Chapters
00:00 Intro: Nick's Still on the Slopes
00:42 GP: Final Ascent or Pullback?
03:47 Ben: Mixed Signals, Wait and See
04:47 Ben: Fed Speakers & Weak Seasonality
07:21 Ben: Nvidia Priced Better Than Perfect
09:25 GP: Nvidia's Six-Month Base
13:38 GP: AMD's Five Weeks Tight
15:11 GP: SMCI's Volatile Week
17:14 Ben: Bitcoin Above 50,000
18:16 GP: Small Caps' Highest Close in Two Years
20:21 Ben: IWM's Slingshot
22:55 GP: Regional Banks' False Breakdown
25:28 Ben: Miserable Bears & Election Years
30:09 Ben: First Solar's Inverted Cup & Handle
34:18 Viewer Charts: Entegris, Coinbase & Twilio
39:33 GP: Netflix vs. Apple
44:14 GP: Tesla's Quarterly Low
50:51 GP: Fast Food at All-Time Highs
52:57 Ben: Corning
55:07 Toyota, Pfizer & Abbott
58:51 GP: 3M Isn't Showing Buyers
1:03:02 Wrap-Up
Market Hours #104 went out live on Monday, February 19, with Ben and GP while Nick was still away on a family ski trip. Ben said he sees "a lot of mixed signals right now," so he's in wait-and-see mode with the Fed minutes, Fed speakers and Nvidia earnings ahead. GP said IWM just posted its highest weekly close since March 2022 on heavier volume despite two hot inflation prints. The hosts also covered AMD, regional banks, First Solar, Netflix versus Apple, Tesla, fast food names breaking out and 3M.
Ben's setups, levels and trades
Ben said Bezos is selling Amazon into the 170s, the prior all-time highs, and that last week's Amazon, Google and Microsoft candles give people reasons to feel toppy. "It's never a bad thing to take profit," but "I'm glad I'm positioned the way I am but I'm not looking to add right now and I'm not necessarily looking to sell everything right now either." "We haven't started bending any moving averages yet." The next couple of weeks are seasonally weaker, with the Fed minutes, Fed speakers on tour and jobless claims, but "I'm not gonna let one day or necessarily one week shake me out of my positions." He wants to see how the February monthly candle closes.
Ahead of Nvidia's report, he said it has to "be priced better than perfect." It "could absolutely pop another 15% or it could finally catch a breather," and that "doesn't mean that it breaks down through 500." SMCI and ARM have exploded in the last two or three weeks, but "Nvidia started the party," and he isn't sure whether it'll be first to leave. "If you are anything less than ready for everything or anything you haven't been paying attention." He's long AMD "all day." Bitcoin is above 50,000, up from the 48,000 range last week. "It's risk on and chips continue to lead," so it's hard for him to get negative on positions he wants to hold for the long haul.
Of all the indices, he thinks IWM looks the best, better than the QQQs and SPY, with "the slingshot in effect once it releases from this range." He compared it to GP's call last summer that Intel had more short-term upside than AMD. He thinks a lot of "miserable bear syndrome" is out there from bears who missed the run-up and now want lower prices they likely won't buy. In a presidential election year, he doesn't think it's in anyone's interest to see the market fall, though GP noted election years are no guarantee. He sees First Solar as "a little bit of a inverted cup and handle" on declining volume, a shorter-term risk of giving back some points, and he doesn't want to take a stab at it here. On Corning, he said it's above all its moving averages and isn't a bad chart to the upside, but "I think there's better out there."
GP's setups, levels and trades
GP said people are split between "the final ascent" and a 3–5% pullback, and he's focused on the bigger picture, since people have had nearly a year and a half to get positioned. Last week's QQQ candle was down about one and a half percent, which he called a shakeout, with RSI and stochastics rolling over while it stays above the moving averages. Amazon absorbed six to eight billion dollars of founder supply and got bought back up. "You almost need the pullback to gather more energy to bust higher." Nvidia spent six or seven months sideways after its May earnings before breaking out in January. SMCI just guided to double its revenue, so Nvidia may beat, but "it has to come in higher than expected by a landslide." With implied volatility near 140%, he expects market makers to win and would wait for the reaction.
He likes AMD's setup over Nvidia's: it's "five weeks tight" above all-time highs with big wicks. "Every time we get below prior all-time highs buyers are stepping in." SMCI still put in an 8–10% week and held the nine-day despite a "dump fest" Friday. AMD holding up despite a guide-down is the one he's watching most. IWM's highest weekly close since the week of March 28, 2022 came on heavier volume, above the CPI candle: "if price is what pays, those correlations don't matter." He recalled asking in October why everyone was so bearish as the QQQs tested the rising monthly nine SMA for the first time. Regional banks (KRE) aren't as clean, but last week's close at 48.71 was above the 48.44 low, which is "becoming a false breakdown" at a major level. Capital One's bid for Discover at a hefty premium shows buyers see value.
He's long First Solar from the mid-140s. The monthly is wicking off 140 with "a ton of accumulation" on the quarterly, monthly and weekly charts, and he's "pretty confident that it's going to be higher a year from now." Enphase getting bought up on terrible earnings, on volume, was "impressive" and could mean the solar space is bottoming. Coinbase posted its highest close since March 28, 2022, while Twilio "just continues to fumble the ball." Netflix, his "bull market leader," made a three-weeks-tight and its highest close since January 2022. "My conflicting signal is you have Netflix... starting to break out here and then on the other side you have Apple which is looking like it wants to break down," though he doesn't think Apple will.
Tesla "can also buck almost any trend." It reclaimed the five-week moving average for the first time in seven weeks and the quarterly low of 194.07. This is the third time it broke the 50-month moving average, and the other two times it reclaimed it the next month. Eventually it has to test the downtrend line around 250–260, and lower highs since November 2021 still have to change. He wrote a thread on fast food breaking out to all-time highs, including McDonald's, Wingstop, Chipotle, Texas Roadhouse, Shake Shack and First Watch: "AI magically helping these names." 3M has better risk-reward than it did at 200, "but it's also not showing buyers stepping in which is my biggest concern." It's near its lowest monthly close at 90.95, trailing-12-month revenue is still declining, and revenue peaked in September 2021, right after the chart topped in June 2021.
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