BULZ after the July low: where past %R upcrosses have led
Whenever BULZ or TQQQ has gone oversold on the weekly Williams %R and then recovered through −50, price has gone on to make a meaningful run. Applied to the $24.61 low from the week of July 27, those past cycles point to a peak near $64–70, about 2.6 to 2.9 times the low, with the typical top arriving around mid-January 2027.
Two things temper that estimate. This week's cross is not final until Friday's close. And the June–July decline was deep enough that the odds of clearing the $56.09 high are about 50–65%, not the 78–86% seen across all cycles.
Table 1. Where each threshold stands this week
| Threshold | Status | Close at the threshold this week | vs. $39.34 now |
|---|
Table 2. Key parameters of the current setup
| Parameter | Value | Condition or source |
|---|---|---|
| Bottom low | $24.61 | Week of Jul 27, 2026. %R armed at −93.8 the week of Jul 20. |
| Prior swing high | $56.09 | Week of Jun 1, 2026. The level a new high must clear, +128% from the low. |
| Price now | $39.34 | +59.9% from the low. Close of the open Sep 8 bar. |
| Decline depth | −56.1% | About −44.5% in TQQQ-equivalent terms after volatility scaling. |
| Base-case cycle peak | $64–70 | +159% to +187% from the low. Median of the BULZ and scaled TQQQ records at −50. |
| Chance of a new high above $56.09 | ≈50–65% | 78–86% across all cycles, but 6 of 12 after declines this deep. |
| Typical peak timing | Mid-Jan 2027 | Median 17–18 weeks after the cross. Middle half: early Nov 2026 to mid-Feb 2027. |
| Typical dip after the cross | −12% to −14% | About $34–35 from here. Worst BULZ case −20% (about $31.50). |
| Level that ends the cycle | $28.83 | A close this week that puts %R back below −80. The level shifts as the 14-week window rolls. |
How a cycle is defined
The study treats each oversold episode as one cycle and asks how far price ran after %R recovered through a chosen threshold. The rules are fixed before looking at outcomes, and every trigger uses only data available at that week's close.
- Arm
- %R(14) closes below −80.
- Trigger
- The first weekly close after arming where %R crosses up through the threshold. One trigger per arm.
- Bottom
- The lowest low between the arm and the trigger.
- Cycle peak
- The highest high from the trigger until %R next closes below −80.
- New high
- The cycle peak clears the 14-week high at the bottom, the level the decline started from.
TQQQ scaling. BULZ moves about 1.4 times as much as TQQQ: its weekly return volatility is 1.38 times higher and its 14-week range 1.41 times wider over the overlapping period. TQQQ multiples are raised to the power 1.4 before being applied to BULZ prices. %R was recomputed from the raw OHLC and matches the source data's %R values to within 5×10⁻¹¹.
Every cycle in the record
BULZ has 7 completed cycles at −50 since its 2021 launch. TQQQ adds 23 more going back to 2010. Switch the ticker and threshold to see where each bottom, trigger and cycle peak fell.
Choosing the threshold
The threshold decides when you act. It does not move the bottom or the top. At −50, −40 and −30 BULZ's bottoms and cycle peaks are identical, so the median gain from the bottom is +187% at all three. What changes is how far off the bottom you enter and how often you get faked out.
−60 fires earliest but catches false starts: BULZ in August 2024 and TQQQ in September 2011 and November 2022 crossed it, then fell back to −80 before the real move. −30 fires latest; in 5 of 22 TQQQ cycles less than 10% of the run was left at entry. −50 and −40 balance the two, which is why this study leads with −50.
Made a new high
Median entry above the bottom
Median further gain from entry
Table 3. Threshold comparison in detail
| Ticker | Threshold | Cycles | New high | Entry above bottom | Further gain from entry | Under 10% left at entry | Weeks to peak | Dip after entry | Worst dip |
|---|
All values are medians except cycles, counts and worst dip.
How far past cycles ran
Measured from the bottom, every completed BULZ cycle at least nearly doubled. The weakest was the 2022 bear-market rally at +92%, which would correspond to $47.30 today. The TQQQ record, scaled up to BULZ volatility, has a softer floor. Its weakest cycles would put the peak near $37, below today's price, meaning the move would already be over.
The two vertical lines mark where BULZ stands now, 1.60 times the low, and the 2.28 times it needs to clear $56.09. Bars that end left of the first line would mean the run is already done.
BULZ, bottom to cycle peak
TQQQ scaled ×1.4, bottom to cycle peak
Table 4. Projected BULZ cycle peak, applying past outcomes to this cycle's $24.61 low or $39.34 cross close
| Method | Cycles | Weakest | 25th pct | Median | 75th pct | Strongest | Median vs. low |
|---|
At −60 the actual BULZ trigger was Aug 10 at $39.55; the cross-close rows use $39.34 for all thresholds. Strongest values come from the 2020 and 2025 V-shaped recoveries and should not be read as targets.
Why the new-high odds are lower this time
Every cycle that failed to make a new high followed a decline of about 45% or more in TQQQ-equivalent terms. This decline sits right at that line, at −44.5%. Across both tickers, 6 of the 12 cycles at or beyond that depth made a new high, while all 18 shallower cycles did.
Deep declines cut both ways. When they did recover, they produced the largest runs in the record: 2020 and 2025. Points above the dashed curve cleared their prior high.
Timing and the dip after the cross
The median peak came 17–18 weeks after the cross in both records, which lands in early to mid-January 2027. The middle half arrived 8 to 22 weeks out in BULZ and 11 to 30 weeks out in TQQQ. Cycles that recovered from declines this deep cleared their prior high 8 to 17 weeks after the cross, most often after 11 to 13 weeks. From this cross that points to late November or early December.
Before topping, price typically dipped 12–14% below the cross close, about $34–35 from here. The bottom itself was undercut in only 1 of 30 cycles (TQQQ, 2024).
Weeks from cross to cycle peak
Deepest dip below the cross close before the peak
What could make this estimate wrong
The %R window will lift the reading on its own. The June highs of $45.12, $45.72 and $44.14 drop out of the 14-week window over the next three weeks. If BULZ simply holds $39.34, %R reaches about −13 by the week of September 28. A −30 cross in that stretch reflects the window rolling, not new buying.
The 2022 pattern. In the one bear-market cycle, BULZ ran +92% off the low and peaked two weeks after the −50 cross, only 9% above the entry, before making new lows. Price is already +60% off this bottom, so a repeat would leave little upside from here. A close that puts %R back below −80 ends the cycle by definition; this week that is $28.83.
Small, overlapping samples. BULZ has 7 completed cycles. TQQQ adds history, but it has been 0.97 correlated with BULZ since 2021 and almost all of its record comes from a long tech bull market. Treat the percentiles as rough guides, not a fitted distribution.
TQQQ is not confirming. TQQQ's July low only took %R to −77, so it never armed under this rule and has no qualifying signal. BULZ is the stronger of the two right now, at −30 versus −55.
Appendix: cycle log
Every trigger in the record, with the numbers behind the figures. The shaded row is a cycle that is still open and is excluded from the statistics; its peak (*) is the high so far.
| Bottom week | Bottom | Prior high | Depth | Trigger week | %R | Trigger close | Entry vs. bottom | Peak week | Peak | Gain vs. bottom | Gain vs. entry | Weeks to peak | Dip after entry | New high |
|---|