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Equities · 1 August 2026
S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq Mini futures are unwinding stretched shorts into new highs while Russell…
S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq Mini futures are unwinding stretched shorts into new highs while Russell 2000 futures keep adding to an already 90th-percentile-stretched short.
- What would prove it wrong
- If the next COT report shows Russell 2000 e-mini futures also beginning to cover their net short alongside continued S&P and Nasdaq covering, the cross-cap divergence read fails and this becomes a single, uniform short-covering rally.
- Next test
- the next CFTC Commitments of Traders report covering the week after 28 July 2026: continued Russell 2000 e-mini net-short growth alongside S&P/Nasdaq covering would sustain the split; Russell short-covering alongside the other two books would retire it as noise
- Status
- Retired · 10 August 2026
- How it settled
- The 1 August thesis required continued short-covering in S&P and Nasdaq futures alongside a stretched Russell short; the 4 August COT report instead shows all three books, including Nasdaq and S&P, extending net shorts, the exact scenario the 1 August falsifier said would end the cross-cap divergence read.
This is the desk’s own dated record, settled against market data. Descriptive of a research thesis, not investment advice.