Chapters
00:00 Intro
01:34 Welcome T.Stonk & Nick: Sit on Your Hands
03:10 QQQs Week 10: Spring, Break Out or Roll
06:27 $DELL's Faded Open & Building in the Range
09:08 The 50-Day Debate: $SMH, $INTC & "Shooters Shoot"
19:59 GP: SMH Under the Weekly 9 & Long $NVDA
24:24 $IREN: Ben's Tranches, Nick's Range
30:01 $CRWV on the Rising 30-Week & EMAs vs. SMAs
33:49 GP's Supply Zones & $RKLB's Two Trends
39:09 T.Stonk's Charts: Prime's Spring & 2x $PLTR
46:03 $RIVN's Offering & $TSLA Trend Lines
50:51 $RDDT: Batman, Triangle or Head and Shoulders
54:32 $ASTS & $RKLB Pivots
58:52 Final Words
Market Hours #186 went out live on Wednesday, July 8, with Ben, Nick and GP and a guest, T.Stonk (Jason). Ben joined from the treehouse during a downpour. The QQQs were in week 10 of their range, Dell had faded a 10% open in 14 minutes, and earnings season was a week away. The first 20 minutes were a friendly argument between Ben and GP over whether a bounce off the 50-day was worth a shot. After that it was charts: IREN, CoreWeave, Rocket Lab, Reddit, Rivian's offering and T.Stonk's own picks.
Nick's setups, levels and trades
Nick's lesson since the last show came from GP: "when your edge isn't present, you sit on your hands." In a range that keeps chopping, he sees no reason to take aggressive risk unless you're day trading or a long-term position trader picking DCA spots. They learned this last year, he said: the gears shifted once the range pushed past week eight and hit week 12. Using that as a playbook, the QQQs either resolve higher out of the 700–750 range or the floor drops and springs them out. Rolling over is possible, but he isn't in that camp. A three-week tight sitting on the 10-week, followed by a breakout next week or the one after, "would look pretty good." As long as the chop lasts, he said, it obliterates individual names, and space felt like it was "teetering on a cliff." On Dell he was in it with GP, but while the QQQs are in the range, less is more. He wasn't adding or buying the breakout. He added that it depends on how you handled the rally off the April lows: if you fumbled it, buying pullbacks now can be throwing good money after bad. If the QQQs don't break out in the next week or two, he expects more time in the range or a temporary top, and then a 50-day bounce in SMH wouldn't hold either.
On IREN, he saw a shot in the low to mid 30s, the bottom of the weekly range, with wick lows near 30. He didn't see it rolling back to 16–20, because there was no breakout failure: price never reclaimed 75–76 and then rolled, it just made a lower high. He called it a base-on-base setup: an IPO range of about 3 to 18, then a 20–70 range. If the market resolves higher, "you're not going to want to be short." He liked CoreWeave for trend traders, especially Weinstein-style. It sat on the rising 30- and 40-week moving averages, which he treats as a zone. It also had a big descending wedge, but he doesn't find that pattern reliable and doesn't see it going back to 650.
On Rocket Lab, he still called it an uptrend because the 200-day and 50-day slope up, even though the 10 and 20 show a short-term downtrend. "Two things can be true." A stock that taps a major average and goes is telling you it's strong. Rocket Lab had gaps in the direction of its downtrend, but rather than short it or catch the knife at 80, he'd wait for a double bottom to confirm at 106. Missing 20 points to catch a move from 110 toward 200 is a good trade. He read ASTS as an ABCD leg down, or a double bottom that confirms through 108. Price took out the June 29 high-volume candle's low but not on volume, and he thought the better opportunity was probably in the low 50s. On Reddit, he pointed to an island starting around 204.75, a retest of the breakout above 187 and the rising 10-day. Gapping over 205 would be a change of character. He wished StockTwits let you tag posts as intraday, swing or position, because it would settle half the arguments. His final word: his focus areas were still drugs, medtech and cybersecurity, plus the mags, Dell and HPE. Less is more, preserve your mental capital even more than your cash, obey your stops, and if you're getting chopped up, sit on your hands.
Ben's setups, levels and trades
Ben pushed back on the "everything is trash" mood. The QQQs had bounced off the 50-day and were still holding a higher low, and so had the SMH, AMD and Micron. He wasn't calling a new uptrend, just "a line in the sand that you can take a shot at, and if you miss, it's pretty well defined." Undercut-and-go is fine, he said. What you don't want is what happened to software names that kept cascading after they first broke their 50s. He added longs that morning, posted them, and named 577 on the SMH as his exit. "Shooters shoot." Intuitive Surgical, he admitted, was a breakout failure so far: it broke its downtrend the day before and flushed back.
He bought IREN on Thursday, July 2, after a head and shoulders he'd posted played out. His targets were near 35 and around 40, he likes its data center and power story and the weekly volume, and he sees it as a three-tranche position. He'd exit if it broke the candle he bought into. He also bought CoreWeave that day off a roughly 22 level he'd marked long ago. It was an easy stop and an easy add if it came back to 20, but he'd be careful below $20. On Reddit, he pulled up the weekly and floated a giant "Batman" pattern. In the conversation that followed, it was also called an ascending triangle on the weekly, with a note that gapping over 205 would be worth doubling a position. His final word: "My favorite candles are the ones that close green." Buy red, sell green.
GP's setups, levels and trades
GP said the market "doesn't warrant" a clean breakout. A chop market produces strong opens that fade, like Dell's that morning. If you use options, chop destroys premium, but with equity, the low end of the range is where you build. He compared it to February and March, when ARM, Dell and Micron showed relative strength while the market chopped, then outperformed "by leaps and bounds" once the late-March flush ended. The advance-decline line was making new highs, so price was lagging. Earnings season was about to start with the banks on Monday and Netflix the following Thursday.
He wasn't buying the SMH's 50-day. The 50-day broke in March in an uptrending SMH and took a month to recover, and in his view, over the last 12–18 months 50s and 200s haven't produced actionable bounces the way they used to. Intel looked like it was going under 100. His approach is top-down: the monthly was very bullish, but the weekly was still under the 9-week, which he had at about 597 (Nick and T.Stonk confirmed 597.37–597.40), while the daily held the 50. Two out of three wasn't enough. He'd want a Friday close back over 597–598, and "shooters also shoot when they can hit the target." He'd rather take a shot like Nvidia, which had held around its 200-day for two to three weeks without breaking, and he went long near that day's lows. He doesn't use moving averages and prefers horizontal supply zones and pivots. The NQ had spent more than a month breaking out, coming back and retesting, and Rocket Lab bounced, rejected the 50-day and went straight back into supply.
He was waiting for 28 on IREN because it was rejecting the 50-week. On Rivian, he questioned an offering priced around $15.50 after a close near $20 when the company has about $5 billion in cash: "price resolves all issues," and the price and timing were red flags. His suggestion for trading it: buy 14, sell 19. On Reddit, he was keeping a very short leash. On the monthly, the volume sell was on the left shoulder of a head and shoulders, it was rejecting that same area again, and it was still inside an IPO base that typically takes two to five years. He likes the fundamentals, but they don't matter against that pattern, so he wants it decisively over the ~220 area or a re-entry at the measured move. He was heavy long Rocket Lab in the low 80s, around 81, and added near 82–83. 80 is where he reverses, with the 78.56 gap fill below it, and he'd risk about two dollars. On Enphase's drop from 74 to 40, he said it was setting up its golden cross, the first expansion move that gets the moving averages turning. His final word: the edge is tiny, so don't be afraid to take stops or reassess. He cut ARM "without flinching," which saved him 100 points, and he doesn't have to take every pivot, moving average or supply zone.
T.Stonk's setups, levels and trades
T.Stonk's note for the show was, "Can we break out of one of these sideways consolidations to the upside just one time ever?" He fights the same battle internally. He had a lot of stocks sitting at support and was happy to buy them there and sell for a loss if they failed, though he admitted he needed to learn Nick's lesson about staying out of the fray. He's moved from SMAs to EMAs, and the 30 EMA has become his "bread and butter" on any time frame. He bought a little CoreWeave at the 30 that day. On IREN, he had a support line at 39.50 but didn't see much of a trade. He grouped it with APLD and NBIS, which had been crushed for about three weeks, and called NBIS the leader.
His charts started with Prime, which had a breakaway gap above diagonal resistance and was ripping into resistance. He'd have played against the gap, took a little off at 4.60, and read the setup as a Wyckoff spring, the same idea as a shake-and-bake or liquidity grab. On Palantir, he had drawn a purple line back in May while posting with GP, calling for a dip there and then higher. It broke above support, came back to retest it, and he took 2x Palantir (PTIR) that day. Ben followed him in. On Rivian, he bought back around 15.70 when it came to his line that morning: "Easy money. Thanks, Rivian." On Tesla, he pointed to the huge candles and Trader Ty's diagonal trend line setup: let price reject, then look for support on the second test. He bought Reddit around 200, watched it hit 205 and was stopped out. His final word: keep your head on a swivel and be patient.
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