28 markets worth a closer look today (Jul 18)

Stock market index levels today paint a picture of synchronized selling pressure across Europe, Asia, and the Americas. Twenty-eight major indexes crossed monitored support levels in a single session, most hitting one to three month lows, with several touching nine-month or one-year floors. This is not a single market wobble. This is a coordinated pullback that signals heightened caution among global investors.

When this many indexes retreat together, it matters less which individual stock you own and more which ones remain standing relative to their peers. That's where the research workflow shifts: from stock-picking to sector resilience and relative strength within weakness.

A Coordinated Pullback Across Three Continents

European indexes dominate the list. Germany's DAX, CDAX, and TecDAX all hit one-month lows. Ireland's ISEQ 20 and Spain's IBEX 35 did the same. The Nordic region, Sweden, Finland, Belgium, Austria, followed suit. Nothing escaped.

Asia mirrored the move. China's Shanghai Composite touched a nine-month low. Japan's Nikkei 225, TOPIX, and JPX-Nikkei 400 all printed one-month lows. South Korea's KOSDAQ and Taiwan's index retreated three to nine months. Canada's venture index hit a nine-month floor.

When developed and emerging markets sell together, it usually signals one of three drivers: rising real rates, tightening financial conditions, or a loss of risk appetite. Without knowing which one dominates, the safest assumption is that capital is rotating away from growth and toward safety. That typically means larger-cap value names hold up better than smaller-cap growth.

What This Means for Your Research

Index weakness is a macro pulse, not a buy or sell signal. But it reshapes where to look. Companies that fall with their index aren't necessarily broken, they're just riding the wave. Companies that hold up despite broad selling pressure are worth scrutiny.

This is exactly when the Heatmap earns its place in your workflow. The Heatmap identifies businesses that have declined recently but still rank well versus their sector peers. On a day like today, sector-relative strength becomes more valuable than absolute price performance. A stock down 8% while its sector drops 12% is showing relative resilience, a clue that fundamentals or positioning might differ from the crowd.

Start with the Index Review page to confirm today's major threshold crosses. Then pivot to the Heatmap filtered by your home regions or sectors of interest. Screen for companies that fell but maintained percentile rank above the 50th. These are candidates worth reviewing on their company pages before any deeper analysis.

Your next step: check which sectors within the indexes that fell today have held up best. That tells you where relative strength is hiding.

Next steps

See Buydy pricing, read the ETF heat map workflow guide, or explore dividend research workflows for a repeatable routine.