Chapters
00:00 Intro
02:08 The Calendar Flipped: Software & Mags Rip on July 1
03:45 $MSFT's Failed Breakout & the Undercut
06:21 GP's Quarter-End $META & $MSFT Calls
17:08 Pull the Trigger: Opportunity Cost vs. Opportunity Lost
19:43 $ORCL Calls & Why GP Sold $CRWV
25:01 $ANET: Bronco or Broken?
30:21 $TEM at the 200-Day & GP's T1 Energy
33:28 Leopold Aschenbrenner, Druck & False Prophets
37:53 Crypto: $COIN, $MSTR & the 2021 Retest
46:36 Retesting 2021 Highs & Crazy Price Predictions
50:20 Wendy's, Meme Names & Rotation
56:43 $RDDT 200 & $TOST's 35M-Share Print
59:24 Final Words
Market Hours #184 went out live on Wednesday, July 1, with Ben, Nick and GP, on the first day of the new quarter. The calendar flipped and the names that had been sold all June — Meta, Microsoft, ServiceNow, software — ripped, even with the NQ down about 300 points. GP walked through the quarter-end calls that paid him, the crew argued over ANET, Tempus and T1 Energy, and then came a long debate about whether crypto's retest of its 2021 breakout is a floor or a trapdoor, plus Wendy's as a meme tell and a giant print in Toast.
Nick's setups, levels and trades
Nick said he feels about the mags the way he feels about the IGV: the move down was overdone and stretched, and the beaten-down software names looked like they might be bottoming while the stronger names barely pulled in. On Microsoft, a descending channel broke out through 420–430, failed at the 200-day and reverted to test the lows. Because that was a breakout failure, he'd leaned toward the lows getting undercut — a spike toward 310–320 if things got ugly — before a bottom. Holding the low showed underlying strength. He admitted he felt "a little giddy": if the QQQs go tight here before breaking out, it almost looks too good to be true. Later he said it was worth journaling what you think at inflection points like this, because "we hear these crazy price predictions at major inflection points," and that's a tell.
On ANET, he called it a name that "behaves like a bronco": rather than buy breakouts, have bids in to catch morning weakness — on the day, roughly versus the 20-day around 160–164. Historically it likes to "drop and pop," usually with a wide-range bar and a little consolidation before it runs, though a gap-and-go over the gap would look phenomenal. On Tempus, which he's been in, he said that with the 200-day removed from the equation it's just getting started, with a measured move to about 80 after busting the 58 pivot. You're late chasing it there; a backfill to 58–59 or some chop would give a continuation entry, and the steep 10-day means a gap down would need to be bought quickly.
On crypto, he's in HOOD, but crypto "looks so bad to me on every time frame" — maybe that's when it looks best — and he wants pivots reclaimed and held before he gets excited about the coins themselves. GLX looked good on the weekly and daily. He wondered whether other market participants smell blood in the water around Saylor. On rotation, he compared GP's quarter-end idea to the January effect: names that consolidated rather than got smoked are the go-tos, and if memory consolidates while the mags melt up in their range, "all signs are pointing in the direction we'd like to see things go." He said there's no single right approach — in his trend account he can end up managing something like an ETF — so find what matches your personality.
Ben's setups, levels and trades
Ben said he's done with ServiceNow the way he's done with Rivian — almost. He's done what he does with all his "lovable losers," selling the range as best he can, and was back to about breakeven, though the opportunity cost stung. With software looking good, he pointed to the IGV as a whole, since there's more strength out there than just ServiceNow and Microsoft. His theme with Nick before the show was that if you like a setup, you have to play it: opportunity cost is money sunk in something not performing, and opportunity lost is the trade you never took. He pointed to a name from the chat he'd flagged the day before around 80 as a monthly stage one with risk versus 69, up about 22%: "You can always sell the trade, but you can't put the trade on if you don't pull the trigger."
On CoreWeave, his view was long-term — 80 to 90 is fair value — but structurally it's been in a downtrend since June of last year, so you'll get chop until it breaks higher. He's loved ANET for a year, though he isn't in it, and thinks it wants to rip. On Tempus, which he'd posted as "plus 56 or 58 and it's gone," he said it was gone — and now at the top of a channel and the 200-day, so if he'd started a position recently he'd take a little off rather than sell a runner completely.
He noted that Leopold Aschenbrenner holds a large stake in T1 Energy and, per the chat, Sharon AI: "When you're hot, you're hot." On crypto, he said a pound of flesh has already been taken from Strategy, and the bigger opportunity may be flipping from short to long at prices not seen in nearly three years — and he doubted the administration is involved in crypto to watch it lose value. He floated Wendy's, a meme name, as a possible tell: when retail squeeze names run, as in the GameStop era, the market's attitude tends to shift, and this week's attitude among the three of them was different. The talk turned to Reddit near 200, and to Toast, where Zia flagged about 35 million shares — roughly double the prior record — printing at the 4 p.m. close at quarter-end. On Toast, the plan voiced was to wait for the 20s again or a move through about 29.50–31, with the intended move well past 50.
GP's setups, levels and trades
GP opened with "mirror, mirror on the wall, all you need is a quarter to end them all": sell Meta, Microsoft and ServiceNow all June, then the calendar flips and "boom shakalaka." He shared a trade he usually keeps for his paid service. The day before, he bought Meta 580 calls at $0.98 and 590 calls at $0.51 expiring the next day, and closed most of them around $30–35 as Meta ran about 11%. He also had Microsoft 385 and 390 calls bought for roughly 30–40 cents. His point: when quarter-end and month-end line up, look for names showing relative strength in a depressed cycle where nobody owns calls — before the day, there were essentially no Meta calls above 590–600 — or, on month-ends, names already trending, like Dell and ARM each month this spring. Ten of the 590 calls for $510 could close for $30,000–35,000. The key is consistent size: pick an amount and keep it, because the mistake is risking $5,000 next time after $500 worked. Like poker, where you need to win about 2% of tournaments to break even, one hit can cover dozens of attempts. "Don't do this every week. You're going to get smoked." He added Oracle 150 calls for the next day at $0.39 using some Meta profit.
He sold his CoreWeave, in at 78 after it reached 87. When a bull thesis doesn't play out day after day, the odds of a breakdown grow, and he'd already watched Circle go red. His theme into August OPEX is rotation out of memory and chips into the mags and software for Q3 — if the mags stop selling, the market rips. On ANET, he saw a double top at 180 that got sold, lower highs on the daily and repeated rejections at the gap; he'd need a reclaim of 177.48, the back-to-back pivot high, to trade it. His new position was T1 Energy: flagging on the weekly right into the 9-week, inside heavy buying volume, with 10 as the big pivot to reclaim. He was blunt about Aschenbrenner — buying names after announcing them isn't the same as winning — and said the people he cares about are Druckenmiller, "your definition of emotionless trading," and Buffett if there's ever a 1929.
On crypto, he said COIN and MicroStrategy were "straight up gangster." He bought MSTR 95 calls for the next day and added COIN July 180s and 200s, and would add more if it confirmed for more than a day. Crypto doesn't look bad to him; it lacks momentum. Bitcoin was retesting its 2020–21 weekly breakout area around 58,000, the same thing Microsoft, the QQQs, SPY and IGV did — and all of them got bought and made all-time highs within three to six months; the QQQs went from a 27% correction on April 7 to new highs in 12 weeks. But it has to hold that level, because the downside below is a six-year supply zone, not a few thousand dollars (15,000–16,000 came up). Saylor, he said, "has not flinched not once," and with Bitcoin on bank and fund balance sheets, a further 70–80% haircut would put far more than Strategy at risk — remember how fast Silicon Valley Bank went. On Microsoft, he said fundamentals matter: a drop to 250 would mean a sub-$2 trillion company growing as it is, against five-year support, so it was unlikely — but if it did break, it would gap and accelerate. On Wendy's, he laughed at "I waited for the calendar flip," called it a six-year double bottom back at the COVID lows — "willing to die on the baked potato" — and said that as a vegetarian he can't eat there anyway.
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