Two weeks ago, I described the Russell 2000 as having hit a line in the sand, and I laid out levels to watch should the bounce happen. I wrote that bulls had to put up or we were surely going lower. At the time, the small-cap breakout was hanging by a thread. The U.S.-Iran War had eroded market breadth, a death cross had printed on the iShares Russell 2000 ETF (IWM) chart, and the four-year base breakout was staring down a hard retest at ~245. My read was that bulls had to reclaim ~252 with conviction, or this becomes a failed breakout. IWM is now trading at ~262. The retest held. The bulls showed up in force. What looked like a technical trap has resolved, but now we have hit the levels where I said I would take profits. Let’s update the game plan for what may come next for the Russell 2000.
