Chapters
00:00 Intro
02:57 "Trash" Price Action: $META, $NOW & the S&P Near Highs
07:52 Edge, Ranges & $MSFT's Weekly
09:42 $SMH Bear Trap & Chips Leading
13:56 Sanguine Investor vs. Active Management
15:44 Ben Adds $NOW Before Earnings
18:18 GP: $DELL Is the Leader, $ARM Isn't
21:34 Cheap 0DTE Calls, Copper & Gold
24:12 Long-Term Investors Need Sell Rules
31:36 7741, Dot-Com Analogs & the 2021 Highs
35:23 $GOOGL Earnings & Selling Into Earnings
43:29 Dispersion, Not Rotation
48:31 Agendas, Integrity & the Market as Truth
58:25 Final Words
Market Hours #192 went out live on Wednesday, July 22, with Ben, Nick and GP, the day Google, Tesla, ServiceNow and IBM were set to report. The S&P sat about 1% under its all-time high, yet names like Meta and ServiceNow were getting hit at the open for no clear reason. GP called it "trash" price action that felt distributive, Nick called it life inside a range, and Ben kept adding to his long-term names. From there it was Dell as the leader, the dot-com analogs, selling into earnings, dispersion trades, and whether every voice in the market has an agenda.
Nick's setups, levels and trades
Nick pointed back to a GP idea: if your edge isn't present, do nothing. On Meta, the weekly chart was mid-range with long-term moving averages pointing down, so this kind of frustration should almost be expected. Price in the middle of a range can go either way, and he finds it hard to tell accumulation from distribution there. He could see Microsoft rolling over six to eight months out, but if it took out roughly 400–450 his tune could change. For now, he treats some of the mega caps as an avoid.
Where he'd look instead was chips. The SMH looked like it was about to break down and may have been a bear trap under 565. If you're in the bullish camp, he said, you want chips and memory to resume leading, because outside of Google and Nvidia the Mag names haven't. Netflix nearly set up an island but needed to gap above about 69.50 to count technically. He also noted copper was about to break out.
He agreed long-term investors can lean on time in the market but said they still need sell rules — "have a plan and stick to it" — and that a mix of technical and fundamental analysis is best. On the market's structure, he thinks 24-hour trading fits with narrow leadership and boom-and-bust moves in single names. Index investors and very short-term traders are doing fine, while intermediate swing traders have the hardest time. If he's long, he'd rather see a selloff into earnings or a Fed decision than a rally into it, because a rally into it tends to become sell-the-news. After Mag earnings, what he watches is how fast beaten-down names get bought back up and fill the gap — "the proof is in how they're behaving."
He said the one thing he wants people to take from his posts is to think for themselves, because everyone on TV or the internet has an agenda. His final word was about a growth mindset: you can dislike someone online and still learn from them — "even if I'm your contra-indicator, I made you money." Take what resonates and drop the rest.
Ben's setups, levels and trades
Ben bought more ServiceNow at $96 right before the show. That repaired his cost basis to about a 5% loss on the position, though he normally hates buying ahead of earnings. His rule of thumb for earnings reactions is 60% down, 30% flat and 10% upside surprise, but he didn't think there was anyone left to sell. He was clear it's his "last straw" with ServiceNow: it needs to show an uptick this quarter or next, and he won't keep throwing money at it down to $40 or $45. It's no longer the biggest position in his portfolio by dollar size the way it was in May.
He said he doesn't have a never-sell rule. He bought more Intuitive Surgical in one account on the day, after selling it in another account two weeks before when its breakout broke down. His Nvidia position from two weeks earlier, including a 2x NVDL "torque" position, was finally paying off. On mindset, his line was "comparison is the thief of joy": it's you versus you, not your scoreboard versus someone else's. He pushed back on Nick a little, saying assuming everyone has an agenda is cynical; you need the honesty to tell someone selling something useful from someone trying to mislead you. He closed with a lesson from the Book of Job — "suffering doesn't skip the faithful" — and the market can feel that way too, so keep some perspective.
GP's setups, levels and trades
GP said this was as trashy as price action gets. Meta had held its 200-day for back-to-back days and put in a 20/50 cross, then dropped $14 right after the open with no news. ServiceNow was making an earnings-sized move before earnings. With the S&P all-time high at 7620 and the index around 7521, he said markets usually consolidate at the lows, not by "pummeling something every morning" near the highs. He called it bullish-looking but distributive. He saw it as the last day to "FAFO around" collecting premiums before the big earnings reports. One tell: 0DTE SPX calls 10 points out (7525) were trading under $1 around 1:30, when he said they'd normally be $3–4.
If the market breaks out, he said, "your leader is Dell," and it could end up looking like SanDisk or Micron. Dell outperformed both on the pullback while ARM got destroyed; he cut ARM around 370–371 because it would never grow into that valuation. If things break down, though, he's going back to cash. He worries that a market led by a small group making parabolic moves isn't healthy, and noted that memory is cyclical even in a bull cycle. Copper looked ready to break out and gold had "found a backbone" — "when buyers are there, narratives don't matter."
His bigger concerns: the S&P never quite reached his 7741 level (the 161.8% extension he set in 2023), though earnings could push it there for a final hurrah. He also thinks the market is long in the tooth. In the dot-com era, the market and Microsoft topped in March 2000 but GE kept going until August, much like Nvidia now. Microsoft, Bitcoin and Netflix had gone nowhere since 2021, most software was back at 2021 highs except CrowdStrike, Palo Alto and Fortinet, and Tesla kept getting rejected there. Oracle, ServiceNow and IBM looked weak, with IBM back at its 2013 highs.
He thought Google would "rock out" on earnings, but warned that if it does, the money could go into memory and chips while Microsoft and Meta get sold. Since October 2020 and SoftBank's call buying, the old pattern of rallying into earnings has broken; since June 2 the market has been selling into earnings. He said most crashes don't start from all-time highs, and used 2008 as an example. He called the AI-versus-software pair trade dispersion, not rotation, and said it has been running since 2022: "There's no bottom for the name going down and no top for the name going up" until the trade reverses. "Things go up for many reasons; things sell off for only one." He also thinks leveraged single-stock ETFs erode the market because they don't expand it, just take a cut. His final word: markets are maturing, so being nimble matters more than ever.
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