Chapters
00:00 Intro
01:36 Week 23: Doomer Talk & Friday's Relief
03:42 Nick: 615.50, 605.50 & Using Yesterday's Candle as Risk
08:32 GP: The FOMC Low That Can't Break
12:48 Boomer Stocks, $RCL's Failed Breakout & $ORCL
15:21 Month Five of the Range & the Monthly Dragonfly
17:24 The NQ's 25,312 Level
21:12 Range Tests & Why $MSFT's 30% Drawdown Isn't a Bubble
23:18 Fastest Horses: Exxon, Ichor & TeraWulf
25:52 Nick's Process: 1,500 Names, Alerts & Igniting Candles
29:04 Gap-Up Psychology: Conviction vs. Discount
35:39 Trade vs. Investment & Knowing a Stock's Personality
37:43 Playing $ICHR's Gap: The 60-Minute Range
40:31 GP Likes $CRCL, $TSLA & Enphase
44:28 Mega-Cap Mean Reversion, $SPOT & $NFLX's 2012 Rhyme
48:19 Nick: Boomer Names, $NET, $SNOW & $CRWD at 400
53:25 Why GP Calls the IGV Bounce a Dead Cat: the 4/9 Candle
58:53 Final Words
Market Hours #166 went out live on Tuesday, February 10, with Ben, Nick and GP. It came after a "stock apocalypse" week and a Thursday–Friday relief rally that poked at the top of the range in week 23. Nick laid out the QQQs levels that would let him lean bullish. GP explained why the NQ's FOMC low from the first rate cut of 2025 is the line in the sand. Then the show turned into a lesson on scanning, alerts and gap-up psychology, using TeraWulf and Ichor Holdings. GP closed by explaining why he thinks the IGV's bounce is a dead cat, measured against the April 9 candle.
Nick's setups, levels and trades
Nick called it "week 23 of the range in the Nasdaq," and said chop "brings out the worst in a lot of us." Thursday and Friday felt like relief, nudging the upper part of the range and putting in another higher low. The QQQs were pausing at the 50% retracement of the most recent high-to-low move. To lean bullish, he wants price above 615.50 and holding. On the shorter term, the 50% retracement of the 595-to-617 move over the last four sessions was 605.50, right at Monday's low, so he'd use Monday's candle as risk. A pause mid-range was no surprise, and unless you bought off Monday's open, he didn't think you needed to chase. With a green Monday flipping the usual red-Monday, turnaround-Tuesday pattern, he'd let the open play out or look for a weak Tuesday morning. He thinks the IGV is overdone and that some software names were starting to perk up.
He explained his process. He keeps about 1,500 names on a master watch list and toggles between top percentage and dollar gainers all day. A name showing up there is usually an igniting candle. He narrows the list to about 100, keeps alerts on 50–100 of them and has a favorite 10–25, with alerts at pivot highs and lows. On TeraWulf, he had a cheater entry through the 15.50 pivot high the day before and a bigger entry alert at 16.50–16.60. If he'd missed the breakout, he'd set an alert near 17 or 16.50 to catch a pullback. Friday's bar convinced him: an igniting candle or pocket pivot with a wide range, a huge body and above-average volume, slicing through all the major moving averages within the range. A morning dip toward 14.50 would have been "a massive gift." For Ichor Holdings, if he weren't feeling aggressive he'd wait for the first 60-minute range and enter through about 46.25. Then he'd let a day trade turn into a swing at smaller size, stopping out if price fell back into the range. Another approach: set alerts at the day's high and low, and if it gaps down to around 44, put on a starter with a stop under the low, because the highs and lows of high-volume candles tend to get tested.
He said writing trade plans and deciding whether something is a trade or an investment manages your expectations and your sizing. A trade you can size up and play for momentum. An investment you leg into on strength and weakness, with the chart as a timing tool. Picking up on GP's boomer-stock point, he was looking at KRE, XLE, Delta and the trucking and rail names, such as ODFL, XPO and SAIA. In software, Cloudflare was reclaiming its 182 pivot low from late November ahead of earnings after the bell, and Snowflake looked interesting. He wasn't looking to get involved, just searching for clues. "We don't necessarily need IGV to V out of here, but if the waterfall could stop, that would be fantastic." He likes CrowdStrike against 400 as a starter that could pop to 435 and put in an ABCD leg up. It's below all its major moving averages but in a range, it held the prior range's lows and its four-year MA, and it didn't get down to the 77ish area. His last word: trades are working both ways, manage your risk, and scanning and alerts are "our edge" as retail traders. "Lock in."
Ben's setups, levels and trades
Ben recapped the previous Wednesday's Community Rip with Matt Tim Payne, where he "could feel the negativity emanating from the four microphones." He loves a weak Friday and weak Monday with buyers stepping in Tuesday and Wednesday. This time he expected Friday's rally to be sold into a bloodbath, but it stuck, and Monday confirmed it, though he wouldn't be surprised by a dip back to 605. "It's never as good as it seems and it's never as bad as it seems," and the volatility of the last few weeks tends to create buying opportunities. He agreed with GP that the longer the range lasts, the more likely the downside becomes, if it doesn't break out in the next five or six weeks.
His standout name was Ichor Holdings, up 30% on the day, and he wished he'd bought TeraWulf, which Nick bought on the gap and was already up 15% from there. Ben explained his hesitation. An 8% gap up feels like the worst case on a Monday when he wanted to buy closer to the base, and he trades a small basket of 20–30 names whose charts he knows. "I trade the things that I know." He said he needs to coach himself better on short-term trades, where a stop-out is just a cut-and-move-on. He'd put Ichor on his list on a Sunday and it gapped Monday, the same situation as TeraWulf. His takeaway from Nick's lesson: "Just more balls."
On software, he said Ivanhoff posted a great chart on StockTwits comparing semiconductors, SPY and the IGV over the past seven or eight years. Ben retweeted it with "I am the semiconductor," since he's bought so many semis, while the IGV had massively underperformed. He started his ServiceNow position because there will be winners in software if "the waterfall can stop waterfalling." Many names have ridiculous forward multiples, and AI will disrupt a lot of them, some to zero, but he thinks ServiceNow and CrowdStrike are two of the better names, and Dan Ives liked CrowdStrike too. "Sometimes your boy jumps in the dumpster." He put in a joke limit order on Netflix at 69.69 "for the culture." His closing words: be kind to yourself, be true to yourself, and "find inner peace before you can do anything else." Joey Rockets was set to join the next day's Community Rip.
GP's setups, levels and trades
GP said the market can't go anywhere if tech doesn't stop selling. It doesn't need to outperform, and as soon as it stopped selling on Friday, the Dow put in a huge candle. Thursday's overnight low on the NQ was "insanely significant," the low of FOMC on September 17, the first rate cut of 2025, which he sees as a macro shift toward easing and liquidity. It's also where the October 10 "Trump disaster candle" and the November 21 candle, when a member of Congress spoke and the market reversed 1,200 points, sat. If that low fails, "you can short this market with both hands, both feet." He doesn't expect it to fail and thinks it was the final test of the FOMC range before broader participation. If it does break, he'd short the names that haven't been destroyed yet, like Google, Microsoft and Meta. He wants the boomer stocks to consolidate rather than sell off. RCL had seven inside days after earnings, tried to break out and failed, so he stopped out of a small long and thinks it can retest its breakout near the 280 gap fill. Oracle had two massive days.
He said you have to stay nimble because "they're out to destroy you, divorce you from your shares." If the range goes six months, he'll lighten up a lot, because major tops have come from four- to six-month distribution cycles. He counts it as month four or five, with a dragonfly-type monthly candle struggling to move higher. "If that bull flag just keeps bull flagging... they usually do the opposite." His short-term NQ level was 25,312, from a random spike down around 1:20 p.m. the day before. It had produced a bunch of false breakdowns, so it's not an automatic short, but it's worth watching for a meaningful loss. The range had tested the downside three times and the upside twice. To the bubble talkers, he said Microsoft's slow, steady 30% drawdown is rotation, not a bubble, because bubbles move quick and powerful. If the market breaks out, he doesn't think defensives and cyclicals will be the fastest horses, and chasing Exxon after its 20–25% run is "a trap right now." On TeraWulf, he said the move through the 15.60 sell candle took out all the sellers, so you could buy there with a stop at 15.10, about 3% of risk. If the market gives you other chances to get back in, you probably don't want to be in.
He never buys Tesla at the high of day, because every high there is a trap, and knowing a stock's personality matters. His names: Circle, which engulfed the prior two days' range on higher volume than Thursday, which MicroStrategy and Coin didn't do. Out of its IPO base, it could push to the 50 SMA, about 20% from 60 to 78. Tesla's setup is fine, but "it's the graveyard of all call and put premiums" until there's a catalyst. Enphase took out its two-year downtrend on a massive volume week and was retesting it, with a minimum target of 58, though it can drop 30% as fast as it rises, so keep stops tight. He doesn't love the mega caps but is in a Microsoft mean-reversion trade. Meta keeps looking strong and then failing as it does technical repair, and the two are the cheapest mega caps at about 22–23 times earnings. Spotify and Netflix were starting to show a backbone. Netflix hasn't led since February 2025, and he sold it around 912–920 before the split, above where it trades now. Like after the 2012 Qwikster disaster and the 2022 drawdown, it could sit in a wide range for a year and a half or two before reaccumulating at the highs.
He called the IGV bounce a dead cat. TTD pumping, a stock that "hasn't been able to find a buyer since Obama was president," tells him it's short covering, and his contrarian side wants one more flush. His pivot for every software name is the April 9, 2025 candle, the second-best day in Nasdaq history: a 12% day on historic volume after a two-month, 26% drop. Microsoft tagged it Thursday and Meta has held it for months, but ServiceNow, the leader, trades far below it, which "just doesn't sit well with me." He's tried a couple of ServiceNow positions that are working for now, but he thinks it's a trade before the final bottom. CrowdStrike, holding its April 9 level, is the stronger name. His last word, after cheering his Knicks and calling Detroit "a bunch of posers," was about pivots. "Horizontal pivots are a lot more powerful than your diagonal trend lines, than your cloud support, your moving average," because "that's where actual price happened." With confluence, great, but if a pivot breaks, get out.
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