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^{This webinar is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice or a recommendation to buy, hold, or sell any security. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Range defines "high earners" as households with income over $300k.}

Good morning. Yesterday we explained what a distribution day is. Tuesday went and delivered one. Oil and Treasury yields did the damage, the Dow took most of it, and Apple's first keynote under a new CEO lands at 1:00 PM ET.

Here's where Tuesday finished:

Two familiar pressures did it. U.S. crude rose 1.7% to $93.03 a barrel, up more than 11% across six sessions, after the U.S. military destroyed five Iranian oil tankers Tuesday in retaliation for ballistic missiles fired at an American warship. And the 10-year Treasury yield added two basis points to 4.805%, another long-term high. The Dow got the worst of it for a company-specific reason: Amgen fell 10.1% to $393.17 after Novartis reported disappointing trial results for a cardiovascular treatment, and the selling spread across the whole medical sector.

Breadth was the real story. Decliners beat advancers by roughly five to three on the Nasdaq and nine to five on the New York Stock Exchange, and the equal-weight version of the S&P 500 fell a full 1%, closing below its 50-day line for the first time since April. When the equal-weight index falls harder than the regular one, it means a handful of very large stocks are holding the headline number up while most stocks underneath are doing worse than the number suggests.

Beginner note: yesterday we said a down day on lighter volume is not a distribution day. Tuesday was the other kind. The market fell and volume rose on both exchanges, which is the definition, and IBD counted it as one. Distribution days are how you notice large institutions stepping back before a trend visibly breaks. A single one means little. Four or five clustered inside a few weeks is the signal worth respecting, so the habit to build is counting them, not reacting to them one at a time.

$AMD ( ▲ 3.04% ) designs the processors that run PCs and servers, and increasingly the accelerator chips used to train and run AI models. That makes it the main challenger to Intel in one business and to Nvidia in the other. On a day the Dow fell 628 points, AMD rose 5.9% to $505.74, on volume close to 1.8 times its recent average, and closed back above its 50-day moving average. Two things drove it: CFO Jean Hu said the company's total addressable market could reach $3 trillion by 2030, up from the $2 trillion figure AMD was using as recently as July, and reports that Intel is raising processor prices, which makes AMD's chips comparatively cheaper. Analysts expect third-quarter revenue up about 40% from a year ago, to roughly $13 billion. The stock is still 13.5% below its all-time high of $584.73.

Why it's worth watching: now look at what Nvidia did on the same day. Same industry group, same AI story, and it fell 2% to $225.73, slipping back below the $227.92 buy point it had reclaimed only on Friday. One theme, two opposite sessions. That is the whole argument for judging stocks one at a time instead of buying a story. And keep the standard high in the other direction too: Caterpillar also rose Tuesday, a fourth straight gain, yet IBD notes its Relative Strength Rating sits at 60 and needs to improve substantially before it belongs on a growth investor's list. Going up and leading are not the same thing, and the Relative Strength Rating is the number that tells them apart.

Educational content only. Not financial advice. Past performance does not predict future results. Read the full financial disclosure.

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