The Signal - Monday, February 2, 2026
January sector scoreboard tells the whole story. Plus: ISM Manufacturing and jobs week ahead.
Market Pulse
January is in the books, and the scoreboard doesn’t lie.
Friday’s Close:
Index | Close | Change |
|---|---|---|
S&P 500 | 6,939.03 | -0.43% |
Dow 30 | 48,892.47 | -0.37% |
Nasdaq | 23,461.82 | -0.94% |
Russell 2000 | 2,613.74 | -1.55% |
The week ended softly — Nasdaq down nearly 1%, small caps off 1.5% — but the real story is the month, not the day. The VIX spiked 14% to 19.27 on Friday, and yields ticked higher (10-year at 4.24%, 30-year nudging 4.87%).
This morning: Futures are pointing to a weak open. S&P futures -0.5%, Nasdaq futures -0.8%, Dow futures -0.1%. The overnight session was ugly — gold cratered as low as $4,423 before recovering to around $4,789, and silver crashed hard. Questions around the sustainability of the AI trade continue to weigh on tech.
Overseas: Asia was broadly negative overnight. Nikkei -1.25%, Hang Seng -2.2%, Shanghai Composite -2.5%, and Indonesia’s Jakarta index got crushed — down 4.9%. Europe is mostly flat. Not exactly a warm welcome for February.
Commodities: Crude oil fell 4.6% on Friday to $62.21 and is hovering near $62.76 this morning — worth watching given energy’s YTD dominance. Natural gas collapsed 15.8% Friday. The big overnight story is precious metals: gold swung wildly with a $480 range, from $4,906 down to $4,423. Silver saw a similar crash. A volatile start to February.
The THOR View
January’s Final Sector Scoreboard Tells the Whole Story
If you want to understand where we are, forget the S&P headline number. Look underneath:
Sector | January YTD Return |
|---|---|
Energy | +12.24% |
Materials | +11.25% |
Industrials | +7.84% |
Consumer Staples | +7.10% |
Communication Services | +3.48% |
Utilities | +3.23% |
Consumer Discretionary | +2.78% |
Real Estate | +2.40% |
Healthcare | -0.34% |
Financials | -1.51% |
Technology | -2.05% |
Read that again. Energy stocks gained 12% in January while tech lost 2%. That’s a 14-percentage-point spread. In one month.
This is the rotation THOR’s system detected before it became obvious. THOR Low Volatility Index moved Tech, Financials, and Real Estate to risk-off before they became the laggards. It didn’t predict this — it detected the character change in these sectors’ price data and acted.
The S&P 500 is only up 1.69% YTD, but remember — the S&P is 29% technology. That’s a massive anchor. An equal-weight approach that avoids sectors in downtrends doesn’t carry that anchor. That’s not a theory. That’s what THOR Low Volatility Index is doing right now.
Same story at the index level. THOR SDQ Index Rotation has Nasdaq essentially off and is running 50/50 between the Dow and S&P. When 60% of the Nasdaq is technology and technology is negative YTD, the rotation math is straightforward.
One nuance worth flagging: oil fell 4.6% on Friday. If energy prices continue to slide, the sector leadership could get tested. The system will tell us if and when that happens. That’s the point — we don’t have to guess. We just have to listen to The Signal.
Signal Watch
THOR SDQ Index Rotation — Index Rotation (as of 1/30/26)
Index | Ticker | Weight | Signal |
|---|---|---|---|
Dow Jones | DIA | 49.02% | 🟢 RISK ON |
S&P 500 | SPY | 48.48% | 🟢 RISK ON |
Nasdaq 100 | QQQ | 0.53% | 🔴 RISK OFF |
Cash | BIL | 0.93% | — |
Running 50/50 Dow and S&P with Nasdaq turned off. Reduces tech concentration at the index level.
THOR Low Volatility Index — Sector Rotation (as of 1/30/26)
Sector | Ticker | Weight | Signal |
|---|---|---|---|
Materials | XLB | 14.97% | 🟢 RISK ON |
Energy | XLE | 14.58% | 🟢 RISK ON |
Industrials | XLI | 14.41% | 🟢 RISK ON |
Consumer Disc. | XLY | 14.08% | 🟢 RISK ON |
Consumer Staples | XLP | 14.02% | 🟢 RISK ON |
Healthcare | XLV | 13.20% | 🟢 RISK ON |
Utilities | XLU | 12.63% | 🟢 RISK ON |
Technology | XLK | 0.54% | 🔴 RISK OFF |
Financials | XLF | 0.42% | 🔴 RISK OFF |
Real Estate | XLRE | 0.00% | 🔴 RISK OFF |
7 of 10 sectors risk-on. The three sectors the system avoided (Tech, Financials, Real Estate) are three of the four worst-performing sectors YTD. That’s not a coincidence — it’s signal processing at work.
One Thing to Watch
ISM Manufacturing at 10:00 AM ET
The consensus expects 48.4% (still contractionary, but improving from 47.9%). Manufacturing has been in and out of contraction for two years now — another below-50 print won’t shock anyone. But watch the details: new orders, prices paid, and employment sub-indices matter more than the headline.
The bigger picture: this is jobs week. Wednesday brings ADP. Thursday is jobless claims. And Friday is the main event — the January employment report (consensus: 55,000 new jobs, unemployment holding at 4.4%). Last month’s hot PPI reading already put the Fed in a wait-and-see posture. If jobs come in strong Friday, rate-cut expectations get pushed further out. If they disappoint, the conversation changes fast.
The data will tell us. Stay tuned.
This content reflects the opinions, analyses, and research of THOR Financial Technologies as of the date published. It is provided for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice and should not be relied upon as the basis for any investment decision. Past performance doesn't guarantee future results, and all investments involve risk.
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