Chapters
00:00 Intro: Kicking It with Cookie
02:05 Since February: The Crash & How Everyone Traded It
04:43 Ben: Broadcom Puts & Buying the Fear
05:49 GP: The 10% QQQ Candle Means Bottom
07:59 Nick: The Igniting Bar & the Follow-Through Day
10:40 Cookie: Outside the Charts, When the Catalyst Plateaus
16:26 Cookie: Inside the Charts, Bear Market Rallies & the VIX
18:32 GP: Confluence at the April Low
20:08 Nick: Politics, Fear-Mongering & Missing the Bottom
21:50 Ben: OK to Be Wrong, Not to Stay Wrong
24:27 Time Frames & Miserable Bears
26:33 Cookie: Noise vs. Signal & Earnings Power
30:18 Is the Market Irrational? Nvidia Isn't Topping
31:20 Cookie: Why He's Still All In
31:51 The $10 Trillion Question
40:12 A V Steeper Than COVID Without Stimulus
42:49 Sideways, Not Lower: The Parabola Since 1990
45:31 Cookie: SOXL to 250 & Follow the Chips
47:37 Cookie: High-Sharpe Names & Leverage
52:23 If You Can't Beat the QQQs
53:59 Mindset Over Entries & Tesla's Drawdowns
56:34 Nick: Optimism & Segregating Capital
58:43 Ben: The Victimized Bear
59:47 Cookie: You Haven't Missed the Move
1:01:26 Nick: Millennials & the 2008 Hangover
1:02:29 Ben: The Investor Who Sold the 2020 Bottom
1:04:37 Sharpe Ratios: Broadcom & Palo Alto
1:05:43 Cookie: From Mag 7 to G20 Chip Buyers
1:09:55 Big Numbers & Exponential Innovation
1:11:29 Cookie: Valuations Don't Cause Bear Markets
1:12:35 GP: Time in the Market & Multi-Time-Frame Alignment
1:17:19 Ben: Four or Five Names & The Art of Execution
1:18:58 QQQ & SOXL Splits & Wrap-Up
Market Hours #146 went out live on Tuesday, August 26, a special they called "Kicking It with Cookie," with Ben, Nick, GP and Cookie_M back for the first time since February, before the crash. Instead of a chart session, they talked psychology. Each host walked through how he traded the April tariff crash, and Cookie explained the two "buckets" he used to find the bottom: when the catalyst plateaus outside the charts, and bear-market rallies and VIX capitulation inside them. They covered noise versus signal, Cookie's "$10 trillion question" about what the market looks like if AI delivers, high-Sharpe names with leverage versus picking volatile stocks, segregating capital, the "victimized bear," governments as the next chip buyers, and why valuations don't cause bear markets.
Cookie_M's setups, levels and trades
Cookie said the market bottoms when the catalyst plateaus, not when it ends. COVID bottomed when cases peaked, and 2022 bottomed when inflation peaked at about 9%. With tariffs, once rates passed about 120–150% ("a de facto trade embargo"), "whether the tariffs were 120 or 220, it made no difference." The ratcheting stopped, the two sides started talking, and that was the bottom, even though trade deals are still being discussed six months later. Inside the charts, he asks what if he's wrong. Once the index is 20–25% down, you're not risking much, because "bear market rallies are better than bull market rallies." With the SPY at about 480, at worst it goes to 465–472. And "VIX doesn't trend at 40. It spikes to 40."
He thinks the deafening noise comes from either a cluttered mindset or poor technicals, since fundamentals don't change intraday. The market prices earnings power. S&P earnings grew about 10% year on year last quarter, and CEOs on earnings calls weren't repeating the scare stories. "Maybe the market's rational. You're just too dumb to see why." He's still "all the F in" around SPY 640 because he knows where his technical flaws are. His $10 trillion question is what the market looks like if AI delivers: global GDP going from about $5–6 trillion to $10–15 trillion, with that value captured by companies. Today's $4 trillion companies suggest the market is already walking that path, before autonomy, robotics, new energy or new drugs. Six months ago, he asked whether anyone expected a rebound like after COVID. They said no stimulus, no zero rates, no checks, "and now 6 months later we have a V which is steeper than COVID." The indices have since corrected sideways instead of lower. Internet, cloud, mobile and AI are "the business end of the parabolic move that started in 1990," which leaves no space for deep pullbacks. Lower rates are just an additional tailwind, especially for small caps.
"I see SOXL getting to 250. It's at 25 today. It'll 10x," in the next two or three years. Follow the chips: the Mag 7 bought them, so they'll deliver the first big services, and Musk "has more chips than anybody else." As an index and Mag 7 trader, he puts about 70% in high-Sharpe-ratio names and indices, leveraged up (TQQQ, SPXL, SOXL, on margin) because they're easier to hold. He's matched 100% gains through leverage that way. The other 20–30% goes to names with strong trends, which he dumps when the trend ends rather than sit through a 40% drawdown. His longest holds are index-linked. Even Nvidia, he scaled in and out around pivots, and he scales the 2x and 3x ETFs on trend strength. A healthy mindset makes entries matter less: "It doesn't matter whether you buy Tesla at 330 or 320" if you think it's going to 500. "You may have missed a 2% move, but you haven't missed anything yet," and "as long as you're directionally correct," the entry doesn't matter. You don't need diversification, just four or five solid names you go all in on, kicking out the ones that don't perform.
He thinks governments are the next chip buyers: "Mag 7 will be replaced by G20." The UK talked with OpenAI about free ChatGPT for citizens, countries will want their own data centers for privacy, and governments that didn't trust Huawei with 5G won't trust it with AI chips. That's why Jensen meets governments, "and he's not doing that for the free dinners." Binance made a billion dollars in profit in its first nine months in 2017, and seven years later there are $4 trillion companies, so $10–15 trillion companies won't surprise him. He has never used valuation to time markets. Bear markets come from something else, like inflation, war or COVID, and "company profits plateau, stock market plateaus and falls." QQQ and SOXL are the only two leading leveraged ETFs that have split repeatedly, so with scaling in and out, you can hold them despite decay.
Nick's setups, levels and trades
Nick said the year had been challenging personally but good in the market. He went into a drawdown in the tariff selloff, but he traded smaller than in COVID and was better prepared: "one was like potential human extinction and the other one was freaking tariffs." He called April 9 the igniting bar, with the real follow-through day around April 30, "so you really had all of April to get your [act] together." His fibs from about 482 to the top of the igniting bar saw the lowest pullback hit the 618 on April 21, barely undercutting the gap-down low before reclaiming it. O'Neil's lesson is that "you've got to put money to work even if it's only a little bit." He said political bias and fear-mongering made it hard for many people to buy, even when their technical plan was screaming at them. Few active traders can stay in step with the market, by sitting through melts and buying pullbacks to support in volatility. If you're a swing or position trader, there's no reason to listen to a day trader.
He said that if you can't outperform QQQ or TQQQ trading individual names, why bother? He pulls money out of his active accounts and DCAs into indices. His $10 trillion answer is "your relationship with AI," since how well you use it will shape the rest of your life and productivity "is going to shoot through the roof." On mindset: "stop playing victim as if the market is doing something to you rather than for you." He segregates capital by time frame and strategy, like a lotto momentum account you accept losing versus a DCA or Roth account, and never makes "Momo decisions in my trend account." Many millennials stayed out after 2008, but "as long as you nail the direction, the dominant trend," most of your mistakes are forgiven, because the S&P is "a chart of human evolution." He also said money is all made up and relative, and a trillion only sounds huge because our brains are used to hundreds.
Ben's setups, levels and trades
Ben sold about 60% of his holdings before the crash, while the others were "trying to convince me that I was not doing the right thing." While traveling, Broadcom puts he'd sold to open got smoked and assigned. It felt like capitulation, everything was oversold and "the Spidey senses start tingling," so he put about half his cash to work and the rest within a week to 10 days after the reversal. He got in lower than where he sold, "which is the whole goal," even though Nick had told him "it's a V" before he believed it. "It's okay to be wrong, but it's not okay to stay wrong." He talked about "miserable bears" waiting for prices that never come back, like a friend who called Nvidia overvalued near the lows. A post that's relevant to him for five minutes can be read as a call by a newer investor, which is the time-frame nuance social media leaves out.
He's a believer in "socking money away in the biggest names... the rich get richer." He'd rename them the "victimized bear," since the market isn't rigged against you. Turning higher is just "an opportunity to fix your error and get long." He told the story of a man who started investing in 2019, sold everything in the COVID drop and never came back. He looked up Sharpe ratios and found many high ones in his portfolio, including his two latest buys, Broadcom and Palo Alto. "If nothing's broken with the business, it's going to keep doing what it does." Cookie's four-or-five-names point reminded him of The Art of Execution, a book GP put him onto. Finding one or two compounders and cutting the rest beats building your own index, and QQQ can be the default parking spot when a stock stops performing. He remembered scooping up as much SOXL below $10 as he could around Liberation Day.
GP's setups, levels and trades
GP said 6,100 was resistance a lot of people saw, but no one expected a 26% drop. He was looking for a back test to about 5,500–5,700. To him, the April bottom's 10% candle on the QQQs was "automatic... a bottom," and it's worth taking that shot every time with stops. He went "crazy" buying Tesla and Hims around SPY 474–480 while friends waited. The confluence was obvious: a 50% retrace of the 2022–2024 move, a retest of the 480 prior all-time high, and April 9's roughly 12% QQQ day, the second-best in Nasdaq Composite history. "You didn't need to catch the bottom," with until the May 12 island gap to get long. He said he'd reposted his April 8 comment that, as in 2020–21, no one sees the catalyst until it comes, and it came last Friday. His pinned chart is the 1987 crash analog. The small-cap companies left after three years of weeding out have adapted to tighter money, so cheaper money "is an ignition bar" over six to 12 months.
He said people who wish they'd been born in the Buffett era "most likely... never would have bought Coca-Cola." If AI is what's promised, this is that same wealth-building window, so stack wins and cash and deploy it. He uses multi-time-frame alignment, from yearly down to the 1-hour, and full alignment is "one of the best opportunities to get long. Or short." "It's not timing the market, it's time in the market." DCA into the index and use futures to hedge and trade around it, since we're "at the acceleration point of that S-curve." He thinks inflation and the Fed are good for valuations because inflation lifts earnings, and picking long-term winners is hard, since most of the 1980s top 10 are gone.
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