Chapters
00:00 Intro
01:37 Cookie Is Back: A Month After "Not Bullish Enough"
08:36 $NVDA 2023, FOMC Cycles & the NQ Retaking 25,250
11:49 $MSFT Near Its Lows & IBM Moves Like GME
15:35 Cookie Went All Cash: Investing Brain vs. Trading Brain
22:54 QQQs Monthly Channel: 634, 670 & the Base Case
33:32 The Move Cookie Wants: A 15–20% Flush
36:06 QQQs Weekly Wedge, 608 & the Nine-Month MA
43:26 Algos, the VIX & Why None of This Is Random
48:06 The $NVDA Earnings Trade: 193 & 197
56:17 XBI as the Template & the Monthly Wick Tip
1:03:17 How Deep? 560, 520 & the 20-Week Rule
1:16:30 $TSLA: 418–420, the Arch & a 240 Bid
1:26:36 $IGV: 82, 85 & a Mid-60s Double Bottom
1:35:10 $MSFT to 310? Bitcoin's Channel & Liquidations
1:42:37 Crypto Divergence & Multi-Timeframe Charts
1:49:30 The Debate: Bullish Enough, Just Not This Quarter?
2:01:38 The Defensive Trap & Tech vs. Staples P/Es
2:06:21 Ben Adds $AMD & $AMZN; Final Words
Market Hours #168 went out live on Tuesday, February 24, with Ben, Nick and GP and a returning guest, Cookie_M. He was back about a month after his "you're not bullish enough" call, which was followed almost immediately by a software and crypto meltdown. It turned into the longest show yet, at more than two hours, and one of the spiciest. Cookie explained why he went all cash for his long-term money and walked through the QQQs, Nvidia's earnings trade, Tesla, the IGV, Microsoft and Bitcoin. Then the crew argued over whether you can be "not bullish enough" while expecting a double-digit correction. The market was bouncing a day after a panic AI selloff, with Nvidia reporting the next night and the State of the Union that evening.
Cookie's setups, levels and charts
Cookie said nothing has changed in his thesis except that the weakness came earlier than he expected. He'd always planned for a weak end of Q1 into Q2 before the market goes higher "forever, for a decent period of time." He went all cash about two weeks ago in his long-term accounts, apart from day trades and short-term swings. "We make money when prices go up, not when they go sideways," and he doesn't want retirement money tied up in a sideways market that could fall. Missing 3–5% in a retirement account barely matters, but riding a 15% correction does. He compared the setup to January 2025 before the April selloff, when the QQQs' weekly moving averages had flattened, crossed and rolled over, just as they have now. On the QQQs monthly, price was finding resistance along the top edge of a channel it had been in for four or five months. Above 634, he gets much more bullish. His original target of roughly 670–680, from the QQQs' long-run log-scale channel, is still the base case if the weakness gets negated.
What he's looking for is a 15–20% move down in the QQQs, like the bookends of 2018 and 2019. The only question is whether it starts around 605–615 or from 660. On the weekly, he showed a failed breakout of the wedge as the moving averages converged. Retaking them would make it a failed move lower and open 650–660. The bounce stopped at 608, just short of the moving averages and right where the nine-month moving average projects for March, after the February nine-month at about 597–598 caught the low. He'd consider an early entry at 608 as a failed breakdown, with room to 618, but he wouldn't get excited until the 20-week was retaken around 613. He pointed out that last week's high was 610.35 and this week's 608.91. "None of this is random. It's all programmed," driven by algos and VIX cycles that set up the morning and afternoon moves "within points."
His Nvidia earnings trade centered on 197 as the week's pivot and 193.89 as the day's pivot, with a stall at 193.71. The good outcomes were a move to 197 that holds, or a pullback from 197 that holds the 193 backtest and then takes out 197. A failed breakout at 197 like early 2025 could take the QQQs from 608 to 570–580 in three days. If Nvidia clears 197, the QQQs clear the 20-week and he's back to his base case of the 670s by March or April. He noted that QQQ went from 594 to 608 and Nvidia from 170 to 193 in three days, which he sees as shaking out longs and shorts into earnings, helped by Monday, Wednesday and Friday options. He said Ethereum rejected right at his level the day after his last appearance.
His template was XBI. It went sideways for four months at the top of its range, then broke down, so a sideways stretch at the highs doesn't rule out a flush. With XBI at 130, taking out 132 would point the QQQs toward the 670s. His tip on reading moves: when price breaks support and leaves a wick but closes the month below the lost support, the next month tends to fill the wick. He expects a quick move down within a month, then one or two months of basing. On magnitude, he named 560 or 520 and an undercut of the 20-month moving average around 530–540. He'd consider 465 the most extreme case and doesn't expect it. He starts buying at and below 520. A move above 622, the March pivot, would tell him the correction probably isn't coming yet, and above 634 "it's done." While the QQQs are below the 20-week, which he calls "the second guardian of the trend" after the nine, he holds nothing overnight. Chasing from 613 to 616 costs him only about 2%, which he'd rather give up than take the downside risk.
On Tesla, he used the same template as Nvidia. It bounced off the 200-day and fell back, sitting "in no man's land" below a falling 9, 20 and 50. Yesterday's high was 407.70 and today's was 407.68, two cents apart, and taking it out would open a trade to the nine at about 412.50. The rolled-over 50-day makes breakouts less likely to stick. On the monthly, he sees two cycles, EVs and then autonomy and bots, rhyming with the 2013 run, four-year consolidation and "archway." If the QQQs pull back 15%, he'd buy Tesla at 240, "a hella haircut." Above 418–420 he's interested again. Below 420, "you don't even have a car," though between 420 and 500, "start your engines." On the IGV, the failed breakout looks like 2021–22. Above 82 he'd give it the benefit of the doubt, and above 85 he'd go all in with 82 as a stop. Below 85, it could reach the low 70s or mid-60s and double-bottom, with 78 as trend-line support. Microsoft could backtest its 2021 highs around 310 if the market weakens.
Bitcoin did what he'd said: after failing to hold 84,000, it went toward its 50-month moving average around 58,000 and got to 60,000. Its channel down from the 125,000 October high could allow one more consolidation and a leg to about 40,000 by summer. Traders he works with were buying the 61,000 support. He noted that the biggest liquidation day in Bitcoin's history, in October 2025, marked the beginning of the misery rather than a bottom, so capitulation volume doesn't guarantee a reversal. He shared a tweet from David Marlin comparing tech and consumer-staples P/Es. Tech P/E bottoms in 2019, 2022 and April 2025 came when staples' multiples fell too, so with staples' P/Es historically high, the hiding spots may still get taken out. His closing tip: when VIX futures move around their four-hour 9, 20 and 50 moving averages, expect a choppy day, and use those levels for intraday support and resistance. He also didn't expect ES to get above about 6930–6935 that week.
Nick's setups, levels and trades
Nick said the talk about algos reminded him of social media, which is designed to drain people's energy with replies that might not even come from a real person. He put a pullback to about 520 in context as the 50% retracement from the tariff low to the recent pivot high, "perfectly healthy" in any trend, and an undercut would only stretch the rubber band. "The game that we're playing here is a lot of if-then rather than speaking in absolutes." After Cookie's last appearance, he took the QQQs apart with the golden ratio, and a pullback to 540–550 wouldn't surprise him "one bit." He doesn't know the odds, but he won't discount it. "If you were in this camp of 'this is a guarantee,' then there's no reason to have any cash."
He described zooming in and out across time frames. On the daily, the QQQs look like a bear flag after failing at the 50-day and basing under a declining 10 and 20. On the weekly, they've put in a three-week-tight on a rising trend line right on the 30- and 40-week, in a range that's lasted 25 weeks. He uses fibs to gauge trend strength: the higher in the trend price holds, the stronger it is. On the IGV, he pictured a similar path to Cookie's: losing 76, a dip to the mid-60s or low 70s, then an inverse head and shoulders that reclaims the 75–76 area. "That'd be a phenomenal trade." On a larger time frame, you're late if you're looking to short it, with maybe 5–10 points of downside left. His trade is to step aside, let it bottom and buy the reclaim, then ride the wall of worry back up. He called the selloff an AI "hissy fit" and a repricing of the sector.
Whichever way the market goes short term, he sees "an incredible amount of opportunity" coming as obliterated momentum names rebuild their charts, but timing and time frame matter. His advice was less is more: smaller size with wider stops, such as 2x ATR instead of 1x on a weekly breakout, then legging in if it works, so chop doesn't cut you up. "We're in a range. It's week 25." He added that his golden-ratio triangle on the QQQs projected about an 18% move over roughly 30 weekly bars. If the market heads lower from here, he thinks the drop will be short and violent like the tariff selloff, rather than a two- to three-month build. He sees mid-April as a major inflection point, either a breakout to all-time highs or a capitulation into a tradeable pivot.
Ben's setups, levels and trades
Ben opened with a Gemini-made graphic of Cookie walking through "this dystopian AI robot hellscape" and joked about selling T-shirts. He pulled up the triangle from Cookie's January appearance, which got "perfect rejection," and the inverse triangle Nick suggested adding was holding too. He said he was close to 60% cash in early 2025, when he's normally fully invested with maybe 10% cash. This time, he bought the day before, adding to AMD and Amazon, and planned to add through the week. AMD then gapped up about 15% overnight on news. He's held AMD shares since the 50s and never sold out in his long-term account, though his short-term account is all cash. He passed on TeraWulf to keep some cash, then watched it rip too. "No good deed goes unpunished."
In the "bullish enough" debate, Ben argued it comes down to time horizon. He doesn't care what Nvidia or AMD cost today. He cares where they'll be in 13 to 15 years, and near-term volatility can shake anyone out. On ServiceNow, he doesn't think AI will displace it, so he has enough money to throw one more leg at it, "my line in the sand." He reminded the others that he sold for three months into the first quarter of the new administration in 2025 while they shook their heads, and it worked out. He said the trap is everyone rushing into safety and defensive names while tech gets slaughtered: "You're buying Walmart at 54 times earnings when you can buy Nvidia at 21, Microsoft at 20, Meta at 21," with huge cash piles. If the AI disruption research that flattened everything from IBM to Visa and Mastercard is right, he argued, it hits Walmart, utilities and industrials too, so he asked why everything didn't get slaughtered. His last word: "We're not bullish enough."
GP's setups, levels and trades
GP said the bears had every chance to crush the market over the past couple of weeks, especially on Monday after February OPEX, which has been "straight down" for seven years. Instead, Apple and Nvidia saved it, and the bears panic-covered after hitting the FOMC low. He sees the action since September as digestion of a monetary-policy change, with tops and bottoms lining up with FOMC meetings. He recalled Nvidia in 2023, when it went up 30% in a day on a near-doubling of quarterly revenue and then went sideways for six months, even after beating again. During the show, the NQ retook its year-to-date low around 25,250, which had been solid resistance all February. Even Tesla, which they "love destroying," didn't get destroyed. Microsoft, the blue-chip AI leader with a buyback and dividend, was so beaten down it would be hard to push much lower, maybe 10–15 points. A catalyst would be needed, though it could ultimately go to 200. Its highest volume since 2016 came a week earlier, a sign of potential capitulation. Meanwhile, IBM "just moved like GME."
He's about 80% cash. He agreed heavy cash makes sense near the bottom of the range, but pushed Cookie on whether his lean is bearish. With so much damage underneath and the indices unable to roll over, he argued the lean has to be one way. He noted the SOX had just posted 10 straight green weeks, with semis, industrials and utilities providing risk-on pockets. On the IGV, he asked whether Cookie looks at volume. That day's opening candle was the highest volume of the selloff, and of two high-volume candles in the past few weeks, the first was near 85. If buyers reclaim levels, "the snapback in a lot of IGV will be pretty monumental." Microsoft is the IGV's top holding and he thinks it was unfairly punished. He expected Jensen to talk meaningfully about software on the earnings call, calling him one of the greatest "allocators of capital in our generation, if not all generations."
In crypto, he pointed out that the ancillary names, Coin, MicroStrategy, BMNR, Circle, Hut 8 and TeraWulf, were showing relative strength while Bitcoin and Ethereum felt like the bottom would fall out, a positive divergence, though dip buyers can also add power to the downside. He got stopped out of TeraWulf two days earlier on weakness right before it ran. "Keep risk tight in a situation where we're at the bottom of the range." Then he started the debate: you can't argue a 50% haircut in names like Tesla and also say "you're not bullish enough." "We don't have infinite cash pools," and if something can take a 50% haircut, why buy it now? Sitting at 80% cash, he said, he can't claim he's not bullish enough. As a Tesla bull for more than a decade, he noted it routinely takes 50–60% haircuts, but once it clears 500 the expansion should be "over 100%" even as a more mature company. His last word: put some cash to work with tight stops, position for an upside resolution, but keep enough cash to buy lower if it comes, because "there are insane pockets of strength across the markets."
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