Chapters
00:00 Intro
01:25 Cashtags Nominations for Nick & GP
04:39 GP: The Mega Caps Can't Stop Selling
08:00 The Ignition Fuel If They Do
09:40 Ben: $MSFT, OpenAI & the Emperor's Clothes
11:52 Nick: Amazon, Google & Meta on the Weekly
13:58 $MSFT: 200-Week, 50-Month & the Dot-Com Analog
19:13 QQQs Monthly Fibs: 548 & 520
21:56 The NQ Range, Micron & Relative Strength
26:20 Bitcoin's Prove-It Moment
31:10 $CRCL, $COIN & a Shake-and-Bake
34:56 $PLTR, $RKLB & Exit Liquidity
35:30 $NFLX & $SPOT: Canaries & Technical Resets
40:52 Nasty Nate & Week 29 of the Range
45:09 Market Character, the VIX & $NVDA's 253 Days
53:14 $DELL, $CRWV, $APD, $PRIM & $AKAM
1:02:10 Final Words
Market Hours #171 went out live on Tuesday, March 24, with Ben, Nick and GP, back after a week off. Ben opened by congratulating Nick and GP on their nominations for community member of the year at the 2026 Cashtags awards. Then it was back to a market in week 29 of its range. GP said he "hates it," because the mega caps can't stop selling and Microsoft was breaking its 200-week for the first time since 2011. The crew weighed whether that sets up a 2022-style collapse or a huge ignition if the selling stops, mapped Microsoft's and the QQQs' levels, debated Bitcoin's prove-it moment, and went through Netflix, Spotify, Nvidia's 253 days of sideways and a few chat names.
Nick's setups, levels and trades
Nick said the MAG names need to bust higher soon to save their weekly charts. Amazon looked like it was bear-flagging under its 30- and 40-week. Google looked head-and-shoulders-ish on the daily but less so on the weekly, and if it legs down, a 30-point range takes it back to about 250–260. Meta looked about as bad as Microsoft, sitting on a floor it hadn't broken, and if it did, he'd expect it back around 500. His best case for Microsoft was a double bottom against the 200-week, like late 2022 into January 2023, when it based and ended up putting in a higher low. "Microsoft looks brutal."
He pulled up a monthly QQQs chart with fibs from last year's low to high, roughly 400 to 640. Price sat at the .236, which he thought looked good. The .382 is at 548 and the .5 at 520. Recalling Cookie's point that taking out a prior candle's low tends to bring a retest of a moving average, he said a pull into the .5 would be a pretty good entry with a stop under last year's low. If it takes that out, "I don't even know where we're going." If the mega caps can't find a bid, he thinks the .5 or .382 is the likely target. The strong names would probably round-trip some of their parabolic moves, and IPGP could easily come back to the 90s. He's been trading with less size, staying off his phone and ignoring the indexes, trading each name on its own setup because trades are working in both directions.
On Bitcoin, he lets the chart decide. On the monthly, it was sitting right on a trendline that would mark a fourth or fifth touch if it held, which he called a really low-risk long entry. If it doesn't hold, there's a huge air pocket, arguably to 30,000–31,000 but really down to 16,000–17,000. He admitted crypto still feels like a video game to him compared with owning a stake in a business. On Netflix, he liked that it held about 96 but didn't like it rolling at 93–94. If it rolls, it may go after the gap fill near 86.50, but he also liked a trade back up to 103–106 into the 200-day before reevaluating. The weekly closes had been tight in the mid-90s and could set up an ABCD leg higher, but it has to get above 114–115 to climb back into the range. He'd trade Spotify over Netflix. It has a similar ABCD look and, if it holds, could rubber-band back up to test its declining 200-day around 600. He said the market's character was the frustrating part: rager Mondays that fade and no strong closes, the opposite of a trending bull, where weak opens get bought. If the range held, this would be a fifth touch.
On Nvidia, he noted it had done this same sideways pattern before, after running from about 11 to 210 off the 2022 lows. "Look how good Dell looks," and HP too. From the chat, he liked APD's huge base. Mid-range is the place for a cheater entry, with a stop around 255–260, since losing the longer-term weekly averages would likely mean a retest of the low end of the range. He'd add above 300 and again through about 330. PRIM was a continuation trade that had been "on a non-stop rocket" since breaking out of its base above 32. He traded Akamai back around 2006–07 when he started trading. He set an alert at 124 and then threw on a starter anyway. His final word was to have compassion, empathy and patience for yourself, because it hasn't been an easy market: "There's always tomorrow."
Ben's setups, levels and trades
Ben said he still didn't know who he'd vote for between his two co-hosts, joking that he might stay "Switzerland." On Microsoft, he said the stock caught its AI mojo on the OpenAI relationship. Now it was facing potential litigation with OpenAI as OpenAI fell out of favor to Claude. "The emperor has no clothes": Microsoft never built its own AI, people are tied to it through the enterprise, and nobody likes Copilot, "the most vanilla version of AI that one can imagine." He thinks that's showing in the price, with bear flag on top of bear flag and a break of the 200-week. Threatening legal action only muddies the waters, and investors want clarity. They've always said you only need three or four of the mega caps working to carry the rest, and none were pulling any weight. He pointed to a yellow line from last April's Liberation Day tantrum that has served as support and resistance, so the most logical place for a bid is somewhere in the 340s. Below that would be three legs down, which gets scary given how widely Microsoft is owned in retirement accounts. On his chart, the 50-week (an EMA) was last breached at the 2022 bottom, and before that in 2013.
On the NQ, the level they'd watched for six months was about 24,200, and price was right there. He hated the high wicks getting sold but took hope from the bottom of the range holding. After six months, everyone is "sitting in a room of rocking chairs like a long-tailed cat," waiting to see whose tail gets run over. On Bitcoin, he asked who is left to buy with so many ETFs and fund holders. It could be setting up a cup and handle, but crypto is in a "prove me" moment, and he's not brimming with optimism until it does. He said it was probably the most negative he'd sounded on it. On Netflix, he'd tweeted GP that it had an undercut-and-go against the 50-day while still protecting the gap from the canceled Warner Discovery deal, and asked whether it could be the canary showing the market isn't as soggy as it seems. He said he'd bought every dip at the bottom of the range he's willing to buy and still has a little cash, but "prove it." He usually stays zen, but market-by-tweet was getting to him. The day before, the market was down nearly 1% premarket, jumped 2% and then sold back down 1%. After six months of that, the volatility was getting old.
He told the story of how he and GP used Nasty Nate as an inverse indicator in Coronado, and joked that Nate had been on both sides of every trade lately. He agreed with Zah that semis lead again and thinks they'll save the market. He missed his chance to get back into Dell in the 80s, though GP credited him for pounding the table on it long ago. On CoreWeave, he explained his core thesis: if the AI spending is real, somebody has to build the data centers, and CoreWeave is where Nvidia put the most money. "Why am I going to bet against Jensen?" BlackSky, which GP had put on his radar, had "done nothing but pay." He also gave Zah credit for calling a drone name a couple of weeks earlier and asked whether it could go to 21–22. His closing line was a dad joke: he'd been saving dad jokes in a savings account, but they still weren't earning any interest.
GP's setups, levels and trades
GP said he still hates the market because the mega caps can't stop selling. There's so much strength and coiled price action elsewhere, but the slow destruction in the mega caps puts huge weight on the market. Microsoft breaking the 200-week was something it hadn't done since 2011, 15 years. If the AI leader keeps falling nonstop since July, he doesn't think people will hold COIN or crypto comfortably. He called it the reverse of 2021–22. Back then, the mega caps held up while names underneath fell 50–70%, then picked up speed to the downside around the calendar flip, and the QQQs fell 37% in six months under their own weight. Now the rest of the market was holding up while the mega caps were distributed. If the leaders start accelerating lower, it's a similar setup to 2022. He still leans bullish because so many leaders are stepping up: if the mega caps stop selling, "the ignition fuel is monumental." A 15–20% move in Microsoft off the 200-week would take the QQQs to all-time highs, and the mega caps are about 25–30% of the index. That two-sided risk is why he stays more in cash than stocks. Most "news" with Trump tweeting is just people tweeting their positions, he said.
He had Microsoft's 50-month at about 370.73. You can undercut the 200-week and still hold that, but the last time Microsoft meaningfully broke its 50-month was the dot-com crash in November 2000, after which it went sideways until 2014–15. He doesn't expect that, since Microsoft does about $78 billion in free cash flow a year, up from about $54 billion, and could buy Claude with it if AI were the problem. Microsoft is the top holding in the IGV, and the question he asked the previous Wednesday, "who's left to buy?", still had no answer. On Micron, he quoted Druckenmiller: if you have amazing news and cheap valuations but the price keeps going lower, you're missing something. He'd said six months ago that he'd go to all cash if this kept up, and he was close. He'd like to see the range flush so he can see which names hold relative strength. AMD, of all names, was holding up, along with ARM, Dell, GLW (which reversed what looked like a head-and-shoulders breakdown and has memory exposure), DigitalOcean, Netflix and Spotify. None of them were leaders yet. Relative weakness stayed weak: CRM couldn't find a bid after announcing a buyback worth about a third of its value, and Hims couldn't either after partnering with Novo Nordisk, the company that had been suing it. Bitcoin was "the most apathetic" thing on the planet.
On Circle, he said it went from about 62 to 131 and was retracing, which is fine. It filled the gap near 101.85 and could fill all the way back to earnings. COIN ran from 137 to about 212 in a month. COIN and Circle were down 8–9% on news that Congress was reintroducing a stablecoin and staking proposal that failed the first time. He read that as a "shake and bake" candle, while MicroStrategy barely flinched. Watching futures closely over the past year has been eye-opening. He has no view on tomorrow, but thinks the market is higher a month from now. Palantir was insanely strong one day and destroyed the next, and Rocket Lab broke out of a month-and-a-half balance on volume, then did an offering and couldn't find a buyer. To him that looks like short-term distribution, with rallies used as exit liquidity. On Netflix, he sold last January around a level equal to where it sat now on a split-adjusted basis, after capturing a 4x. It went on to 1300 without him, and the first trade he took in a year and a half "immediately punched me in the face." Technical damage like this in Netflix, Spotify, Microsoft and Meta takes time to repair. If you're buying Microsoft LEAPs at the 200-week or 50-month thinking it's the bottom, you'll probably be disappointed for a long time. Only news-driven resets V out. Fundamental declines take time because "one quarter is not enough, two quarters is not enough, three quarters makes a trend."
The market has been rangebound since September, week 29, and "you don't have to choose a side." If it breaks lower, there'll be endless chances to short, and if you finally become a rangebound trader, "I guarantee you they're going to do something different." For shorts, 4 p.m. to midnight has been the easiest trend: he saw the NQ up 100 points at 7 p.m. and down by 7:30. Tesla and Apple act as twins, holding up while the market dumps and then joining in to "put the jugular in." He argued the shorts were using enormous power and still couldn't break the range, so it would take something out of left field, not the Iran war, to dislodge it. The VIX had stayed above 20 through March but barely moved on worse news, and oil still couldn't take out its Russia-Ukraine high. With Nvidia's weighting rebalanced higher, a breakdown there would accelerate the market lower. But Jensen doesn't seem worried, and after 253 days of sideways action at a nearly $5 trillion valuation, earnings are growing into the price. For a name like Nvidia, he said, breakdowns are rotation, not fundamentals, into names like AMD, Dell and ARM. Dell broke out two years ago in February and then "sat in the pool and drank its beer" through the AI boom. On Akamai, he pointed to a monster monthly base and a line at 125.21 he's had drawn since inception. His final word: stay positive, and let him know when you become a rangebound trader so he knows the market's about to resolve.
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This is not financial advice. Market Hours is for education and entertainment only. Always do your own research.
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