By: Editorial Team, StoneX Media
The Nasdaq is holding just below its record high near 30,700, coiling into a possible symmetrical triangle on the daily chart. The pause has come as investors rotate exposure out of tech and AI stocks and into cyclical sectors, a shift that could allow the index to reset before its next move. With major tech earnings approaching, attention is turning to inflation and its reach into demand, corporate spending and the valuations that underpin the rally.
Razan Hilal, CMT, FOREX.com Market Analyst, has covered forex, stocks, commodities and equity indices for seven years. Her work centers on technical and intermarket analysis, the discipline of reading how macro pressures such as inflation feed across asset classes and into index-level valuations.
Earnings season is arriving with expectations already priced in, and that changes what the market is actually listening for. "Investors will be less focused on actual quarter numbers and more focused on the management guidance for the second half of 2026" [03:15], Hilal notes, pointing specifically to "the impact of inflation on overall demand, corporate spending and future valuations and growth" [03:25] as the variables set to steer the reaction. For major tech and AI names trading near record levels, the inflation outlook, rather than the quarter just ended, consequently sits at the center of the valuation question. Markets, in her framing, are pricing expectations over actual earnings results.
"The Nasdaq chart is consolidating right below its record highs, as investors rotate their exposure from tech and AI stocks into cyclical sectors" [00:05], a move Hilal says may provide the moment to reset before the index extends toward its next leg higher. The consolidation that followed the June 2026 record high has taken the possible form of a symmetrical triangle, with a similar pattern reflected on the relative strength index that could hint at the breakout direction. Hilal poses the tension directly. "The key question is whether major tech and AI names can possibly boost these trends towards fresh record highs, or extend deeper consolidation risks before the overall bull run resumes" [00:17]. Either path, in her view, runs through the guidance those companies deliver rather than the numbers they report.
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--- Written by Gus Farrow, Senior Manager, StoneX Media
--- Expert: Razan Hilal, CMT, FOREX.com Market Analyst
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