Chapters
00:00 Intro
01:50 Fed, Oracle & Broadcom Week
03:24 Nick: Red Monday Playbook & "First Move Is a False Move"
07:10 GP: "Bull the [Heck] Up" & the China Gap
10:15 Three Months of Nothing Since the September Cut
12:18 IWM's Four-Year Base & Speculative Season 2.0
14:57 Mega-Cap Distribution, Crypto & Tesla
16:31 Crypto Breakouts: Ethereum's Undercut and Go
19:10 Bitcoin's Weekly Reclaim
21:52 Powell, Polymarket & "Baked In"
26:09 O'Neil & the Third Consecutive Cut
28:46 GP: Nothing's Priced In
34:11 Favorite Names: $FROG, $PATH, $ROKU & PayPal
35:55 GP: Double-Top Caveat, $RKLB, $TSLA & $OPEN
38:34 $XOM, $ALAB & $CELH: Real-World Stocks
41:44 Ben Back in SOXL & 2026 Picks
44:53 Stage-One Bases, Micron & Carvana
48:14 $OPEN's High Tight Flag
51:27 $CCJ & $PDD
55:18 China: $BABA vs. $PDD & $JD
59:05 Airlines: JETS, Delta & $ALGT
1:00:08 Final Words
Market Hours #157 went out live on Tuesday, December 9, with Ben, Nick and GP. It was a big week: a Fed decision the next day, with about 90% odds of a quarter-point cut, Oracle earnings and Broadcom on Thursday. Nick laid out his red-Monday playbook and "first move is a false move" plan. GP turned the tables on the hosts with "bull the [heck] up," fully long into what he called a three-month consolidation since the September cut. Crypto was ripping 8–10%, with Ethereum's "undercut and go." They argued whether a cut is "baked in," and GP ran through his speculative and real-world names: Rocket Lab, Tesla, Opendoor, Exxon, Astera Labs and Celsius. They finished with Opendoor's high tight flag, Cameco, PDD vs. Baba and the airlines.
Nick's setups, levels and trades
Nick is "pretty hefty long" and was happy to see a red Monday. The playbook is roughly turnaround Tuesday, chop or push-higher Wednesday, "sheep-shaking Thursday," and hopefully a strong Friday close. Monday only pulled into the 10-day EMA on the ES and NQ, not the 20- or 50-day he'd expected before the Fed. He came in wanting to get aggressive on pre-Fed short covering. If the market rips out of the Fed, he wants Thursday's pullback contained within the body of the Fed-day candle. The rule is "first move is a false move," from five-minute charts up to the daily. If they chop around tomorrow, he leans higher Thursday. The E-minis had been in a tight consolidation for almost nine sessions after ripping off the lows, so as "someone that's very bullish," he leans toward the trend resuming. The IWM has conditioned him for disappointment, but it looks "on the precipice of an absolute ripper," and a follow-through breakout could mean another speculative season.
He said the crypto move was technical, not random: definitive trend-line breaks in Ethereum, Dogecoin and Stellar (XLM). Ethereum pushed through its declining 50-day, though it didn't hold 3,000 as nicely as he'd hoped. Sunday's bar didn't shake him out, "so I wanted to pound my chest a little bit." He cited a chapter in O'Neil's How to Make Money in Stocks: a third consecutive rate hike often marks a major top six months to a year out. He wondered whether a third consecutive cut could be the catalyst for the next leg higher.
He likes JFrog (FROG), Joby and the drone names, which he thinks are the future. UiPath (PATH) is nearing stage two, and DigitalOcean (DOCN) is in stage two. If he had to split between Rivian and Opendoor, he'd go about 60/40 Rivian for its base, though Opendoor has already broken out and is trending. For Opendoor, he'd just set alerts at 8 and 5 and ignore it inside that range. A pop to 8 takes out the two-week high and resumes the trend, and a knife catch near 5 retests the high of the July 21 candle. "Just set the alerts." Of a chat ticker, he said it's in a range but three-weeks tight just above the five- and 10-week. PDD is ranging between 100 and 150, and he'd set alerts at 100 (the round number), 120 and about 141. A 120 entry keeps his cost down for a breakout. It went three-weeks tight on the 40-week, which he wouldn't call a bear flag. On airlines, Matt's JETS setup failed, then rallied back. He likes JETS, thinks Delta looks great, doesn't love Alaska and likes ALGT's rounded structure. His last word: be grateful heading into the holidays, and don't wait for New Year's resolutions. "It's never too late. You're never too far gone."
Ben's setups, levels and trades
Ben said the Fed decision, Oracle earnings and then Broadcom, which "can rock everything in the QQQs," make for a volatile week. He laughed that GP, after months of hearing "you're not bullish enough" from one of them, was now telling them to bull up. "I am positioned long. Let's do this." He said Ethereum is showing it's the leader over Bitcoin, Solana is ripping with everything on its network, and the descending wedge they drew on Ethereum "couldn't have been much better." It wicked under the 3,000 support zone and rallied, "the undercut and go, baby," and he credited Kenny Glick with the phrase. He loves 10% crypto days, and days when semis and Amazon are up huge.
Polymarket had Hassett leading for the next Fed chair. Ben thinks Powell will run a smooth transition and has tried to be honorable, even if he's too data dependent, as GP complains. He explained that "baked in" means the betting odds, not price, and that the market isn't infallible. With quantitative tightening over at the start of the month and another cut likely, the dot plots and future guidance will shape how people forecast early 2026. Powell still has two meetings, January 27 and March 17–18, before his term ends in May.
He still likes Roku, which he thinks has the same setup Roblox had before it busted out. He likes PayPal "for a trade in the 60s." He's not calling all-time highs, but "anything can trade." He sold some SOXL near Friday's highs and bought back near the morning's low: "reincarnation... every time I put money back into SOXL." He's been in Rivian since the 20s in 2023 and lowered his cost by trading the range. He's not anxious to sell and is positioned for it to appreciate. "I'm a glutton for punishment and cheap shares." Taking Micron off the Liberation Day lows would be up 300%. Carvana before its 2023 breakout was up 2,800–3,400%, while CarMax was "toilet water." He liked Cameco (CCJ) at 90 and still likes it at 92, "textbook trend." The New Year's Eve StockTwits show will cover resolutions and their best pick for 2026. His last word: "One day, one step at a time."
GP's setups, levels and trades
GP told the hosts, "I love your cautious optimism, but bull the [heck] up," saying he's fully positioned long. Silver showed what the market will do: seven to nine days of tightening into the daily moving averages, a tag overnight, then off it goes. The QQQs were tightly consolidated right at the October 24 China gap, repairing bullish structure on most time frames, with a golden cross on the 4-hour. He admitted the market has gone nowhere since the September 18 FOMC, the first cut of 2025. The Trump "torpedo candle" tagged that low, and November 21 double-bottomed on it. FinTwit expects a repeat of December 18, 2024, and the VIX jumped 10–15% on no news. "This three months has conditioned you" to sell resistance and buy support, and that will change. He wants the Fed to give small businesses a path to plan, which he thinks will ignite the IWM's four-year base. Everyone will try to short the first breakout, which drives it higher.
He sees distribution out of the mega caps every day since November 21, rotating among Apple, Meta, Nvidia and Google. Small caps are led by crypto and Tesla, "the train that has never gotten to Chicago... but when it goes to Chicago, it goes to Mars." On Bitcoin, the bulls closed an inside week green on heavier volume, above the prior week's body, when everyone expected the 64,000 repeat of 2021–22, and the follow-through was across the space. Crypto led the April breakout too. He doesn't think Powell will screw anyone. He argued "none of it's priced in." If it were, small caps would already have busted loose. The names that led out of April were hammered: Hims from 64 to 34, Rocket Lab from 75 to about 40, plus ASTS, Oklo and Bloom Energy, along with crypto names like BMNR, Strategy and Coinbase. The IWM is still coiling around its 2021, 2024 and 2025 highs. He counts this as the fifth cut of the cycle, and "everyone's in a wait and see mode to deploy capital."
On the speculative names, his caveat from 2021: Block and Roku double-topped and then died, so if these names double-top, take profits. He got into Rocket Lab at 42 the week before, and it was at 52. He called Tesla "the number one shitco on the planet." Opendoor is "the classic Carvana setup," but only if management executes the way Carvana's did by going profitable. With rate cuts unlocking housing, Opendoor's high tight flag of three months tight on almost no volume is front-running the market. "When stocks that shouldn't be where they are show relative strength... pay attention." Lemonade only goes up on earnings, but its long-term bull shape looks fantastic. He's long Exxon, plus copper and oil, and said XOM "is ready for prime time." He loves Astera Labs' (ALAB) retest and push higher. His 2026 theory is real-world economy stocks. Celsius (CELH) got its weekly 50/200 golden cross after a nasty earnings response and is basing, and it'd be a new long if the week closes there. "This is where you get reincarnated to the promised land."
He agreed Roku has accumulation, like Wayfair. PayPal and Block "are just not wanted by anyone. And if no one wants it, why do I?" He avoids stage-one bases, "a miserable, lifeless, soulless journey," with Wayfair waiting on fundamentals and Micron taking two decades before it cleared and was "game on." He thinks Rivian outperforms Tesla this year and wouldn't be surprised if it's next year's Palantir. On PDD, it knocked on 154 three times and failed, a red flag, so keep it tight. It's underperformed like JD, so he prefers Baba, a stage-two breakout retest, and Futu. JD "has been the chosen one" since 2017–18 and never went. "If things are weak compared to their industry partners... they're weak for a reason." His last word: "Life's short. Try to be a reasonable person," and "be kind to everyone around you."
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