Chapters
00:00 Intro: Picks First & Happy 2025
01:07 Nvidia's Outside Reversal Takes Down the Megas
02:10 Nick: Tesla's 393, QQQ 520 & One More Leg Higher
05:49 Nick: Sold Nvidia Into the Gap, Trail Stops & Dry Powder
07:53 GP: The Same Amazing Setups Every Week
09:26 GP: Sideways Since July & Buy the Close, Sell 9:45
13:00 GP: The 2015–16 Analog
13:31 Nick: Quantum, Drones & Runner Size
16:10 GP: RGTI's 40% Swings
19:15 Ben: A Leg Lower & SPY 472–475
22:21 Ben: Bitcoin Dominance at 57.8%
23:24 S&P 6,300 First?
24:55 GP: No Distribution Volume & January 24, 2022
28:05 The Megacap Poll: Apple, Amazon & Microsoft
30:42 GP: Netflix Is the Reason to Stay Bullish
32:44 Nvidia & Meta
36:22 GP: Hims' Monthly Fails & Weekly Reclaims
38:26 Nick: Hims' Three-Week Tight
39:59 Solar, Banks, Airlines & Boston Scientific
42:03 2024 Stock-Pick Results & the Minions Onesie
46:42 Ben's Buys & GME
47:14 Is AMD Too Crowded? An Intel Trade
52:58 Nick: AMD's Descending Wedge
54:01 Energy & MSTR
56:09 GP's Picks: Hims, Celsius & Okta
58:16 The 200-Day Lately
59:18 Nick's Picks: INSP & HQY, Pfizer & Cal-Maine
Market Hours #139 went out live on Tuesday, January 7, the first show of 2025, with Ben, Nick and GP. The morning gap up after Nvidia's CES keynote had turned into an outside reversal that dragged the megacaps down. GP vented that the market has gone nowhere since July and that "the same amazing setups" show up every week, while Nick thinks there's one more leg higher before a longer correction. Ben held his view that the next move is a leg lower. They polled the megacaps and settled on Netflix, looked at Hims, solar, AMD versus Intel and Okta, and scored the 2024 stock-pick game. One host argued AMD is too crowded and that an Intel trade around a new-CEO pop makes more sense. Someone else said the S&P sees 6,300 before a 10% correction.
Nick's setups, levels and trades
Nick said Nvidia's outside reversal was "an ugly ass bar" that took the megas down, but Tesla held 393. Losing it would have made him nervous about a trip back toward the 380 low. The QQQs held their three-week tight range around 520. "I think that we get one more melt push leg higher before we go into" a three- to five-month correction, which would mean selling into March and buying around August or September. MonkeyBanana's 15–20% call is possible, but he expected heavier selling by now. He's long but "not balls to the wall long" and has dry powder. He sold his Nvidia into the gap as a trade and lets trail stops force him out. He thinks it's a year to "ignore the indexes" and focus on individual stocks and weekly charts. Alt energy names look great, the megas still look fine, and Broadcom and TSM look good. On the quantum names like RGTI, plus SERV, drones and robots, entries were easy if you caught them early, but he got down to runner size fast and trailed by the 10 or 20 because it's momentum and speculation, a lot like the 2020–21 Cathie names.
In the megacap poll, he'd buy Apple in the 230s if it legs lower. If it fails there, the 200-day around 210–215 is likely. Amazon is a flag tipping the 10-week while the 50-day catches up, and Microsoft is his least favorite. Meta is one of his favorites after holding the 10 and 20 that day. On Hims, three-week tights work as magnets. For someone not in it, he'd risk last week's wick "and just throw my stop at 23.50." AMD's weekly is sitting on the lower line of a massive descending wedge, a low-risk spot, but "every time I've drawn a wedge on AMD, the bottom's falling out," and chips don't seem like the place to be right now. His picks for the week were Inspire Medical (INSP) and HealthEquity (HQY). He loves HQY's monthly base, but it needs to clear the pivot high. He also joined GP's Pfizer long around 26.50, and Pfizer and Cal-Maine were his two buys.
Ben's setups, levels and trades
Ben said, "It's going to resolve to the downside. We're going to have a leg lower." The QQQs are only up about 5% and the SPY about 2.5% in two months since the election, without buying volume. "Volatility often precedes a trend change." If the trend changes, he could see the SPY at about 472–475, and "prices are closer below 500 than in the five teens." He expects a 10–15% correction this quarter that's "done pretty quickly. Take the stairs up, the elevator down." He said the SPY will get closer to 570 than to 630 first, and the longer the "great setups" drag out, "the more I dislike them." He has been more bullish on crypto, but until Bitcoin dominance (57.8%) dips, the alts are "at the whim of Bitcoin." He won the 2024 stock-pick game with Snowflake, from 114.86 to 154.41 by New Year's Eve, up 39%. Nick's pick went from 99.49 to 113.61, up 14.19%, and GP's Wayfair fell from 56.18 to 44.34, down 21%. Ben added that his original PayPal pick would also have won. GP agreed to wear his Minions onesie if he finishes last again. Ben put money to work last week, including more SentinelOne, and bought back shares he'd sold higher at a cheaper cost basis.
GP's setups, levels and trades
GP said every week the crew says there are amazing setups, and "guess what, next week the same amazing setups are there... the market's just not ready." The pattern has been "buy the close, sell 9:45 a.m., and then let it grind down," with upside trends lasting half an hour to an hour and downside trends lasting hours. Since December 18 the SPX has traded between the three 30-minute FOMC candles. The QQQs were $2 from the July high, about 503, before hitting about 505, "that is a sideways." It reminds him of 2015–16, when the market consolidated for 16 months near all-time highs and then took off, or 2017, "a year that you just want to stay long." Moves aren't clean: RGTI went from a high of 7.96 to a close of 5.97 the next day, a 40% swing, and "you just have to be a day trader." Google cleared 200 and then double topped, Tesla is in its "I'm going to f you in the face phase," and Ambarella had a big red candle. He isn't seeing distribution volume on the downside, though the recent big volume bar could be like January 24, 2022, the high-volume front end of that correction. Lower volume on the way up just means climbing a wall of worry, so "I'm in the neutral camp."
Netflix is "my one reason why I continue to remain bullish." It was the first to bottom in 2022, buyers keep stepping in near 870, and it won't even tag the 50-day SMA. Nvidia has been on his short list since about September or October and is just a range for day traders. He noticed many charts, including Hims, failed monthly, quarterly and yearly breakouts at the end of 2024, then reclaimed them by Friday. Hims closed below its all-time-high pivot of 25.43 for the year and then reclaimed it, and it's consolidating on lower volume. A break back below 25.43 would make it a failed move. Solar looked strong, with First Solar the leader and Enphase up three or four of the first four days. He tied that to Tesla's energy growth, along with banks, airlines, Ralph Lauren and a Boston Scientific breakout. For picks, he likes Hims, Celsius in a multi-month bottoming process, and Okta. Okta held the 9-week at the top of a multi-year base with accumulation volume, and his alert is at 91. It tagged the 200-day to the penny and wicked off, and "the 200 day [is] the most meaningless average over the last couple years." If the market takes another leg lower, "Okta will be one of the first to die."
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