SPY and QQQ Today: October 16, 2026 Weekly Recap and What to Decide This Weekend
Jake here. Friday was monthly expiration, the week is done, and the numbers are in. I start with them, then move to the part that matters more: what to settle before Monday.
Friday and the week, by the numbers
SPY closed Friday at 763.25, down 8.54 or 1.11% from Thursday’s 771.79, with a low of 760.64. For the week it fell 15.32, or 1.97%, from the previous Friday’s close of 778.57. The weekly range ran from 760.64 to 779.40, high on Monday and low on Friday.
QQQ had the wider week. It opened Friday at 725.52 against a Thursday close of 728.00, ran down to 707.23 and closed at 709.80, a drop of 18.20 or 2.50% on the day, finishing about 14% of the way up its range. For the week it fell 41.47, or 5.52%, from 751.27. The weekly range was 707.23 to 749.79.
The closes tell the story in order. SPY: 778.10, 778.01, 769.60, 771.79, 763.25. QQQ: 746.04, 743.57, 728.95, 728.00, 709.80. I am not going to say why the week went this way, because I do not know, and anyone who claims to is guessing.
What expiration day means for the weekend
Standard monthly options expired Friday. Anything you held through the close has already resolved: contracts that finished out of the money are gone, and contracts that finished in the money may have been exercised or assigned. Over the weekend, open your account and look at what is actually there. Shares you did not plan to own, a short position that turned into a stock position, or a balance that looks different from Thursday are all things to find now, not Monday at 9:30am.
The same goes for buying power. Assignment can change what you have available, and that changes how large your first trade of the week can be. Check it before the open, not after you have placed an order.
What to decide before Monday
The first decision is whether you trade at all on Monday. After a week where QQQ fell more than five percent, sitting out the first session is a legitimate plan. Flat is a position.
The second decision is size. Write down the dollar amount you are willing to lose on a single trade next week, and size every position so that number is one you can take without flinching. A bad week is the wrong time to find out your size was set for a good one.
The third decision is the weekly review. Write down each trade you took, what the plan said, and whether you followed it. A loss that followed the plan is a different thing from a loss that did not, and only the second kind is a mistake you can fix.
The fourth decision is the calendar. I have not pulled the release schedule for October 19 to 23 yet and I will not guess at it. Check it on Sunday, mark the times of any high-impact releases, and decide in advance whether you hold a contract through each one.
An illustrative hypothetical
This is a made-up example with round numbers, not market data. Say you set a rule that a week’s total loss of $500 ends your trading until the following Monday. By Wednesday you are down $450. The rule makes the next decision for you: one more small trade at most, or none. You wrote it on Sunday so you would not have to argue with yourself on Wednesday.
Where copy trading fits
This is the reason I built my routine around alerts. A concrete alert arrives with an entry and a defined stop already attached, so the hard thinking happens before the pressure does. I started out improvising. Year 1: lost $11,400. Year 2: broke even. Year 3-6: profitable. The difference was not a better read on the news, it was having the plan written down first.
One honest line: copied trades can lose, stops can slip in fast markets, and nothing here is a promise of results. If you want to see how the alerts are structured, there is a free trial, and you can judge the format without risking a dollar.
Correction, October 17, 2026: after the next-morning recheck, QQQ’s Friday open is 725.52 (was 725.48), which makes the opening gap 2.48 below Thursday’s close (was 2.52). Weekly range, weekly change and all closes are unchanged.
Figures are from daily SPY and QQQ price data pulled about 40 minutes after the October 16, 2026 close. This feed has revised small details after the close before, so I recheck the next morning and correct this page if anything moved.
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