United Community Banks Q2 FY26 EPS rises 51% to $0.95; revenue increases 7% to $279.3 million

Cooling inflation has revived expectations for monetary easing. The probability of a September rate hike fell from around 55% to 34%, while the S&P 500 broke above 7800 for the first time and 18 global equity indexes reached all-time highs on the same day. South Korea's KOSPI led the gains, rising 10.9% for the week. In earnings, Tapestry, Cisco, and JD.com all beat quarterly expectations but still plunged 7%–16% in a single session after disappointing guidance. In the current market, strong results alone are not enough—investors are rewarding strong guidance. Crypto has been left behind by the broader rally, but we believe it is consolidating near a potential bottom. BTC fell 2.6% for the week to around $63,400, but spot ETF outflows moderated and approximately $1 billion flowed back into stablecoins. Sentiment shows an unusually wide divergence: the U.S. equity Fear & Greed Index stands at 66 (Greed), while the Crypto Fear & Greed Index remains at 29 (Fear). Quantitative strategy focus: the four top-performing strategies we identified significantly outperformed buy-and-hold. For ETH, Supertrend generated a total return of 151.2% (44.8% annualized) and outperformed buy-and-hold by 117 percentage points after fees, while ATR Channel Breakout achieved a Sharpe ratio of 1.33 with a maximum drawdown of just 10.2%. For BTC, Bollinger Band Mean Reversion returned 151.3%, outperforming buy-and-hold by 54 percentage points after fees. The effectiveness of each strategy depends on the market regime: mean-reversion strategies perform better in range-bound markets with an upward bias, while trend-following strategies that can move into cash are better suited to range-bound markets with a downward bias. Key assets to watch: BTC, ETH, SOL, XAUUSD, UKOUSD, USOUSD, rWMT, rHD, ONDO, RDDT.