Chapters
00:00 Intro: Ben's Back from the Flu
02:07 GP: Watch Copper & the Inverted Trump Years
04:18 Rotation into Decade-Long Bases
06:34 Mag 7: $MSFT & $META vs. $AMZN
10:18 A Stock Picker's Market
12:29 Tesla, "a Penny Stock"
15:47 Volatility, $HIMS & Mental Capital
17:22 Trending Names vs. Stage-One Bases: $ROKU
21:11 Torque Positions: $SOFI & $AMD
26:06 Ben Buys Crypto; Nick's Crypto Take
28:15 Bitcoin's Channel & Tight Weekly Closes
30:54 IWM & Why Ben Bought the Apathy
34:10 Bitcoin's Maturation & the Broken Four-Year Cycle
39:29 Ranges Contracting & Powell's Replacement
41:42 QQQs: Week 15–16 & a Measured Move to 700
43:22 Earnings Power & Dr. Copper
45:34 Rio, a Q1 Pullback & Financials as the Last Leg
49:37 Base Breakouts: $U & Using FANG for Cash
51:46 Nick's Names: Space, China & Power
57:00 $TBLA & the NQ 25,700 China Level
1:00:56 Final Words
Market Hours #160 went out live on Tuesday, December 30, the last show of 2025, with Nick, Ben and GP. Ben was back from a week with the flu ("go get your flu shot"). GP opened with "If you're not watching copper, I think you're going to struggle with 2026." He laid out a theory that Trump's first two years have run in reverse this term, and all his theories "lead to one road": higher, but not in every name. The crew argued Amazon vs. Microsoft and Meta, Tesla as "a penny stock," and stage-one bases like Roku vs. trending names. Ben explained why he bought a sizable chunk of crypto on the apathy. They also covered Bitcoin's maturing as an asset class, a measured move on the QQQs, financials as the last leg and Nick's space, China and power names.
Nick's setups, levels and trades
Nick thinks 2026 will be another stock picker's market, which is hard for passive investors. The in-play names will be space, robotics, "all the weird sci-fi" stuff. He agreed Amazon is still in its range and risks being dead money until it moves. On every time frame, though, it looks like one of the best current setups ready to take off, while Meta and Microsoft are already trending, so "the move coming in Amazon could be pretty explosive." He's been consuming more of Tom Bruni's content, which focuses on joining names that are already trending instead of hunting for the next setup.
On crypto, he got excited a couple of weeks earlier when Ethereum looked ready to break out of a double bottom, and those lows had held. He likes it more above 3,000–3,100 and above the 200-day, but he doesn't have a strong opinion either way right now. He dollar-cost averages Bitcoin and Ethereum automatically and sees crypto as "an insurance policy for the future": "definitely not early, but you're not late." On Bitcoin's weekly channel, the high end is around 585,000 if it went parabolic, and the low end is around 50,000–58,000. He leans to an upside resolution because the weekly closes are so tight, which he reads as accumulation and not bear-flag behavior. "They're wearing people out through time." Even if the pain trade is down, he thinks it's limited, "one final flush" to knock out whoever is still levered. He noted Strategy was testing the low of its December 1 high-volume candle.
The louder the noise and distractions get, the more bullish he gets. The QQQs were in week 15 or 16 of the chop range, "building energy" with the ball "bouncing faster and faster." The measured move from 585 to 635 puts them near 700. Even a pullback from there to the mid-650s would leave the 30- and 40-week moving averages above today's price, "and it would look phenomenal." He thinks it'll be a great year for stock pickers even with a meaningful correction.
His names: Intuitive Machines (LUNR) and Rocket Lab. Archer and Joby continue to disappoint, and he isn't in either. China names are perking up. He likes XPeng (XPEV) a lot from a stage-one base: above about 25.50, it has room to run and could double without taking out its all-time high. He likes Baidu (BIDU) slightly more than Baba, though Baidu's descending triangle is wider and choppier and Baba is the one coming out of a stage-one base. The space names are putting in three-, four- and five-week tights at the high end of their moves, setting up "for another leg higher." Some robotics names look good. A name in the aerial group broke out that day and was pushing on 200, the round number, with room to about 300 if it holds ("I love expensive stocks"). Planet Labs is on its third tight week. GE Vernova went three-weeks tight despite recent volatility, and he thinks it's getting ready to run to 1,000. Vertiv (VRT) went three-weeks tight resting above its 30- and 40-week moving averages. He likes Vistra (VST) less because it's below its longer-term moving averages. He put Taboola (TBLA), from Randy, on his watch list. His last word: "Less is more right now." In a range, directional and momentum traders "get the most used and abused" as it ping-pongs.
Ben's setups, levels and trades
Ben argued Amazon looks best of the Mag 7. Google lagged a long time before it moved, and no Mag 7 name has its hooks deeper in logistics and everyday digital life than Google and Amazon. As "an active long-term investor," he likes his odds in 2026 "with my eggs in the Amazon basket" more than in Microsoft, which led until October. On stage-one bases, he said those are usually his biggest winners and he rarely has losers. His expertise is finding mispriced value assets in growth categories and buying in stage one, even if it's brutal for a year or two. He has liked Roku since around May, up about 50% since then, and it's "probably" his 2026 pick. He's not calling for 490 or $500 again, but he thinks the same setup at least gets to the 170s, about a 70% gainer on a stage-two breakout. He and GP were both in Coinbase from the 50s. He switched his 2026 pick off Moderna to "a China name," to be revealed the next day.
He described core holdings plus "torque" positions alongside them. He's been in SoFi since about $15, has taken his profits out so it's "completely de-risked," and it's about 5% of his portfolio. AMD is "probably my biggest torque play" ever: buy some, sell some, never fully exit, which generates cash for more Amazon and SoFi. "You have to have other positions on that are generating money." He thinks 2026 will be a grind higher, climbing a wall of worry. He bought crypto the day before. Nick named the apathy, and "when nobody's expecting it, when everybody's tired of it... that's when it goes." He took a sizable piece of Bitcoin, added sizable Ethereum, and bought his other long holds, Solana and Chainlink, the four tokens he has the highest conviction in, "no other shitcoins." The market has had many chances to drag Bitcoin to 70 and hasn't. A mean resolution would put it back around 100–105. He called the altcoin bottom in the spring and is ready to buy more lower, but doesn't think it goes much lower.
He doesn't see a doomer scenario until earnings collapse. For almost five years, nearly every quarter has been better for the biggest companies, so "until the companies start reporting terrible or suboptimal earnings on a consecutive basis, we are going higher." He still expects a run-of-the-mill pullback, around 10%, sometime in Q1 that will scare everyone, and he called any dip a buy, not a reason to sell down his positions. On copper, Southern Copper (SCCO) is the alpha name, but "alpha names go both ways." He prefers Rio Tinto for its roughly 5% dividend and steadiness, after 17 years inside the 2008 candle. On Powell's term ending in May, he noted a report that Trump might sue to remove him early. His last word, from his flu reading: Peter Lynch's line that "far more money has been lost by investors preparing for corrections or trying to anticipate corrections than has been lost in the corrections themselves." So stay steady, because "chances are you're not that guy" who nails the top or bottom.
GP's setups, levels and trades
GP's theory is that Trump's first and second years are inverted this term. 2017 was the lowest-volatility year ever, with the VIX at 8.56 and a straight grind up. 2018 had a hawkish Fed and two big drops until the Christmas Eve turn. He thinks 2025 looked like 2018 and 2026 will look like 2017. But "not higher in all the names you might be holding." The Mag 7 were likely to underperform, and the market has been rotating into breakouts from multi-decade bases: silver out of a 47-year base, "still ripping face," though he thinks it pauses here. Copper and the regional banks are coming out of 17-year bases, and Exxon Mobil is moving while oil is in a three-year downtrend. He noted Roku has done essentially nothing since 2018 apart from its COVID moment. In the Mag 7, you have to rotate, and the ones that look ready to launch are Microsoft, flagging just above the 200-day, and Meta, which moves hard when it moves.
To GP, Amazon is like their 2023 gold conversation: once gold broke 2,100 you just stayed long, and until then you got chopped to bits. For momentum trades, Amazon needs to reclaim its earlier pivot high around 243–244 with power. "Every time I try to think it's going to be, it slaps me in the face." He called Tesla "a penny stock" in the way it trades, a trillion-dollar stock that loses 2% on a single candle. Pre-split, it hit 925, fell 60% to 350 in COVID, then dropped 60% again from 170 to 110 before S&P inclusion. "If you think you can call Tesla perfectly... you're lying through your teeth." Build it over time and trim when it moves. Volatile stocks reward those who sit through the gut-wrenching moves. Hims has been a disaster since October, so he pivoted to metals because they're trending, and he called crypto "apathetic" for now. It's all about preserving mental capital. He said even long-term investors need some active positioning, citing T-Stock Picker's active vs. core shares, because most people sell a three-year hold the moment it breaks out or retests.
He argued Bitcoin's four-year cycle no longer exists. Those cycles were retail psychology, and this is "the maturation of an asset class" from early holders to institutions, with higher highs and higher lows since Coinbase at 55. He compared it to an IPO base, as with Palantir going to about $5 and Meta's IPO halving: VCs get out and new investors bring it down before they buy. "This is like the IPO stage breakout for Bitcoin," after 15 years of outperforming everything. Copper is the metal that matters. "There's a reason it was called Dr. Copper," and if it breaks out, demand and earnings grow. Financials are usually the last leg of a secular bull, and regionals are still within 10% of their GFC highs after years of consolidation. He thinks 2026 is up and to the right, with some relaxing into 2027 and concern after that. He said someone "keeps copying me" with a 7,700 target he made in 2023.
His 2025 standouts include Unity (U), a stage-one base breakout with a retest, which he bought around 29 in the top part of the base as volume came in, along with Rivian. He's long Microsoft and Meta, but at his measured moves he'll exit and use the FANG names "to generate cash" for the positions he wants. On the NQ, he drew 25,700 on the hourly and 4-hour charts as "the China trade level," the gap-up from the US-China deal rumors. Price has crossed back and forth over it every day for months, "like a magnet," with resistance turned into support, and he hopes the calendar flip resolves it higher. His last word: happy new year, "keep your head on a swivel in 2026," and "the more you're in your head, the worse you'll perform."
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