Chapters
00:00 Intro
01:40 Retesting Overnight Lows & Nick's $ALAB Ding
02:13 QQQs: The V Off the Nov. 20 Candle
05:30 Pain Trade Higher: $AMZN & the RTY's 2,477
09:49 Derivatives, 5x ETFs & Market Breadth
14:02 "The Market Is Wrong All the Time"
16:42 Frustration vs. Patience: A Trade-the-Trader Market
23:39 Nick Goes Long SOXL
25:46 Crypto's Bounce: Strategy's Bottom & Vanguard
29:29 Ethereum's 3,100 & Bitcoin's Igniting Bar
34:54 Bears Chest-Thumping & the Pi Cycle Top
40:22 Bottoms Are a Process
44:34 Volume, April & Range Behavior
48:44 GP: Peekaboo Bars & Why He's Short Google
52:21 Tops Take Months: 2021–22 & Strategy's Island
54:25 GP's 2026: Small Businesses & Regional Banks
58:53 Nick's 2026 Targets & Ben's Vault and Torque
1:03:52 Final Words
Market Hours #156 went out live on Tuesday, December 2, with Ben, Nick and GP. Ben joined from "my mom's basement" while recovering from elbow surgery, with an ice pack and pain medication. The QQQs had V'd out of the November 20 "puke" candle and were closing above the 10/10 candle for a third day, but GP called the price action "beyond exhausting," with sector-by-sector rotation. Crypto bounced hard after Strategy's high-volume bottom and Vanguard opening up to crypto, and Ethereum got back above 3,000. The crew dug into Ethereum's 3,100 trigger, Bitcoin's Pi Cycle, and why "bottoms are a process." GP explained his Google short, and each host gave his 2026 outlook.
Nick's setups, levels and trades
Nick was having a good day "except for ALAB," which dinged him, and he dumped most of it into the 10-day. He's bullish but could still argue a head and shoulders on the NQ. His P&L is "just churning," so he's off the keys and not pressing, which beats a major drawdown. To him, it's "a trade-the-trader type market": momentum and breakout patterns aren't in favor, so "you've got to be comfortable buying backfills... buying those undercut and rips." The QQQs tested the low of the 10/10 bar and undercut and reclaimed the November 20 bar. They were pushing into week 12 of consolidation, in "the sweet spot" of an eight-to-12-week corrective chop. Since the November 20 puke bar, they've had decent opens, weak mornings and strong closes, the uptrend signature. He had worried about price getting back inside that bar, and it didn't.
He went long SOXL the day before because he likes the SMH for continuation: "I just felt like it was the easy trade." His initial target is about 58, where he'll take a good chunk off in the mid-50s, then ride the rest toward the upper 60s and low 70s. On crypto, he read the high-volume low on November 21 as a capitulation low. Price came back inside that bar on low volume and closed off the low, a higher-low or double-bottom setup. For Ethereum, a push through 3,100 confirms the double bottom, breaks the descending channel (his line runs off the October 7 and November 3 highs) and reclaims the November 4 high-volume candle low. From there, it pushes into the 200-day, with the 10- and 20-day finally flattening. He called Bitcoin's day an "igniting bar" on low volume, which shows sellers couldn't push through the high-volume low. It's similar to the February–April slop under the 200-day that led to the run from 75,000 to 100,000-plus. He said technicians would love a retest at 60,000–70,000 as a breakout retest. He also loved seeing Peter Schiff calling Saylor a fraud, though he didn't trade Strategy.
On bottoms, he follows O'Neil's capitulation low, day-one rally attempt and follow-through day, layered with fibs. In April, he drew fibs from the capitulation low to the top of the April 9 candle. Price undercut to the 0.618, held above the 50% area, bounced the next day, "and it was like the race is on." For technical traders, "all we're trying to do is stack our odds, play if-then while we're managing our risk." In a sideways range, it's harder to look for a capitulation low and follow-through day, and many growth investors are still playing off April's. For 2026, he thinks SPY is "getting ready to go on a run to a thousand." The QQQs could reach about 700 before consolidating, and the RTY "could tag another probably thousand points." He'll hunt big bases, stage one or trending names below their highs, for fresh buys, in "a year of gunslinging." Maybe the slogan should be "you're not optimistic enough." The dream is some chop into the new year, then setups in February and March. His last word: "Don't waste your time waiting until the new year to set all your resolutions... there's no better time than right now."
Ben's setups, levels and trades
Ben called November 20 "an awful day in more than one way," since it was his surgery day, and noted the QQQs had V'd right out of it. He shared Wall Street Wingman Matt's chart: the S&P 500 advance-decline line was at fresh all-time highs, so "this is not just a small number" of names. Small caps, mega caps and semis were all working, and "that is not emblematic... of further decline." He told GP to chill: "Sometimes you make more money when you don't lose more money." He poured into SOXL in the single digits in April, after already betting on Broadcom, because of the volume, the biggest since 2022. He warned that SOXL rebalances daily, so as a long-term hold it decays your capital, though it's been easy to trade weekly for nine weeks.
He was "this close" to calling the crypto bottom the day before but figured he was "overmedicated," and he bought a little of this and that, not heavy. Bears were out with targets from zero to 30,000, and that kind of over-exuberance usually signals a turn. He checks the Pi Cycle Top a couple of times a month. If this was the top, it's different from every prior Bitcoin top, because the upper moving average never crossed. Past cycles are littered with dips below the lower average that rallied back, which suggests Bitcoin could race back above 100K. ETF and institutional flows may explain a grind instead of a parabola. The law letting retirement accounts custody crypto, and Vanguard jumping in, are tailwinds, but "if Bitcoin can't get it back above 100 to 110K with some speed, the bears might not be wrong just yet."
He said bottoming is a process and rarely a clean V. On Bitcoin, the daily needs to get over the 20-day for stage two. The 4-hour was already over all three moving averages and coming up on the 200. The QQQs repaired everything within three sessions of the November 20 candle: "all the wounds are healed." He likes some strength back before saying "this is the time to buy." For 2026, he spent the second half of 2025 positioning. He has a 12-year runway for his long-term account, building a "vault" of anchors (leaders, or names that are wildly mispriced) plus "torque" positions that are sister or brother trades. He expects more concentration, more opportunistic trading in the torque names and heavier buying when vault names are mispriced. His last word: "I used to be indecisive, but now I'm not so sure."
GP's setups, levels and trades
GP was having a good day but found the market annoying: it randomly tested the overnight lows again. He said the 10/10 candle peaked above and the 11/20 candle peaked below, a resolution on both ends, and the reaction was "give me your money." That day would be the third close above the 10/10 candle. "The pain trade is higher." Amazon's five-minute chart showed a massive-volume breakout and immediate failure, "half a dozen times." On the RTY, mark 2,477.1, the 2024 all-time high, which was back-tested repeatedly for three days. "You need 745 things to go right," and when they all line up "you get 150 points higher." Rotation was "sector by sector demolition day by day": KRE up, XBI down two days, XLE down. He thinks the market is increasingly driven by derivatives. With 2x, 3x and soon 5x single-stock ETFs and options on them, the next crash will be ETF-driven, though he doesn't see one soon. He argued markets misprice things all the time, pointing to his Intel entry and Synopsys. Swing trades opened in June through September have churned, with ARKK, Rocket Lab and Intel taking a 30% haircut.
He called Strategy's move the day before the bottom: a high-volume morning-star candle, the highest volume of the year, at about 155 with Bitcoin in the 80,000s–90,000s. There were rumors of a big JPMorgan short and plenty of jokes about Tom Lee, and then Vanguard, after long dismissing crypto, opened up to it. "I'm going with the Vanguard bottom." On bottoms, volume alone isn't the key. It's where price tagged and reclaimed on that volume. A "peekaboo bar" above or below a prior low or high is price exploration looking for demand, and engulfers "in their own space are useless" without follow-through. "Analysis is not a one-candle conversation." He's short Google because it put in a capitulation top: panic buying, overnight 10-point gap-ups in a stock that usually moves $3 a day, "and they're distributing to your ass." Markets top over three to six months of sideways distribution. 2021 topped November 21 and broke on January 4 with a bearish engulfer. Strategy may still retest, but the day before was capitulation on sentiment, volume and price, a morning-star island reversal.
For 2026, he expects an even better time for the economy than for markets. The Fed hiked late in March 2022, and the inflation was structural, from shutdowns. Rate policy since has given small businesses, "our lifeblood," no direction. The free-money companies that didn't adapt are gone, like Beyond Meat, Forever 21 and Nikola, and the survivors need to be released. "The only way out of debt is growth." He expects regional banks to lead, with KRE sitting at its 2007–08 GFC highs in a beautiful consolidation. Look for real-world economy stocks, not mega cap, where the growth has been captured: Rivian, Exxon, regional banks (his favorite is FITB), and AI's real-world benefits. "Don't go buy something that's been in a downtrend for four years." His last word: "Stage-one bases are soul-sucking bases. You rent in the stage-one bases. You own in the stage-two base breakouts." Make saving your mental capital the top routine for 2026.
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