A selling week on Wall Street, with semiconductors taking the brunt. The S&P 500 shed 1.6% and the Nasdaq 2.9%, while bitcoin gave back the $65,000 level. Here’s what the week that just closed left behind and what next week brings, read through an order flow lens.
What the ES, the NQ and bitcoin did
The ES (S&P 500 futures) tracked the cash index, which closed Friday at 7,457.69 points, down 1.01% on the session (-76 points) and about -1.6% on the week. The index lost its 50-day moving average along the way, a technical marker many traders use as a context reference. The Dow held up better (-0.9% on the week) because the damage was concentrated in tech, not the broad market: eight of the eleven S&P sectors rose on the week, led by energy and consumer staples.
The NQ (Nasdaq 100 futures) was the epicenter. The Nasdaq 100 closed Friday at 28,592.66 (-1.49%) and the Nasdaq Composite at 25,520.24 (-1.40%), with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index down roughly 20% from its recent high, its worst run since the April 2025 tariff meltdown. The trigger: a new model from Chinese AI startup Moonshot that revived fears of another “DeepSeek moment” and a cheaper AI race. Names like Applied Materials, Lam Research, Intel and Arm lost around 4%, with Nvidia and Micron off more than 2%. Netflix piled on, dropping 11% after a soft sales forecast.
Bitcoin gave back the $65,000 it had touched early in the week and resettled in the $63,000 zone (it opened Friday near $63,788 and eased toward $63,130), down about 2% from roughly $64,380 seven days earlier. The backdrop was geopolitical: a fresh round of Middle East strikes and doubts over the Strait of Hormuz sent oil up nearly 10% and cooled risk appetite, crypto included.
Next week’s agenda
The week of July 20–24 is about earnings, not the central bank: the Federal Reserve doesn’t meet until July 28–29 (dates on the official FOMC calendar), so these sessions trade in pre-FOMC mode.
- Wednesday the 22nd: Alphabet and Tesla report after the close, the two heavyweights of second-quarter earnings season. Their numbers set the tone for mega-cap tech.
- Thursday the 23rd: Intel reports after the close —relevant with chips already this beaten up— and weekly jobless claims land in the morning.
- Friday the 24th: S&P Global flash PMIs for manufacturing and services, the first read on July activity.
Over all of it, the Middle East and oil remain live, and can keep moving energy and risk sentiment.
How to read this agenda with order flow
No guessing direction here: the point is to know where volatility can show up and which levels to watch when price gets there.
- Earnings get digested at the next open. Alphabet and Tesla report Wednesday after the close, so the gap and the first hour of Thursday’s NQ session are the hot window. That’s where an event playbook earns its keep: review how to structure entries and stops around a headline in the guide to news trading with order flow, because flow in those minutes runs fast and messy.
- On the ES, the level map rules. With the index below its 50-day and no FOMC to anchor the week, technical and institutional levels act as magnets. The 7,600-7,640 area sits overhead as resistance; below, the round 7,400 is the next psychological reference. The point isn’t to predict which one it hits, but to see who defends each when price visits. If you focus on the S&P, the context is in ES futures order flow.
- On the NQ, chips call the shots. An index down 20% from its highs tends to produce violent bounces and traps. That’s where you want to separate a bounce with real demand from one without conviction: absorption —passive orders that halt the drop without price following through— is exactly what to look for at support. Brush up on reading the index in NQ futures order flow.
- On bitcoin, $65,000 flips to a ceiling. A level that breaks becomes resistance. With oil and geopolitics driving risk, bitcoin can react to headlines outside market hours; its 24/7 microstructure has its quirks, which we cover in bitcoin order flow.
Put into practice: a week of reactions to earnings and headlines, not clean trend. Let price come to the levels and let the flow tell you who’s in charge, not the other way around.