re the visible footprint of changing market dynamics. When supply exceeds demand, prices decline. When supply and demand reach equilibrium, markets churn in accumulation ranges. And when demand finally overtakes supply, price moves into markup.
Patterns like springs, back-ups, and Signs of Strength exist because they have to. They’re the record left behind as institutions absorb supply, test demand, and position for trend. That’s what Wyckoff saw. That’s what Livermore read. And it’s what traders who study these cycles can learn to recognize.
The difference is simple: retail traders see random price action. Professionals see the battle for control. The goal here is to teach you to stop trading headlines and start reading the tape—so you can spot these transitions before they become obvious.
Final Thoughts
The tide is changing. Slowly, quietly, but unmistakably. The harsh headwinds of restrictive policy, high yields, and a strong dollar are giving way to a very different environment—one that rewards risk rather than punishes it. We’ve been writing about this transition for over a year, showing how the market was setting up for this shift even while the headlines screamed “sticky inflation” and “higher for longer.”
Now the data confirms it. Yields are rolling over. The dollar has lost its range and broken into full markdown. Rate cuts are being priced in for late this year and into 2026. These are not random moves—they’re the underlying conditions that fuel broad participation, sector rotation, and sustained markup cycles.
That’s the Spring Tide: the phase when institutional accumulation quietly gives way to markup, and the entire shoreline starts to feel the rising water. We see it in the mega caps breaking to all-time highs with volume support. We see it in the rotation into discretionary, industrials, financials. We see it in the countless charts showing late-stage accumulation patterns just waiting for demand to overwhelm supply.
For traders, this isn’t a moment to chase headlines. It’s a moment to study the tape. To recognize where accumulation is complete, where markup is establishing, and where the next SoS will confirm institutional support. It means watching the back-ups and tests with patience, planning entries where risk is defined, and respecting the real-time signals that separate noise from opportunity.
The Spring Tide doesn’t arrive in one crashing wave. It comes in stages, moving farther up the beach with every cycle. Your job isn’t to predict its timing perfectly. It’s to recognize its inevitability—and be ready to ride it when it comes.
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