The Monday Morning Playbook: Week of June 16, 2025

Good morning,

Well, we finally got some volatility as last week the S&P 500 lost (*checks notes)… 0.4%.

In all seriousness, while the attack on Iran happened late in the week enough to only affect Friday, the S&P 500’s reaction was mild enough to not even break first support.

Maybe that changes this week, and other indexes like the Dow and Russell 2000 aren’t in such positions of strength. But overall, the action last week doesn’t change the call for more gains and new highs, though it might delay the latter.

The two biggest sub-stories come from the commodity complex. Oil spiked 6% on Friday, but importantly, had already broken out on Wednesday.

We’ll walk through the charts today and show why, despite action last week, our current neutral position on energy in the ETF models is still the right call.

The other big winner last week was gold, which gained 3.7% and posted a new all-time closing high on Friday.

I continue to like gold and the miners in absolute terms but the real takeaway for asset allocators is that gold remains the preeminent hedge for this cycle. The reasons always change, but once again, long-term Treasury bonds sold off, and gold had one of its best days amid a flight to safety in equities.

This week’s report will review:

• The most important charts from last week

• Why energy stocks are still neutral

• Gold

• Bitcoin

• Foreign equities

• ETF movers

• and more!

Lastly, a reminder that this week’s Overtime is out now! Consider it a direct accompaniment to today’s Playbook, with a big-picture look at all 11 S&P 500 sectors.