Last week we flagged the market as taking a breather and the potential start of a consolidation. The week opened heavy on bond yields. The 30-year broke out to 5.2% on Tuesday, the highest level since 2007, as the market priced in sticky inflation, a new Fed chair, and the ongoing Iran overhang. Kevin Warsh was officially sworn in as Fed Chair on Friday, with traders now betting on zero cuts for the remainder of 2026 and a non-trivial probability of a hike. That bond move pulled equities lower into midweek.

NVDA reported Wednesday after close and delivered another stellar quarter. The board approved an additional $80B buyback and raised the dividend from $0.01 to $0.25. The stock pulled back marginally as has been the way for the last few quarters, especially after rallying into the print.

Multiple headlines through the back half of the week pointed toward an imminent Iran resolution, and the market started grinding back. Over the weekend a framework deal was reported between the U.S. and Iran, including the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. With cash markets closed Monday for Memorial Day, the reaction played out in futures: Nasdaq futures up 1.4% and printing fresh all-time highs, ES up 1%, WTI down over 6% to roughly $90.

The IPO pipeline is also filling up. SpaceX confirmed its filing targeting the June 12 listing under $SPCX, and OpenAI is now rumored to file in the coming weeks.

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Watchlist

The market has been strong and there’s a wide spread of themes working right now, from semis to optical computing, space, data centers and their adjacents including renewable energy. The full watchlist would be too long to walk through here and lives in the Valhalla Portal, but here are some notable ones I’m watching into next week.

Semis

Semis remain one of the key leading sectors in the market. $SOXX held the 20 EMA on the daily almost to the tick and is back near highs, which is exactly the kind of constructive digestion we wanted to see after the parabolic stretch.

• $AMD | One of the leading semis. Broke out to fresh all-time highs last week on the ongoing CPU story, holding up cleanly despite $NVDA’s entrance into the CPU market.

• $SNDK, $MU | On watch as both bounce back after recent pullbacks.

• $MXL | Hasn’t given much back, consolidating tightly near highs.

Quantum

The other big sector move of the week. The Trump administration announced $2B in CHIPS Act grants across nine quantum computing companies in exchange for minority equity stakes, putting the sector squarely on the table as a strategic priority alongside semis, nuclear, and rare earths.

• $IBM | $1B grant to build Anderon, America’s first purpose-built quantum foundry, plus IBM committing another $1B in cash. However the stock remains under the long term 200-SMA

• $GFS | $375M for domestic quantum chip manufacturing capacity. Same theme on the foundry side, but stock is at all time highs.

• $INFQ, $RGTI, $QBTS | The speculative end. Each receiving ~$100M, all posted multi-day rallies. Large intraday ranges and strong liquidity make these clean trading vehicles into next week.

Data Centers / Neoclouds

• $NBIS | Rallied Thursday on a price target hike, continues to digest recent strength. Still the clear leader.

• $APLD | Hit a data center milestone Thursday and printed a new high.

• $CIFR, $IREN | Both have been in long weekly bases that could break in the near term. These are the names to watch for the next rotation up.

• $HIVE | New Canadian data center catalyst, with Leopold Aschenbrenner (popular growth investor) taking a position.

• $HUT | Still on watch after digesting around the $100 mark post earnings gap.

Power

Fuel cells and renewable energy have been a strong theme as power constraints remain a structural bottleneck for the data center buildout. This is the picks-and-shovels angle on the AI infrastructure trade.

• $BE, $FCEL, $BLDP | All had strong rallies last week and require some digestion.

• had a major earnings move but has since pulled back and is potentially forming a higher low.

Space

With the SpaceX IPO confirmed for June 12, the space complex saw broad strength last week as sympathy bids start to filter in.

• $RKLB | Gapped down on the announcement of a $3B ATM, but seemingly didn’t tap it. Recovered the drop and pushed to fresh all-time highs on a $89.5M Space Force satellite contract.

• $ASTS | The SpaceX competitor angle but has been up 2 strong days already.

• $RDW | New highs.

• $DXYZ | Closed end fund that holds SpaceX, has been seeing strong momentum.

• Other space stocks can be found in the Valhalla Portal theme watchlists:

Finally it’s worth noting that /CL crude oil futures gapped down on Monday after the Iran peace deal news and could be breaking the 50-SMA for the first time since the war started.

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Closing Thoughts

Heading into the week with the Iran peace deal looming, crude breaking down, and the market gapping to all-time highs, the digestion from last week was resolved quickly to the upside - another sign of the incredible strength in this tape.

Breakouts have been working across the board, but it’s still prudent to take proper entries rather than chase extended rallies. Plenty of charts look constructive heading in, and there’s no doubt we’ll see more interesting developments across the AI space over the week.

If you enjoyed this read, please consider leaving a like on the post, and let me know in the comments if I missed anything or what you’re watching for this week!

P.S.

If you haven’t checked out the Valhalla Portal yet, it’s where I track catalysts, setups, and market activity in real time - a live feed of everything that moves the tape, built for the community. I’ll be doing a dedicated post soon walking through all the features in detail, so stay tuned for that. In the meantime, you can check it out here:

Valhalla Portal

Last week we flagged the leadership semiconductor stocks as parabolic and asked whether the broader tape would get pulled into digestion with them or whether rotation would carry the move. We got the answer this week. The QQQ printed a weekly red doji candle after six straight weeks of gains, semis and memory finally started to give back some of the move, and the tape has potentially shifted into a consolidation phase. How long that lasts, whether it’s a couple of weeks of sideways action or something deeper, is the open question.

The week was dominated by geopolitics rather than earnings. Trump’s visit to Beijing on May 14-15 was the headline event and delivered very little of substance, with nebulous commitments on agricultural and oil purchases, some talk of reopening chip sales, no firm deal on the Strait of Hormuz, and tariffs apparently not even on the table. The more interesting wrinkle was Taiwan, where Trump called the pending $14B arms sale “a very good negotiating chip” and declined to confirm whether the U.S. would defend the island, prompting Xi to warn that mishandling the issue would put the relationship “in great jeopardy.”

Friday’s selloff had a few overlapping drivers. Korea sold off overnight which set a soft tone for the open, Powell’s term winding down with the Warsh confirmation process moving forward kept the policy transition front of mind, and the US 2-year and 10-year both broke out, which reads as the market starting to test the incoming Fed chair. Layer that onto a tape that’s already six weeks extended and needing to digest, and you get the kind of session we saw to close the week.

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Catalysts Over the Last Week

$NBIS | The data center print of the week. Q1 revenue of $399M (+684% YoY) blew past estimates, adjusted EBITDA flipped to a $129.5M profit, and they disclosed up to 1.2 GW secured in Pennsylvania for a new AI factory. Stock hit an all-time high of $214 intraday before settling +7% on the session.

$CSCO | Beat-and-raise quarter with record revenue of $15.84B and raised full-year AI infrastructure orders forecast to $9B, paired with ~4,000 job cuts to reallocate spend into AI. Stock surged 17% to a record high, biggest single-day gain in over two decades.

$FIG | Q1 revenue of $333.4M (+46% YoY) crushed estimates, raised full-year guide by $55M, NDR hit 139% (highest in over two years). Stock jumped 13% post-print, though the filing flagged Anthropic federal supply chain risk as an overhang.

$ONDS | Beat-and-raise blowout. Q1 revenue of $50.1M (+1000% YoY, 25% above the high end of guidance), pro forma backlog grew to $457M from $68M, raised full-year revenue forecast to $390M, plus a Palantir partnership announced alongside. Stock closed +26%.

$CRCL | Q1 revenue of $694M (+20% YoY), USDC circulation at $77B (+28% YoY), onchain transaction volume of $21.5T (+263% YoY). First print since the Clarity Act compromise, with a $222M ARC token presale at a $3B FDV from a heavyweight investor consortium also disclosed.

$POET | Announced a US$400M registered direct offering of common shares and warrants Friday, on the back of the Lumilens partnership advancing wafer-level photonic integration for next-gen AI optical networks.

$IREN | Announced a proposed convertible notes offering Monday to fund continued AI cloud expansion.

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Watchlist

Semis

The headline event this week is $NVDA earnings Wednesday after close. Going in, the broader group has started to roll over, which is exactly the kind of digestion we were watching for last week. The question now is whether NVDA delivers the catalyst that re-ignites the move or accelerates the pullback.

• $SOXL, $INTC | Watching to see if they continue pulling back after the historic rally.

• $MU, $SNDK | Same idea on the memory side. Both were extended, starting to give back.

The Cerebras IPO debuted last week and the early action is the read here.

• $CBRS | $350 is the inflection point IPO price. Above and the trend stays constructive, below and the name remains weak. Clean line in the sand.

• $POET | Continued fade likely with the $400M registered direct offering dilution overhang now sitting on the tape.

The bigger IPO story is still ahead. SpaceX is targeting an Initial Public Offering on June 12, aiming to raise upwards of $80B on the Nasdaq under the ticker $SPCX, potentially making it the largest IPO in history. That’s the kind of event that pulls sympathy bids into the entire space complex in the lead up.

Space

• $RKLB | Strong, not much to do here. Holding the post-earnings breakout cleanly.

• $ASTS | News flow plus a 200 SMA reclaim attempt is the setup. Watching for follow-through.

• $RDW | Data centers in space narrative, watching for momentum off catalyst flow.

• $SATL | On watch as a sympathy name in the broader space complex into the SpaceX IPO setup.

Data Centers

Most of the group has entered consolidation ranges. $NBIS remains the clear leader at all-time highs post-earnings. Many of the others could become constructive post-market pullback if they break out of their bases.

• $IREN, $CIFR, $HUT | All on watch for base breakouts. These are the names to focus on if the data center group rotates back to leadership.

Crypto

The complex is weak heading into the week. $ETH broke a recent range but remains inside the larger monthly ranges, so the trend is still undecided at the bigger picture level.

• $BMNR | On watch within crypto-adjacent names.

Cybersecurity

Worth flagging that cybersecurity stocks are strong but there’s no actionable setup right now. Worth keeping on the radar for when one of these names tightens up into a clean base.

• $CRWD, $PANW, $FTNT | All strong, none with an immediate trigger.

Closing Thoughts

The bulk of earnings season is behind us with just $NVDA left to go on Wednesday, still important given it’s the largest company in the world. QQQ tech and semis have started to pull back, which is healthy after an extended run rather than anything to read into negatively.

A quieter catalyst calendar paired with a tape that’s still digesting makes this a week to be reactive rather than aggressive. After a rally of this magnitude, most traders are sitting on real swing profits. The job now is protecting them. Letting the market come to you and not giving back hard-earned gains while it works through this digestion phase is the right posture here.

If you enjoyed this read, please consider leaving a like on the post, and let me know in the comments if I missed anything or what you’re watching for this week!

P.S.

If you haven’t checked out the Valhalla Portal yet, it’s where I track catalysts, setups, and market activity in real time - a live feed of everything that moves the tape, built for the community. I’ll be doing a dedicated post soon walking through all the features in detail, so stay tuned for that. In the meantime, you can check it out here:

Valhalla Portal

Last week we left off saying the megacap earnings clearing event was behind us and the market looked set up to continue higher. That’s exactly what we got. The S&P 500 closed up 2.3% on the week, the Nasdaq up 4.5%, both printing fresh all-time highs into Friday’s close at 7,399 and 26,247. The Dow nudged up a token 12 points to 49,609. This was the sixth consecutive weekly gain for the indices, the longest winning streak since 2024, and the dispersion between the Dow and the Nasdaq tells you exactly where the money is going.

The week did not start cleanly. Monday opened with Iran striking a South Korean vessel in the Strait of Hormuz, reigniting the geopolitical tail risk that had been quietly fading from the tape. The S&P slid 0.4%, the Dow dropped 1.1%, and VIX spiked 7.65% to 18.29. By Wednesday, Axios reported the U.S. and Iran were nearing a deal including a moratorium on nuclear enrichment, and the response was immediate. The S&P jumped 1.46%, the Nasdaq ripped 2.02%, WTI cratered nearly 9% to around $93, and Brent fell 7.7%.

Under the hood, semis and memory continued their vertical move. SMH popped over 3% to a new 52-week high, with Friday alone delivering Micron +13%, Qualcomm +9%, and AMD +8%. AMD was the standout of the week, up 20% to cross $700 billion in market cap on a clean Q1 print, and now up nearly 90% over the past month. The memory complex $SNDK, $MU as well as semis like $INTC have continued their ascent and are now flirting with parabolic territory.

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Catalysts Over the Last Week

As always, the activity feed inside the Valhalla Portal has been logging every major catalyst I’ve flagged throughout the week. Screenshot from this week below, full feed is live in the Portal.

Mega AI Capex / Hyperscaler Deals

$NBIS | Nebius-Microsoft deal, upfront prepayment pegged at ~40% of TCV ($6.95B on $17.39B contract value). Massive expansion of the Microsoft compute relationship, follows the Eigen AI acquisition from last week.

$GOOG / $GOOGL | The Information reported Anthropic commits to spending $200B on Google’s cloud and chips. Major TPU validation, huge Alphabet tailwind.

$AAPL / $INTC | WSJ reported Friday that Apple and Intel have reached a preliminary chip-making agreement. Big domestic semi story, reinforces the Intel turnaround thesis from prior weeks.

Earnings That Mattered

$AMD | Forecasts quarterly revenue above expectations on AI chip demand. Reported Tuesday.

$AAON | Record Q1 sales and backlog, raised full-year guide. Data center HVAC tailwind.

$RKLB | Q1 surpassed all guidance metrics, plus $30M HASTE hypersonic contract from Anduril.

$CRWV | Widened Q1 loss as costs outpaced revenue growth. The data center print we were watching from last week, did not deliver.

$DOCN | Q1 revenue $258M (+22% YoY), beat estimates.

$STRL | Record Q1, raised full-year 2026 guidance.

AI Infrastructure / Data Centers

$IREN | Acquisition of Mirantis to strengthen AI cloud delivery capabilities, plus AI cloud platform expansion to Europe.

$NVDA / $GLW | Long-term partnership to strengthen US manufacturing for AI infrastructure.

$AKAM | Frontier model provider committed $1.8B over seven years for Akamai’s Cloud Inference platform.

$DGXX | Digi Power X AI colocation agreement, 40 MW data center in Columbiana.

$FLEX | Plans to spin off power and cloud infrastructure business into a separate public company by Q1 2027.

Macro

Iran Deal | White House nearing one-page MOU with Iran to halt fighting. War pause and nuclear talks. Major macro overlay.

Meme / Special Situation

$GME / $EBAY | GameStop preparing offer for eBay confirmed Monday. Then Michael Burry sells all GameStop stock per WSJ. Two-sided story.

Stablecoin / Crypto Regulation

$CRCL | Circle jumps 16% on Clarity Act compromise that preserves stablecoin rewards.

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Watchlist

Memory and Semis

The memory and semi complex stays top of the watchlist as it approaches parabolic territory. The ideal setup from here is another two days of range expansion that finally capitulates the move, giving us a clean exhaustion signal. The risk is that these names are already extended enough to reverse without ever giving us the textbook setup, so they stay on permawatch with the focus on intraday signals. The tell will be gap exhaustion off the open, any change of character that breaks the trend, or names getting sold under VWAP and failing to reclaim.

• $MU, $SNDK | The clear leaders of the memory move, both in advanced extension.

• $INTC, $AMD, $SOXL | Semi side of the same story.

• DRAM | ETF for memory stocks that includes SK Hynix

If semis don’t immediately reverse to start the week, could be a name to watch for a breakout off its base.

Space

$RKLB had a major breakout day Friday post-earnings, emerging from a daily cup and handle base into fresh all-time highs - bought this Friday for a swing trade. With the SpaceX IPO expected later in the summer, the space sector remains a high-priority theme for breakouts and sympathy plays in the smaller names.

• $SATS, $SATL, $ASTS, $RDW | Sympathy names for the broader space theme. All on watch for follow-through if $RKLB continues to lead.

Data Centers

The data center group reported with mixed reactions last week. $CRWV widened its Q1 loss as costs outpaced revenue growth, which was not the print we wanted given how cleanly it bounced from $100 the prior week. $IREN was more constructive with the Mirantis acquisition and the European AI cloud expansion. $NBIS reports this week, with the recently announced $17.39B Microsoft contract and the Eigen AI acquisition both in the price now. That print sets the tone for whether the group can re-establish leadership or whether the post-earnings reactions stay choppy.

• $CRWV, $IREN | Both reported. Watching for price action follow-through over the coming sessions.

• $NBIS | Reports this week. Important data center print given the leadership it’s been displaying in the group.

AI / Earnings Breakouts

A handful of names emerged from earnings with clean technical setups worth pressing.

• $AKAM | Major stage 1 earnings breakout, with the announcement that a leading U.S. frontier model provider has committed $1.8B over seven years to its Cloud Inference platform. Clean breakout from a long base on a high-quality fundamental catalyst.

• $RXT | Small cap momentum off the Rackspace-AMD memorandum of understanding establishing a new category of governed AI infrastructure.

• $CBRS | Cerebras IPO this week, one of the most anticipated AI listings of the year. On watch for the debut.

• $DGXX, $WYFI | Adjacent names with Cerebras business exposure. $DGXX signed an AI colocation agreement for a 40 MW data center in Columbiana last week, $WYFI provides the cooling and infrastructure layer for Cerebras deployments. Both on watch as sympathy plays into the IPO.

Exhaustion Watch

• $DXYZ | After capturing a clean swing on this name, now in exhaustion watch territory. Watching for a gap up on Monday.

Earnings to Watch This Week

• $CRCL

• $HIMS

• $ASTS

• $RGTI

• $OKLO

• $NBIS

• $CSCO

• $ONDS

• $FIG

Closing Thoughts

The leadership names carrying the tape, $SNDK, $MU, $INTC, $AMD, are now in majorly extended territory. I wrote a piece breaking down what happened to the winning stocks of 2024 after $NVDA and $SMCI topped that year, which also had similar parabolic rallies.

The question this week remains whether these names reverse, and what happens to the rest of the market if and when they do. Either the broader tape gets pulled into a digestion phase with them, or rotation continues and the post-earnings breakouts hold up as the next leg of leadership. Both are live scenarios and worth being more cautious here than we have been over the past few weeks.

If you enjoyed this read, please consider leaving a like on the post, and let me know in the comments if I missed anything or what you’re watching for this week!

P.S.

If you haven’t checked out the Valhalla Portal yet, it’s where I track catalysts, setups, and market activity in real time - a live feed of everything that moves the tape, built for the community. I’ll be doing a dedicated post soon walking through all the features in detail, so stay tuned for that. In the meantime, you can check it out here:

Valhalla Portal

Last week we left off asking whether the hyperscalers would reinforce the AI capex story Intel had just confirmed, or whether the rally would narrow further into a handful of semi names. We also flagged semis as short-term overextended and were watching for a short trade into continued overextension, expecting a pullback overall, which played out.

Digestion started on cue Monday, with semis fading off the open as the parabolic move finally caught up with price. Then Tuesday morning the Wall Street Journal reported that OpenAI had missed its own revenue and user growth targets, with CFO Sarah Friar reportedly raising internal concerns about the company’s ability to fund its compute contracts. The market gapped down, semis took the brunt of it, and for a few hours it looked like the deeper digestion everyone was waiting for had finally arrived.

By the cash open the move had largely completed. Sam Altman publicly refuted the report later in the session, the bid came back into semis, and the tape went vertical for the rest of the week. SOXX closed Friday at a new all-time high. The pullback we wanted lasted roughly 2 days. SPX and NDX both printed fresh highs, VIX stayed suppressed throughout.

The hyperscaler gauntlet was the other half of the story and the reaction was mixed. . Total hyperscaler AI capex for 2026 is now tracking toward $700 billion, but the market did not reward the spending in aggregate. It rewarded spending tied to clear near-term monetization. Alphabet ripped on a print that paired aggressive capex with visible cloud and search revenue acceleration. Meta sold off hard as guidance pushed capex higher without a tangible revenue offset. Microsoft saw modest weakness on the same theme. Apple and Amazon were mixed.

With the megacaps now through the gauntlet, the biggest binary risk of earnings season is behind us. Plenty of reports still to come this week, so the landmines are not gone, but the heaviest weight on the index has lifted.

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Catalysts Over the Last Week

As always, the activity feed inside the Valhalla Portal has been logging every major catalyst I’ve flagged throughout the week. Screenshot from this week below, full feed is live in the Portal.

OpenAI / WSJ | Wall Street Journal reported Monday afternoon that OpenAI missed key revenue and user targets in its high-stakes sprint toward IPO. Triggered a Tuesday gap down across semis and the broader tape. Sam Altman publicly refuted the report, the pullback completed by the cash open, and SOXX went on to close the week at a new ATH. Adding weight to the story, MSFT was reported to no longer be paying a revenue share to OpenAI.

$GOOGL | Cleanest hyperscaler print of the week. Stock climbed after Q1 EPS blew past estimates, with capex paired against visible cloud and search revenue acceleration. The market’s template for what AI spending should look like.

$META | Sold off hard. Capex guidance pushed higher without a near-term revenue offset to anchor the spend. The clearest example this week of capex without monetization getting punished.

FOMC | The Fed held rates steady. Powell announced he will stay on the Board of Governors beyond his May 15 chair term expiry until the HQ renovation investigation concludes. Senate Banking Committee advanced Kevin Warsh’s Fed chair nomination along party lines. Leadership transition story now in motion.

$LLY | Eli Lilly Q1 was a blowout. Revenue $19.80B vs $17.77B estimate (+56% YoY), adjusted EPS $8.55 vs $7.06 (+156%). Reaffirms the GLP-1 cash machine thesis.

$CRML | Announced the acquisition of European Lithium for $835M. Critical minerals theme back on the radar.

$BE | Bloom Energy reported record Q1 results and raised full year 2026 guidance. Followed up by news that Oracle will now power its Project Jupiter campus in New Mexico with up to 2.45 GW of Bloom fuel cells. Direct hyperscaler-to-fuel-cell pipeline confirmation.

$RDDT | Reddit reported a 69% jump in revenue, topping analyst estimates.

$ROKU / $TWLO / $TEAM | All three raised annual revenue forecasts on Thursday, with Atlassian and Twilio specifically calling out AI-driven enterprise demand. Software AI monetization showing up in guides.

$SNDK | Q3 was a blowout earnings report.

$NBIS | Agreed to acquire Eigen AI on Friday, strengthening Nebius Token Factory as a frontier inference platform. Vertical integration play in the AI infra stack.

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Watchlist

Earnings season rolls on. The megacaps are through, but the calendar this week is loaded with names from across my watchlist and the broader growth complex. The names I am watching most closely:

AI Infrastructure / Networking

• $ANET, $ALAB, $LITE, $COHR, $AAOI

Semis

• $AMD, $ARM, $ON, $NVTS

Datacenters

• $CRWV, $IREN, $HUT, $WULF

Software AI

• $PLTR, $FSLY

Others

• $COIN, $SOUN, $IONQ, $BWXT, $RKLB

IWM looks ready to make a second leg out of its recent consolidation. If it confirms, that is a green light for small and midcap growth and the more speculative themes that have been waiting on broader risk appetite to come back online.

Data Centers

Last week we flagged $NBIS at the $140 area and $CRWV at $100 as the cleaner first-pullback setups in the group. Both bounced from those levels and finished the week strong, exactly how the setup was supposed to play out.

• $CRWV | Bounced from $100. Reports this week, the print will set the tone for the group.

• $NBIS | Bounced from $140. Reports next week, with the Eigen AI acquisition adding to the story.

• $RIOT | Reported this week but no follow-through on Friday. On the radar but waiting on price to confirm before doing anything.

Post Earnings Strength

Semis

• $QCOM | Reported, holding up well.

• SIMO MRAM

Software

Three names that lifted full year guides on AI-driven enterprise demand and got rewarded. Watching for follow-through.

• $TEAM | Atlassian lifted annual revenue forecast on AI features and enterprise sales boost.

• $TWLO | Raised annual revenue growth forecast on AI-driven demand, breaking out of a big stage 1 base.

• $ROKU | Raised annual platform revenue forecast.

Rare Earths

Critical minerals back in focus after the $CRML acquisition of European Lithium for $835M. Group tends to move together, IWM strength would give the smaller names room to run.

• $UAMY, $CRML, $USAR, $MP

Memory

The entire memory group had major beats this earnings cycle and remains one of the leading areas in the market. These names should be on permawatch given their continued strength and ongoing all-time highs.

• $SNDK | Blowout earnings, dipped to $1000 and into new all time highs. As one of the leading and best performing momentum stocks in the market for the past year it’s hard to see this topping out without parabolic action.

• WDC STX MU rest of the group remain strong and trading in tandem

Others

$GME | WSJ reported Friday that GameStop is preparing a takeover bid for eBay, with Ryan Cohen building a position in the name and planning to make an offer this month. eBay shares jumped more than 10% on the news. If GME catches momentum on this, it has the meme heritage to be interesting. On the radar if it gets going.

Closing Thoughts

The potential pullback on semis from last week showed up, lasted two days, and got bought aggressively. When a market refuses to give you the deeper retracement everyone is positioned for, that is information about who is in control of the tape.

With the megacaps earnings past a clearing event, the market looks sets up to continue higher from here. The job now is to ride what is already working. Memory is leading, semis are back at highs, the data center pullbacks did exactly what they were supposed to do, and post-earnings strength names are setting up cleanly. If IWM confirms its second leg out of consolidation, the small and midcap growth complex opens up as the next area to lean into. Plenty of opportunity ahead, the focus is staying selective and pressing the names that have already proven themselves through the print.

If you enjoyed this read, please consider leaving a like on the post, and let me know in the comments if I missed anything or what you’re watching for this week!

P.S.

If you haven’t checked out the Valhalla Portal yet, it’s where I track catalysts, setups, and market activity in real time - a live feed of everything that moves the tape, built for the community. I’ll be doing a dedicated post soon walking through all the features in detail, so stay tuned for that. In the meantime, you can check it out here:

Valhalla Portal

Last week, we left off asking what happens next after the 13-session Nasdaq streak and the best weekly return for the S&P since last May. The answer this week was deceptively quiet at the index level. From Monday through Thursday, SPY traded in one of the tightest consolidation ranges we have seen in months. Five sessions of sideways grinding, barely a 1% pullback inside the range, no real selling pressure into the geopolitical noise. That kind of price action is textbook bullish digestion. By Friday’s close, the S&P was at 7,165 and the Nasdaq at 24,837, both fresh record highs, with the Dow the lone laggard down 0.4% on the week as cyclicals and industrials trailed the tech tape.

The main story this week was semiconductors. Intel reported Thursday night and ripped 25% on Friday to a new all-time high, surpassing its dot-com era record after more than two decades. Revenue and EPS both beat cleanly, data center and AI revenue grew 22%, and foundry revenue was up 16%. The print landed like a thesis confirmation for everyone who has been bullish on the semi capex cycle, and the sympathy move on Friday was massive. AMD added 12%. ARM, MRVL, SMCI, ASML, and TSMC all gained 3.5% or more in a single session.

Worth being clear-eyed about what this means. Semis are now short-term very extended. The overall recent move is nearing some parabolic action and a sign that some digestion is likely coming. That said, the bigger picture matters, this is the first real leg out of the market correction we sat through from October till March. Given that this is the first leg, it’s more likely that this pullback will be bought, and the medium to long-term setup for semis and the broader index by extension, looks like it is building for another move higher rather than topping.

The geopolitical backdrop stayed messy and the market kept ignoring it. Trump cancelled the planned envoy visit to Pakistan over the weekend after Iran’s foreign minister left Islamabad without a meeting. The blockade is still in place, the Strait is still effectively closed, and a leaked Pentagon assessment now says it could take up to six months to clear the Iranian mines even if a deal got done tomorrow. Crude drifted lower regardless, with WTI at $94 and Brent at $105, suggesting traders are treating the conflict as priced-in noise. The VIX dropped to 18.71, the lowest close in months. Earnings season is tracking 15.1% blended Q1 growth ahead of next week’s gauntlet of Microsoft, Meta, Apple, Amazon, and Alphabet.

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Catalysts Over the Last Week

As always, the activity feed inside the Valhalla Portal has been logging every major catalyst I’ve flagged throughout the week. Screenshot from this week below, full feed is live in the Portal.

$INTC | Intel reported Thursday night with Q1 results topping estimates across the board. Stock surged 25% on Friday to a new all-time high, surpassing its dot-com era record after more than two decades. Data center and AI revenue grew 22%, foundry revenue up 16%. The print dragged the entire semi complex with it. AMD +12%, with ARM, MRVL, SMCI, ASML, and TSMC all gaining 3.5% or more on Friday alone.

$AAPL | Apple named John Ternus CEO, replacing Tim Cook, who transitions to chairman. The first leadership change at the top of Apple in over a decade.

$AMZN / Anthropic | Amazon committed up to another $25B to Anthropic as part of a broader AI infrastructure deal. Adds to the growing list of hyperscaler-AI capex commitments and reinforces the revenue story underpinning the semi cycle.

$GOOGL / $MRVL | Google in talks with Marvell to build new custom AI chips for inference, per The Information. Marvell followed it up Wednesday with the acquisition of Polariton Technologies, pushing optical performance scaling to 3.2T and beyond. Strong week for the name on multiple fronts.

$NFLX | Netflix announced a $25B share buyback, one of the largest single-name authorizations in recent memory.

MACRO | Trump extended the Iran ceasefire indefinitely on Tuesday, calling Iran’s government “seriously fractured.” Markets treated it as a positive but the situation deteriorated by the weekend, with Trump cancelling the planned envoy visit to Pakistan after Iran’s foreign minister left Islamabad without a meeting.

$VRT / $GEV | Two AI infrastructure plays beat hard. Vertiv posted Q1 with diluted EPS growth of 136% and raised full-year guidance. GE Vernova lifted annual revenue forecast on data center demand. Continued confirmation of the data center buildout thesis.

$ASTS | Mixed week. BlueBird 7 placed into an orbit too low to sustain operations after a New Glenn launch vehicle issue on Monday. Recovered by Wednesday when the FCC granted commercial authority for direct-to-device cellular broadband from space.

Psychedelics | $CMPS, $ATAI, $DFTX, $PBM all ripped Monday after Trump signed an executive order to fast-track research and patient access to psychedelic therapies.

$NOW | ServiceNow Q1 beat with revenue $3.77B (+22% YoY) and adjusted EPS in line. Software AI thesis still holding.

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Watchlist

Semis: Pullback Watch

The group is short-term extended after last weeks almost parabolic move. Watching for a possible short trade into Monday/Tuesday strength if extension continues without digestion.

Names in focus:

• SOXL | Leveraged ETF vehicle for the trade.

• $MXL | Massive earnings gap up. Watching how it consolidates the move.

• $INTC | The Friday earnings ripper.

• $AMD | Pure sympathy on Friday, also extended.

Data Center / AI Infrastructure

The group had some sell pressure on Friday, but after last week’s run, two of the cleaner names are now setting up first pullbacks after initial breakouts.

• $NBIS | First pullback after breakout. Watching the $140 area, which aligns with prior ATH retest and the 20 EMA. Could probe a little deeper before stabilising.

• $CRWV | Watching the $100 area. Round number support, aligns with the 200 SMA. Clean technical confluence.

Storage / Memory

• $SNDK | Earnings Thursday. Hit $1,000 on Friday and could break above that level into the print this week. The reaction will set the tone for the broader memory complex.

• $MU | Broke out last week. Likely to move in sympathy with SNDK, both into earnings and on the reaction.

Speculative

• $HIMS | Continuation flag after the peptide news from a few weeks ago. Constructive short term consolidation, but has headwinds from being in a longer term downtrend underneath the 200sma.

• $XNDU | Tightening up. Setup is binary, ready to move either direction.

Nuclear / IPO Watch

• $XE | Nuclear IPO from Friday. The reaction will tell us whether the broader nuclear theme has another leg. If $XE catches and trades over IPO highs, watching the rest of the group for sympathy.

• $OKLO | Got a boost on Thursday from the Nvidia and Los Alamos partnership news.

• $IMSR | Watching alongside OKLO for sympathy if XE rips.

Closing Thoughts

Semis need to digest the recent almost parabolic move, and price action like that almost always demands a pullback before the next leg. That is not a bearish call, it is just how first legs out of correction tend to behave. The setup we want is exactly that pullback in the leaders.

Next week is going to hinge on the megacap hyperscaler reports. Microsoft, Meta, Apple, Amazon, and Alphabet all on deck. Their guidance is what determines whether the AI capex story Intel just confirmed gets reinforced at the top of the food chain, or whether the rally narrows further into a handful of semi names.

Zooming out, the overall tape is still extremely bullish. The trend is intact, the indices are at highs, and the structure is constructive. But the initial everything rally that started in early April, with broad participation and a healthy dose of short covering, petered out last week. Breadth started to roll over even as the indices made new highs, with semis doing most of the carrying. That is a signal to shift gears. The easy beta phase of this move is behind us. Now it is about being selective, focusing on names with real catalysts, and respecting the fact that earnings season this week will create both the opportunities and the landmines.

P.S.

If you haven’t checked out the Valhalla Portal yet, it’s where I track catalysts, setups, and market activity in real time - a live feed of everything that moves the tape, built for the community. I’ll be doing a dedicated post soon walking through all the features in detail, so stay tuned for that. In the meantime, you can check it out here:

Valhalla Portal

Last week I flagged that the reaction to the gap down was the most important thing to watch. The reaction was extremely bullish, and markets rallied all week to fresh all time highs. I’ve been cautiously bullish since two weeks ago, but even I was surprised by the extent of the strength.

The S&P 500 finished the week up 4.5%, its best weekly performance since May 2025 and a third consecutive weekly gain, marking the longest winning streak since October. Friday’s closes were SPX 7,126, Dow 49,447, Nasdaq 24,468, and Russell 2000 2,776. The standout number was on the Nasdaq Composite, which notched its 13th straight green session to close out the week, the longest streak of its kind since 1992. Momentum readings pushed into the top 1% of historical distributions:

CTAs have flipped to buyers:

The VIX collapsed to 17.48 by Friday, well off the 11 month high printed back in March. Every lens you look through points the same direction.

The weekend brought a different set of headlines. On Friday, Iran declared the Strait of Hormuz “completely open” for commercial traffic, and oil sold off hard in response. WTI dropped 11.5% to $83.78 and Brent fell 10.8% to $88.67. Over the weekend that story reversed, with reports the Strait had closed again after agreements were not upheld. News flow has been back and forth with a lot of noise, and it’s fair to say the situation remains fluid into the open.

The tape is due a pullback regardless of what Iran does next. After a run like this, digestion is the base case, not the risk. Whether this weekend’s headlines end up being the catalyst or just background noise is what the first couple of sessions this week will tell us.

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Catalysts Over the Last Week

As always, the activity feed inside the Valhalla Portal has been logging every major catalyst I’ve flagged throughout the week. Screenshot from this week below, full feed is live in the Portal.

AI Infrastructure

• $CRWV: Jane Street signed a $6 billion AI cloud agreement with CoreWeave. Validates CoreWeave as a tier one counterparty for the most demanding compute users and a meaningful read through for the whole neocloud bucket.

• $BE / $ORCL: Expanded partnership to deploy up to 2.8 GW of power for AI infrastructure buildout. Reinforces the energy for compute thesis running through natural gas, nuclear, and fuel cells.

• $CRDO: Acquired DustPhotonics, expanding into silicon photonics and next gen optical connectivity. Optical remains the pick and shovel trade under the AI compute trade.

• $AEHR: Received a record $41M production order from its lead hyperscale customer for package level burn in of custom AI chips. Custom silicon validation at scale.

• $AVGO: Extended partnership with Meta to support multi gigawatts of AI infrastructure. Custom silicon theme reinforced at the highest level.

• $BIRD: Executed a $50M convertible facility and announced expansion into AI compute. Small name, but telling that legacy consumer brands are pivoting into the compute narrative to chase a multiple.

Space and Satellite

• $AMZN / $GSAT: Signed an $11.57B deal for satellite services, positioning Kuiper as a direct Starlink competitor. Big headline for $GSAT and the broader satellite ecosystem.

Regulatory and Market Structure

• $HOOD / $BULL: Popped after the SEC approved FINRA’s plan to replace the PDT rule. Genuinely big deal for retail broker economics and volume. $HOOD is the cleanest way to play it.

• $HIMS: Jumped on news the U.S. is moving forward with plans to reassess popular peptides. GLP-1 adjacent regulatory tailwind.

Earnings

• $NFLX: Beat Q1 but shares slid on soft guidance plus a co founder exit. Character test for mega cap tech earnings.

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Watchlist

There are an abundance of strong uptrending charts and strong themes this week, too many to cover in a single post. I keep a fully updated watchlist inside the Valhalla Portal, along with the screening presets and tools to find these setups in real time.

For this section I’ll focus on the more actionable setups going into the week, rather than charts that are already extended and uptrending (like $INTC).

Given the extreme strength of the tape and the fact that we’ve just exited a correction, I think it’s more likely we see shorter consolidation flags rather than lengthy new bases. My base case is to treat any first pullback to the 10ema as a valid buy spot in the strongest names (think $NBIS type action).

Data Centers

• $NBIS, $CRWV: The two largest data center pure plays on the board. Looking to buy the first pullback after last week’s strong upthrust.

  

• $CIFR, $WULF: Already had their pullback to the 10ema and look to be setting up for new highs.

  

• $BZAI: Microcap name that caught a bid on data center news last week.

Tech

• $GOOGL, $MRVL: Both had news over the weekend but the charts are already extended.

  

• $ARM: Major news a couple of weeks ago, needs to clear the big daily base over $180. Could be starting its move here.

  

• $MU, $SNDK: Likely building out some consolidation before the next leg. Memory remains a strong sector.

  

• $BE: News gap and hold of the $200 area will be the key tell for continuation.

  

Quantum

• $XNDU, $INFQ, $IONQ: All had large moves last week and are due pullbacks. Could be potential short trades this week.

  

• $CRML: Caught news last week on heavy volume, worth watching.

  

Others

• $MSTR: Large move Friday alongside BTC, remains the cleanest proxy.

• $AVEX: IPO’d Friday, worth adding to the radar for early action.

  

Plenty of other charts worth watching that I haven’t detailed here. Optical computing remains a strong theme with $LITE, $AAOI, and $LWLG all setting up well. Space stocks continue to lead, $RKLB broke out on Thursday while $LUNR and $PL are already in established uptrends. $HOOD also one to keep close on the PDT rule catalyst. Many more charts could also become actionable as the week develops.

Closing Thoughts

The tape has done exactly what the strongest markets do. It absorbed a gap down, reclaimed the loss, and then extended to fresh all time highs on broadening participation. A 13 session Nasdaq streak, CTAs flipping to buyers, VIX back into the 17s, and top 1% momentum readings all point the same direction. Medium and longer term, the setup is as constructive as it’s been all year.

Short term is where it gets more interesting. After a run like this, some digestion is the base case rather than the risk. The Hormuz headlines over the weekend may or may not be the catalyst, but the tape was due a breather regardless. That’s why the watchlist above leans into first pullback setups rather than chasing names that are already extended. In the strongest names, a pullback to the 10ema is a gift rather than a warning.

My job this week is to stay patient on the already extended leaders, stay ready on the names setting up shorter consolidation flags, and let the market tell me which themes want to take the next leg. Data centers, memory, space, and optical all have the structure to keep leading.

Stay focused on where the opportunity sets up for the next leg.

P.S.

If you haven’t checked out the Valhalla Portal yet, it’s where I track catalysts, setups, and market activity in real time - a live feed of everything that moves the tape, built for the community. I’ll be doing a dedicated post soon walking through all the features in detail, so stay tuned for that. In the meantime, you can check it out here:

Valhalla Portal

Last week I wrote about character change - the market’s refusal to sell despite relentless macro pressure - and flagged it as a reason to stay constructive. This week delivered the follow-through. Best weekly performance since November, leading stocks breaking out, and a ceasefire that gave the bulls exactly the catalyst they needed.

• S&P 500 +3.6% | Nasdaq +4.7% | Dow +3.0%

Macro News

Ceasefire

• April 8: U.S. and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire mediated by Pakistan, halting hostilities and reopening the Strait of Hormuz

• Crude futures dropped 12% on the day

Strait still closed

• Maritime traffic remained severely constrained post-ceasefire

• Only a handful of vessels transited April 8-9

• Iran continued charging tolls exceeding $1M per ship

Lebanon complication

• Israel launched fresh strikes on Lebanon after the ceasefire announcement

• Iran’s IRGC declared shipping through the Strait had stopped in response, citing a ceasefire violation

CPI (Friday)

• March CPI: +3.3% YoY vs. 2.4% in February

• Monthly gain: +0.9% -- energy drove nearly three-quarters of the increase; gasoline +21.2%

• Core CPI: +2.6% YoY, more contained

Weekend developments (post-close)

• Saturday: JD Vance announced Iran negotiations had broken down

• Trump declared a naval blockade on the Strait of Hormuz

• SPX weekend futures on Hyperliquid showing -2%

The important level I’m watching is the 6650 area, where we broke out from on the ceasefire news. If we start to trade under that level, it’ll start to look like a failed breakout and a negative sign. If price comes back and holds 6650 as support, that can be a potential a higher low structure and the uptrend stays intact.

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Watchlist

Earnings

Earnings season is starting, with banks dominating the early part of the week, $GS Monday, then $JPM, $WFC, $C Tuesday, followed by $BAC and $MS Wednesday. Also on the calendar: $JNJ, $BLK Tuesday, $ASML Wednesday - a key read on semiconductor equipment demand - and $TSM Thursday, which will be closely watched for any commentary on AI-driven chip demand and tariff exposure. $NFLX also reports Thursday.

Catalysts

Before diving into the watchlist, I wanted to briefly mention the Valhalla Portal. One of the features I’ve been building is an activity feed that logs every major catalyst I flag throughout the week - a running record of what moved markets and why. Useful for staying oriented without having to piece it all together from memory. Screenshot from this week below.

Some of the major catalysts this week:

• Trump finalizes better-than-feared Medicare Advantage payment rate - boost for health insurers ($CVS, $UNH, $HUM)

• Intel joins Terafab project with SpaceX, xAI, and Tesla to help refactor silicon fab technology ($INTC)

• Meta debuts first major AI model

• Meta commits to spending additional 21B with CoreWeave

• Google expands partnership with Intel for AI chips ($GOOGL, $INTC)

• CoreWeave announces multi-year agreement with Anthropic ($CRWV)

Space Sector

Remains a high-conviction theme. Multiple setups forming across the group as anticipation around the SpaceX IPO continues to build.

could be ready to break to new highs soon after consolidating in this base.

emerging into new 52 week highs.

recent IPO with strong momentum off the lows.

Still watching: $RKLB, $ASTS, $SIDU, $DXYZ.

Data Centers / AI Infrastructure

The CRWV-Meta and CRWV-Anthropic deals dominated headlines this week. Anthropic’s revenue growth - has eased concerns that AI is a capex bubble with no revenue to show. Two successful companies now reduce the single-name OpenAI concentration risk across the sector.

• $NBIS - acting like the group leader. Big weekly base, huge revenue acceleration, liquid. Top pick in the space.

• $CRWV - large base, significant revenue backlog. More debt-loaded than NBIS but a liquid name that can run.

• $HUT, $WULF - honorable mentions, no clean setups yet. On watch for pullbacks.

  

Software

Continues to break down. Fresh lows across the board. Two scenarios: if it keeps going straight down, a short-term bounce becomes playable. If it consolidates here, the next leg lower sets up. Watching for one or the other to develop.

Tracking: $NOW, $PLTR, $IGV, $SNOW, $NET, $OPEN.

Other

• $CAR - keeps grinding higher. Watching for an obvious reversal signal. Would rather be late than early on this one.

  

Low Floats

$SKYQ, $AIXI - on radar.

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Closing Thoughts

This week was unambiguously strong. Leading stocks broke out to new highs, breadth was broad, and the AI sector delivered positive catalysts with the CRWV-Meta and CRWV-Anthropic deals reframing the capex narrative. The tape had the feel of a market that wanted to go higher.

The weekend breakdown in negotiations and Trump’s naval blockade announcement is the first real stress test of that thesis. How the market responds on the open will be telling. Do bulls buy the dip immediately and defend 6650? Or does the breakout fail and we retrace the entire ceasefire move?

That answer shapes the next several weeks. A swift recovery keeps the higher low structure intact and adds conviction to the new uptrend. A breakdown below 6650 and we have to treat last week as a relief rally in a still-broken market. Watch how price behaves at that level. The quality of the response matters this week.

P.S.

If you haven't checked out the Valhalla Portal yet, it's where I track catalysts, setups, and market activity in real time - a live feed of everything that moves the tape, built for the community. I'll be doing a dedicated post soon walking through all the features in detail, so stay tuned for that. In the meantime, you can check it out here:

Valhalla Portal

Coming into the week, markets were carrying oversold conditions from the prior week’s relentless selling. Monday offered no relief, with all-day selling pressure extending the drawdown and keeping the bear case firmly in control.

The turn came Tuesday. Reports circulated that Iran’s president had approached the U.S. about a ceasefire, a claim Trump amplified publicly before Iran’s foreign ministry flatly denied it as “false and baseless.” The brief window was enough to send oil lower, with WTI pulling back toward $100 and Brent dipping briefly below that level as traders priced in a faster resolution to the Strait of Hormuz disruption.

That optimism did not last. Wednesday night, Trump addressed the nation and struck an escalatory tone, vowing to hit Iran harder over the coming weeks with no clear off-ramp provided. Thursday opened with a sharp gap down across indices as crude staged a powerful rally, eventually closing up 11.1% at $111.

What followed was more significant than the gap itself. Buyers stepped in immediately at the open and absorbed supply throughout the session, finishing the day well off the lows. This is the definition of a news failure to the downside: a clean escalation catalyst that the market refused to sell.

Every week in March ended with indices selling off into the weekend. Thursday’s price action was the first meaningful character change since the war began. Stocks closing strong into a long holiday weekend, with participants willingly carrying risk premium through Good Friday, is a notable shift in behaviour.

For the week, the S&P 500 gained 3.4%, the Dow added nearly 3%, and the Nasdaq led with 4.4%. The first weekly gain for all three since the Iran conflict began, and the S&P’s largest weekly rise in four months.

Macro and Jobs

The March nonfarm payrolls print, released Friday while markets were closed for Good Friday, came in at +178,000 against a consensus of +59,000, reversing February’s -133,000. Unemployment edged down to 4.3% and wage growth slowed to 3.5% year-over-year, the lowest since May 2021. Goldman Sachs estimated that weather normalization, resolved strikes, and seasonal adjustments accounted for roughly 122,000 of those gains, softening the headline beat considerably. Fed futures moved to price in a 77.5% probability of rates on hold through year-end, with persistent oil-driven inflation leaving the central bank little room to act.

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Watchlist

Before getting into individual names, it is worth flagging some developments over the weekend that could shape the tape materially in the coming weeks. Reports emerged of increased ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, with Iraq among the countries declared exempt from restrictions as Iran continues to negotiate arrangements with regional partners.

Additionally, Andreas Steno Larsen published a contrarian piece on X arguing the oil supply shock could be approaching its end within three to four weeks. If that call proves correct, it would be a significant tailwind for equity indices and could mark a top in crude.

From a technical standpoint, the Thursday and Friday highs from last week are the immediate levels to watch. A break and follow-through above that two-day range would be a constructive signal. $SPY and $QQQ are both within striking distance of reclaiming their 200-day moving averages, while $IWM has been the strongest of the three, having held the 200-day moving average considerably better throughout the drawdown.

The macro backdrop remains news-driven. Beyond the major indices and crude, several stories and sectors are worth tracking into next week.

SpaceX and the Space Sector

The SpaceX IPO trade reignited this week with reports of a valuation increase to $2 trillion. The three publicly traded proxies that hold SpaceX shares directly could offer a swing trade opportunity and run into the IPO event: and .

More broadly, the space sector has remained one of the stronger pockets of the market. The ETFs , , , and reflect that relative strength at the index level.

Within the space stock basket, names worth tracking include .

Fresh IPOs

is a recent drone IPO that closed above its IPO highs this week. A stock printing strength above its IPO price in a difficult tape is worth monitoring for further momentum.

Private Credit

received negative news Friday around further redemptions in two of its major private credit funds, though it closed well off the lows. Worth watching to see how it digests that news into next week.

Memory

Memory stocks held up well throughout the latest market pullback, showing relative strength when most of the market was under pressure. and remain on watch.

Semiconductors

The preferred focus within semis is on names that remain in uptrends and have held their technical structure. and both held the 200-day moving average and stayed within their base consolidation ranges during the market drawdown.

had a notable catalyst two weeks ago with the announcement of a new chip product and entry into the GPU market. also strong but may have already provided their best entry points given the breakout on Thursday.

remains less attractive by comparison, having broken down from its multi-month trading range and still sitting below the 200-day moving average, technically in a brief downtrend still.

reported Q1 deliveries and production rose year-over-year but fell from the prior quarter. More notably, it was visibly weak on Thursday, closing near the lows of the session on a day when the broader market was finishing near highs. That divergence is worth noting.

Photonic Computing

Photonic computing stocks have been among the strongest groups in the market and largely remained in uptrends throughout the recent market downdraft, holding above key moving averages. , , , and are the names to track here. Setups are not yet fully actionable across the group, but the relative strength warrants keeping them on the radar.

Closing Thoughts

The weight of evidence this week tilted toward the bulls for the first time since the conflict began. Oversold conditions, a news failure to the downside, a strong close into a long weekend, and early signs of a potential resolution in the Strait all point in the same direction. That does not mean the all-clear has been sounded. The tape remains headline-driven and crude remains the variable that everything else trades around. But the character of price action shifted this week, and that is worth respecting. The levels are clear, the catalysts are in view, and the market has shown it is willing to buy. How it handles the follow-through next week will tell us a great deal about whether this is a genuine turn or simply a relief rally in a still-broken trend.

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Weekly recaps only tell part of the story. For daily market coverage, live commentary at the open, real-time trade ideas, and watchlists, join the Discord community below.

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Familiar Pattern, Darker Outcome

The market indices just closed with five straight weeks of losses. The Monday relief rally arrived again but was the weakest yet, and by Wednesday, with indices still pinned below the 200-day SMA, the selling resumed. It accelerated into the weekend as it has consistently for weeks, with the S&P 500 closing at a seven-month low. The Dow entered correction territory. The Nasdaq was the worst hit with Microsoft, Meta, and Nvidia all breaking down technically this week.

The VIX closed at its highest level since last April. Crude oil is now threatening to push above the prior highs set over the past two weeks, a potential breakout that would add further pressure to an already uncomfortable macro picture. Gold, after weeks of volatility, finally stabilized on Friday, offering a first tentative signal that safe haven behavior may be returning.

Iran: No Progress

The U.S. sent a 15-point peace proposal via Pakistan. Iran rejected it and countered with five points of its own, including a demand for control over the Strait. Trump extended the deadline for strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure to April 6. Now there are talks of a potential ground invasion into Iran in the coming weeks.

The Rate Picture Shifts

Markets have moved from pricing two Fed cuts in 2026 to a 50% probability of a hike, admist renewed inflation fears, largely driven by surging energy prices.

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Watchlist

The dominant setup heading into next week centers on how Monday opens. After two consecutive sessions of heavy selling with unfilled gaps on the , the market is in a position where a gap down at the open could trigger the kind of panic capitulation move that typically marks at least a short term low. The key word is short term. Even in sustained downtrends, violent countertrend bounces are common, and the longer term 50-day SMA breadth indicator has not reached the extreme levels, historically around 10, that tend to mark durable bottoms. A bounce, if it comes, should be treated as a bounce first and a bottom second.

The primary vehicles for tracking this move are the megacaps that have led the breakdown.

broke down on Thursday after layoff announcements, and is now down almost 12% in the last two sessisons. It’s approaching the $500 major level from last April tariff lows.

has been seeing heavy selling pressure lately, closing lower than the open for the past 9 sessions, with 8 of them closing lower than the prior day. It’s also trading below its 200-day Simple Moving Average (SMA) by the largest margin since the 2008 financial crisis.

was arguably one of the stronger megacaps still above the 200 SMA, but also broke down with the market. The recent move puts it within distance of a 200 SMA test, not seen since last July.

is also worth noting. Despite breaking major support, it held up better than the rest of the group through most of the week and was the last of the megacaps to give way on Friday. As $170 was a big multi-month level, it remains worth watching technically.

Notable mentions for relative strength names that have held up better through the selling: and .

with crude oil futures potentially breaking out to new highs, watch the microcap oil stocks to see if they have a secondary deadcat rally.

remains strong and looks like it could break above $300.

has been showing relative strength in the renewable energy sector.

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The Same Playbook, The Same Result

For the third consecutive week, the market ran the same script. Sunday night futures gapped down on weekend geopolitical anxiety. Monday delivered a relief rally when the worst-case scenario failed to materialize. And by Friday, the risk premium reasserted itself and equities sold off into the close. Hope on Monday, reality by Friday. The pattern has become the market’s dominant rhythm, and nothing this week broke it.

Oil: Rangebound Chaos

WTI crude futures traded in a roughly $92 to $100 range this week, the price oscillating as competing headlines pulled in opposite directions.

Brent had retreated from its crisis peak above $119 to around $102 as the week opened, offering some relief. That was short-lived. Early in the week, Iraq declared force majeure on all oilfields, pushing Brent back toward $110. The Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. warplanes and helicopters were beginning operations to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, but the news failed to produce any sustained equity relief. Brent crude is now up nearly 50% since the start of the Iran war. The Strait remains the central variable in global energy markets, and until that situation resolves, the oil risk premium is not going away.

Equities: Four Consecutive Weekly Losses

Monday’s bounce was brief as the S&P 500 gained around 1% and the Nasdaq led with a 1.2% advance on Monday, with the AI complex showing some life. It did not last. The FOMC decision mid-week and renewed geopolitical pressure into the weekend eroded the gains entirely. By Friday, the S&P 500 dropped 1.5%, the Nasdaq plunged 1.8% to six-month lows, and the Dow fell nearly 1%. The S&P 500 closed at 6,506, marking four consecutive weekly losses for the first time since March 2025.

The Nasdaq closed below its 200-day SMA on Wednesday following the post-FOMC selloff, falling through its November low in the process. The more significant development this week was finally breaking down from the choppy consolidation range it had been grinding in since early February. That breakdown resolved the indecision decisively to the downside, with triple witching options expiry on Friday adding a further layer of selling pressure.

VIX: Elevated and Restless

The VIX closed Friday at 26.77, up over 11% on the session, spiking sharply as equities sold off into the weekend. Over the past month, the index has holding above the 20s, signifying an elevated volatility regime, reflecting persistent uncertainty in the markets.

FOMC: Hawkish Hold

The Fed held at 3.50-3.75% as expected. The dot plot was the real event. The median year-end projection held at 3.4%, but four to five members moved from projecting two cuts to one. The probability of a June cut collapsed from 56% to 23% over the course of the week. Oil is pushing inflation expectations higher while growth is being marked lower.

Gold: Historic Breakdown

Gold fell over 10% on the week, its largest weekly decline since 1983. The move took price through the 50-day SMA, which had acted as dynamic support throughout the extended uptrend since the breakout last September. The clean break of the 50-day is typically a signal that the longer-timeframe trend has been broken.

Crypto: Failed Breakout

Crypto showed relative strength last week and briefly offered a glimmer of decoupling potential. Monday’s session offered some follow-through, but the breakout attempt failed. Bitcoin faded through the week, closing near the $68,900-$69,300 range. A failed breakout in this environment is not surprising. The longer-term downtrend from the February highs remains intact.

Breadth: Approaching Oversold Territory

Market breadth deteriorated sharply into the weekly close and is now approaching levels that have historically preceded short-term bounces. With only 20% of S&P 500 members trading above their 5-day moving average, 18% above the 20-day, and 22% above the 50-day, the short-term breadth readings are compressing toward the 10% zone that has historically triggered at least a tactical bounce, even within established downtrends. That does not make it a buy signal in isolation, but it does suggest the market may be approaching a point of short-term exhaustion on the downside.

The 200-day MA breadth reading tells a different story. At 42%, it reflects a market that is weak and deteriorating, but not yet at the kind of extremes that have historically marked meaningful lows. There is still room for further damage before breadth reaches a genuinely washed-out condition. The picture overall is one of a market that could see a short-term relief bounce in the week ahead simply due to oversold conditions, but where the underlying structure remains broken enough that any bounce should be treated with skepticism rather than conviction.

Looking Ahead

The market has settled into a behavioral routine that is recognizable and exhausting. Breaking it will require either a material resolution on the geopolitical front or a catalyst large enough to shift the narrative. Neither appears imminent. The Strait of Hormuz remains unresolved. The Fed is on hold and leaning hawkish. Yields are rising. Breadth is deteriorating. The major indices SPY and QQQ closed below its 200-day SMA. The burden of proof sits with the bulls.

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With the VIX elevated and major indices breaking key technical levels, this is likely to be a macro and market-driven week. Correlations tend to tighten during selloffs, meaning individual stock setups will be fighting the tape. Position sizing and risk management matter more than usual.

: Both names showed relative strength on Thursday, briefly standing out in an otherwise ugly tape. Friday erased it all as broader index pressure overwhelmed the move. Watching for whether that Thursday strength reasserts itself or was simply a failed breakout.

: Tumbled 33.3% following chip smuggling charges against its co-founder. A headline-driven collapse of that magnitude rarely finds an immediate floor.

: Broke down from a multi-month range this week. The breakdown is meaningful from a technical standpoint - a stock that had been range-bound for months resolving lower deserves some attention.

: Approaching the multi-month support area around $170 that has held consistently since last July. The key question this week is whether that level holds again or whether the broader market pressure is finally enough to crack it.

: The European natural gas name saw heavy volume on Friday, worth monitoring for follow-through as energy infrastructure remains in focus amid the broader conflict.

: LNG names were in the spotlight this week after Qatar’s energy plant was hit, with both names breaking out on the news. Watching for continuation as the energy supply disruption narrative evolves.

: The drone IPO began to fade this week after its remarkable post-listing rally.

: Held its earnings gap, a constructive sign in a market that has been punishing any sign of weakness.

: Remained strong during the broader market selloff after pricing an upsized convertible offering. The ability to hold up while everything else was selling is a notable show of underlying demand.

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It was another week where the market attempted to find its footing and came up short. A sharp reversal off Monday’s gap downs gave way to a slow fade through the rest of the week, and by Friday the indices had closed below where they opened on Monday. The geopolitical situation remains unresolved, the economic data has deteriorated further, and the tape is reflecting all of it.

Oil: The Blowoff That Wasn’t

After the prior week’s violent move higher, oil opened Sunday with what looked like an exhaustion gap and spent the first part of the week giving back some of those gains. Mean reversion took hold early and there was a window where the geopolitical premium appeared to be at least partially unwinding.

That window closed quickly. The Strait of Hormuz remains effectively shut, Iran’s supreme leader publicly reiterated there would be no reopening, and with no credible path to de-escalation visible, buyers came back into crude through the back half of the week. WTI settled at $98.71 by Friday, and Brent crossed $100 for the first time since August 2022, now sitting roughly 40% above its level before the Iran strikes began. The Defense Secretary’s comments that the situation was under control did little to move the needle, and markets continued to price in a prolonged disruption rather than a near-term resolution.

Equities: Rallying Into Resistance

Monday opened with broad gap downs across SPY, QQQ, and IWM, and the intraday recovery off those lows looked like it had some momentum behind it. The problem was where that recovery ran out of steam. All three indices rallied directly into declining moving averages and stalled, unable to reclaim them on a closing basis, and spent the rest of the week drifting lower from there.

The weekly close ended up below Monday’s opening print, which is about as clear a summary of the week’s price action as you can get. SPY is now forming a rounding top just above a support level that has held for several months but is starting to look fragile. Both SPY and QQQ are within striking distance of breaking their 200 SMAs, and the overall structure of the chart looks fragile. The S&P 500 is now down 3% year to date and sitting at its lowest closing level since late November.

The Macro Data

The economic releases this week added to the pressure rather than offering any relief. Q4 2025 GDP was revised down to 0.7% annualized, nearly half the prior estimate of 1.4% and well below the 1.5% consensus. February payrolls came in at -92,000, a significant miss against expectations that had been centered around a gain of 50,000 to 60,000, and the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.4%. The combination of slowing growth and a weakening labor market, layered on top of an oil shock still working its way through input costs, is not an environment that makes rate cuts straightforward. Markets are now pricing in a single cut for all of 2026, compared to three cuts that were expected at the start of the year.

Crypto: Relative Strength Worth Noting

While equities were struggling to hold any recovery, BTC and ETH were telling a somewhat different story. Both have largely avoided the selling pressure that has weighed on the broader market in recent weeks, and that divergence has become increasingly difficult to ignore.

There was a strong push higher on Friday, though it ultimately retraced through the session and left neither asset with a meaningful close above recent ranges. Over the weekend, support held, and as of now both remain rangebound. The overall picture is not one of breakout momentum, but the fact that crypto has held its ground while equities have continued to deteriorate is a data point worth keeping on the radar heading into the week ahead.

VIX

Volatility remained elevated throughout the week, with the VIX spiking to an 11-month high before partially pulling back to close Friday at 27.19. Options pricing across the board reflects a market that is still highly volatile.

Going into Next Week

The primary driver of everything else right now is the Hormuz situation, and it has not meaningfully changed. A decisive break below the 200 SMA on both SPY and QQQ would open up room for lower, and with the macro backdrop where it currently is, there is not an obvious catalyst to prevent that test from happening.

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The macro calendar is heavy this week, with two major events running simultaneously. The FOMC meets March 17 and 18, with the rate decision and updated dot plot on Wednesday afternoon. Given how aggressively rate cut expectations have been repriced in recent weeks, the dot plot will likely draw more attention than the decision itself. Running at the same time, Nvidia’s GTC conference kicks off March 16 and runs through the 19th.

With VIX still elevated, the week will likely trade with high correlation across the tape. Relative strength is worth tracking but it is better used as a shopping list for after a correction has run its course rather than a reason to buy into ongoing weakness.

reports earnings this week and is one of the stronger stocks in the market right now. The result will be closely watched for what it signals for the broader memory complex, including .

is important to watch across the week given GTC running alongside a sensitive macro backdrop. The stock’s reaction to both the conference and the broader market will be telling.

has been holding up strongly since earnings and remains one of the more constructive setups on the long side.

broke out this week following news of a $2 billion Nvidia investment and is showing some of the stronger price action in the space.

and both saw increased volatility after being mentioned in Citrini’s latest post, worth monitoring for follow-through.

is an energy microcap seeing movement driven by the war premium building in oil since the Hormuz closure.

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It was a week that delivered volatility in spades, with multiple macro shocks colliding across equities, commodities, and global markets simultaneously.

Korea’s Parabolic Run Hits a Wall

The South Korea ETF’s extraordinary run, which had been one of the standout global stories over the past several weeks, finally reversed course this week. Parabolic moves rarely end gracefully, and this one was no exception. After weeks of relentless buying fueled by AI-driven demand for semiconductors and memory, the index ran out of buyers. The reversal serves as a reminder that even the strongest trends need to breathe, and that chasing price at extended levels carries real risk.

Oil Takes Center Stage

The dominant story of the week was oil, after Saturday’s significant attack on Iranian energy infrastructure sent shockwaves through commodity markets. Oil had already been tracking higher into the event, but the weekend news turned an already-tense setup into a full-blown supply shock narrative. Oil continued to rise every day throughout the week, culminating into Sunday’s futures open, which saw crude gapping up close to 20%, one of the more violent overnight moves in recent memory.

The Strait of Hormuz, the critical chokepoint through which a meaningful share of global oil supply flows, is now effectively deadlocked. No oil is moving through. The severity of the disruption is drawing comparisons to some of the worst supply shock episodes of the past decade, and by most assessments this situation ranks among the more serious ones we have seen.

Equity index futures also opened sharply lower on Sunday open to kick off the week. The Russell 2000 futures was down approximately 4% at the open, with small caps bearing the brunt of the selling given their sensitivity to energy costs and domestic economic conditions.

VIX Breaks Out, SPY and QQQ in a Vulnerable Spot

Fear is back. The VIX broke out meaningfully this week, confirming that traders are no longer willing to dismiss the macro risks building in the background. Both and are now sitting in technically vulnerable positions. The indices had been holding above key moving averages through the earlier chop, but the combination of an oil shock, a VIX breakout, and deteriorating risk appetite has put those levels in jeopardy.

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It will be a volatile, macro-driven week. Iran and geopolitical headlines remain the primary variable to monitor. Any meaningful reversal in oil will likely require either a clear de-escalation or a fundamental shift in the Hormuz situation. Until that happens, expect oil to remain elevated and reactive to every headline.

Oil and Energy

CL and are the obvious vehicles to watch. The oil microcap names that were in play last week, , , and , will continue to see elevated volatility and wide trading ranges. These are not set-and-forget trades. They move fast in both directions and need to be managed accordingly.

Semiconductors and Memory

and , two names that had been holding up relatively well as market leaders, finally started to roll over this week under the weight of broader market weakness. Both are now trading below short-term moving averages, which shifts the near-term bias. Worth watching to see if they reclaim those levels or continue to deteriorate.

Drone Stocks

and both had sharp rallies earlier in the week but gave back the majority of their gains, formin a bearish wick. Depending on further market weakness could be vehicles to join on the short side.

Earnings

and both had strong post-earnings reactions this week, a positive signal in an otherwise difficult tape. Earnings-driven strength in a down market tends to stand out.

HIMS and NVO

Late Friday, Bloomberg reported that Novo Nordisk and Hims & Hers have resolved their legal dispute and are preparing to announce a new partnership to sell Wegovy on the Hims platform, with the announcement expected as early as Monday. surged nearly 40% in after-hours trading, trending as the top name on Stocktwits, while gained around 2%. The backstory here is a long and bitter one. The two companies had a similar arrangement last year, but Novo scrapped it after Hims refused to stop marketing compounded versions of the drugs. This time around the settlement comes with the expectation of stricter compliance with FDA-approved formulations. A significant catalyst for both names heading into the open on Monday.

SPY Additions

Friday also brought news that , , and are being added to the S&P 500. Index inclusion events tend to drive mechanical buying pressure in the near term and are worth monitoring as the additions are implemented.

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The Citrini Selloff

Markets gapped down hard on Monday after Citrini Research’s “The 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis” went viral over the weekend. The 5,000-word thought experiment, written as a fictional dispatch from June 2028, painted a scenario where aggressive AI adoption hollows out white-collar employment, crushes consumer spending, and ultimately crashes the S&P 500 38% from hypothetical October 2026 highs. Michael Burry amplified it on X with the caption: “And you think I’m bearish.” The post racked up roughly 28 million views at the time of writing.

The damage was immediate. Enterprise software stocks bore the brunt, with IGV hitting new 52-week lows, falling around 5% on Monday alone and extending its brutal 2026 decline to nearly -30% YTD. Financials and services companies named in the piece also took collateral damage, as markets priced in the second-order implications of AI-driven disruption to lending, insurance, and intermediation businesses.

Software Bounce

After the Monday washout, software staged a relief bounce through the rest of the week. Anthropic’s enterprise showcase on Tuesday, highlighting partnerships with Salesforce and other major software vendors, helped ease the panic. IGV recovered roughly +2% on Tuesday as investors reconsidered whether the AI threat to software had been overpriced in a single session. The bounce carried into Wednesday and Thursday, though it was modest relative to the damage already done. By Friday the sector gave back some ground again, and the broader question of whether software’s -30% YTD decline represents a buying opportunity or a structural re-rating remains very much open.

NVDA Earnings: Beat, But Still Stuck

Nvidia was the main event of the week. Tech rallied optimistically into Wednesday’s after-hours report, and delivered on virtually every metric. Q4 revenue came in at $68.1 billion, up 73% year-over-year, beating consensus by roughly $2 billion. Data center revenue hit $62.3 billion, up 75% YoY. EPS of $1.62 topped the $1.53 estimate. Gross margins recovered to 75.2%, ahead of guidance. And the Q1 FY27 outlook of $78 billion blew past the $72.6 billion Street estimate.

All of that, and the stock still could not break out of the sideways range it has been trading in since its all-time high of $212 back in October 2025. NVDA popped initially after hours, rising about 3.5%, then gave most of it back. By Friday’s close it had actually sold off to $177, roughly 4% lower on the day and well below where it started the week. For a stock printing 73% revenue growth with accelerating guidance, the inability to sustain upside tells you something about the positioning and expectations already baked in.

SMH also flashed a false breakout, briefly tagging new highs around $427 before fading sharply into the end of the week. The 52-week range now reads $170 to $428, and that mid-week rejection at resistance is worth noting for anyone watching semis closely.

Crypto

Crypto remained range-bound. Bitcoin hovered around $65,000-$67,000 for most of the week, taking directional cues from risk sentiment rather than any crypto-specific catalyst. The weekend Iran escalation pressured BTC briefly below $65,000 before a partial recovery.

Korea: Parabolic Territory

South Korea’s KOSPI was one of the biggest stories of the week and continues to be a top watch heading into March. The index crossed 6,000 for the first time on Wednesday, surging past the milestone just 34 days after breaching 5,000, the fastest 1,000-point advance in its history. By Thursday, post-NVDA euphoria pushed KOSPI to a record close of 6,307, a 3.67% single-day gain driven by Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, which together now account for roughly 40% of total KOSPI market cap.

The index is up over 47% YTD and has climbed 175% from its April 2025 trough, powered by the memory-chip supercycle and HBM demand from AI infrastructure buildout. Governance reforms under President Lee Jae-myung have also helped close the long-standing “Korea discount,” drawing foreign and domestic capital back into the market.

On Friday, the KOSPI pulled back about 1% as global funds sold a record 6.8 trillion won ($4.7 billion) in a single session of profit-taking. But the index still held above 6,200, recovering reasonably well. The intraday pullback was notable but not destructive.

This remains a top watch in the coming weeks. Parabolic moves like this tend to produce the highest volatility near the peaks, and the concentration risk in Samsung and SK Hynix is extreme. Any disruption to the memory cycle or a shift in HBM demand expectations could trigger a sharp correction. Keep it on the radar.

Metals and Oil: War Premium Builds Into the Close

Heading into Friday, metals started to get bid. Gold and silver both made notable moves higher as the market began front-running potential weekend escalation involving Iran. Crude oil also firmed, closing at $67.02, up nearly 3% on the day. The positioning felt deliberate, with commodities traders pricing in geopolitical risk ahead of the weekend.

That risk materialized in full. On Saturday, the US and Israel launched a massive joint military operation against Iran. Airstrikes targeted leadership compounds, military installations, and strategic sites across Tehran and other cities. Iranian state media confirmed early Sunday that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had been killed in the strikes, along with the country’s defense minister, the IRGC commander, and several other top officials.

Iran responded with retaliatory missile and drone strikes against Israel, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia, hitting US bases in the region and spreading the conflict across the Gulf.

As of Sunday’s futures open:

• Brent crude jumped roughly 11% opening at ~$75/barrel

• Gold rose ~1.6%, trading above $5,300/oz, extending its seventh straight monthly gain

• S&P 500 futures dropped nearly 1%

• Nasdaq 100 futures fell ~1.2%

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Given the scale of this weekend’s geopolitical shock and the uncertainty still unfolding in the Middle East, this could easily be a macro-driven week where individual stock catalysts take a backseat to headline risk. $VIX nd will be the first things to watch at Monday’s open as the market reprices volatility around a live military conflict and the Strait of Hormuz situation. The major indices (SPY, QQQ, DIA) will set the tone early.

Oil, silver, and gold will be in play all week. Brent crude is already up 10% on the Sunday open, gold is trading above $5,300, and silver is pressing toward $95. If the Strait of Hormuz remains disrupted, these moves have room to run significantly further. Watch for momentum in small and microcap oil names: , .

Defense and drone stocks could also find a bid as the market processes the implications of an active US military campaign. .

remains on watch after selling off post-earnings despite beating on every metric. The stock dropped to $177 by Friday’s close, well below its mid-week highs, and has now spent over four months unable to break out of the $170-$210 range.

and trade in correlation with the Korea story. With the KOSPI up 47% YTD and Samsung/SK Hynix driving the memory supercycle, any continuation or sharp reversal in Korean equities will likely pull these names along with it.

after walking away from the WBD merger on Thursday. Paramount Skydance’s $31/share bid was deemed a “superior proposal,” Netflix declined to match, and collected a $2.8 billion termination fee for its trouble. The stock closed up over 13% on the day on relief that the deal is dead.

(Block) after Jack Dorsey cut nearly half the workforce, laying off 4,000 employees, and directly attributed the decision to AI efficiency gains. Dorsey predicted most companies will make similar structural changes within the next year. This is both a company-specific catalyst and a broader signal for the AI-displacement theme that has been weighing on software and services all year.

Space names are in focus after Bloomberg reported Friday that SpaceX is preparing to file confidentially for an IPO as soon as March, targeting a valuation above $1.75 trillion. If that filing materializes, it should provide a valuation anchor for the entire space sector. , , all trade as public proxies for SpaceX exposure and could see increased flows.

Quantum stocks sold off after earnings this week, with threatening to make new lows.

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It was a choppy week that ultimately ended with small gains. The big story on Friday was the Supreme Court ruling 6-3 that President Trump exceeded his authority in using emergency powers (IEEPA) to impose sweeping “reciprocal” global tariffs. In response, Trump signaled he would impose a temporary 10% levy on imports under a different statute (Section 122 of the Trade Act), giving a 150-day window. All major indices remain rangebound despite the positive reaction and rally on Friday.

Value-oriented and defensive sectors continue to outperform, including consumer staples, materials, energy, and industrials with all four up more than 10% this year.

One key chart heading into the week was the ETF, a measure of the collective strength of the Magnificent 7 stocks and a heavily weighted component of the major tech indices. Despite the pressure on the sector, the ETF managed to hold its key 200-day simple moving average this week, a level that will be closely watched going forward.

Metals were the standout winners of Friday’s session. Gold closed above $5,100 and silver surged back above $84, with silver up around 7.5% on the day. The moves were possibly driven by a combination of geopolitical uncertainty and the tariff ruling.

Anthropic’s release of Claude Code Security on Friday added another headwind for the software sector, with cybersecurity names bearing the brunt of the selling as AI disruption concerns continue to weigh on the space.

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Earnings season continues with Nvidia firmly in focus on Wednesday afternoon. Technically, the stock has consolidated within a range for the past six months and could be primed for a breakout if the report and market reaction are favourable.

Other notable names to watch this week:

reports while sitting at 52-week lows after a prolonged selloff, making it a closely watched turnaround candidate.

and are worth monitoring in the datacenter space.

and are both forming bear flags, a technical setup that could be triggered after earnings.

and are some names to track in the AI energy theme.

had a strong move last week on the back of a Palantir partnership announcement and now heads into its own earnings report.

continues to attract attention as one of the more popular growth names in the space sector.

was hit on Friday following Blue Owl funding news and also reports earnings this week.

Other stocks to watch:

is trading in a tight technical range and could see a breakdown below the $39 level.

was a standout performer post-earnings, showing impressive relative strength for five consecutive days while the broader market struggled. Friday's pullback appeared to be more a casualty of group weakness than any stock-specific deterioration, making it an interesting name to watch for a potential bid as the dust settles.

One interesting market to watch globally is the South Korea ETF, which has been exceptionally strong, driven by AI-fueled demand for semiconductors and memory, with SK Hynix contributing a significant portion of the index’s move. and are potential vehicles to keep track of.

Meanwhile, US based memory stocks and are holding up well and are on watch this week to see if they can make a continuation leg higher, particularly if the South Korea semiconductor momentum carries over.

after rallying over 300% off its lows, made another notable move last week.

Cybersecurity stocks came under pressure last week following the Anthropic Claude Code Security news. Watching to see if selling continues across and .

Many of the cybersecurity names overlap heavily with the software ETF, and the ETF’s $80 level has emerged as a critical line in the sand. What makes the setup particularly striking is that despite significant retail inflows into the space, the price continues to lag, suggesting that institutional distribution may be quietly overwhelming the buying. A decisive break below $80 would be a meaningful technical deterioration worth taking seriously.

Final Thoughts

It has been a choppy couple of weeks, with markets grinding through a wall of uncertainty. With some key clearing events now in the rear view mirror, notably the Supreme Court’s tariff ruling, and NVDA earnings looming on Wednesday, the market is approaching a potential inflection point. The next few sessions could go a long way in determining whether this consolidation resolves higher or whether the recent weakness has more room to run.

As the old trading adage goes: from consolidation comes expansion. The longer and tighter the range, the more powerful the eventual move tends to be. The spring is coiled, and the market is telling us it is almost ready to show its hand.

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This was another choppy week beneath the surface.

and remain rangebound, but importantly both are trading under the 50sma yet again. In a sideways market, the moving average doesn’t matter as much, but the slope rolling over shows that momentum has clearly weakened. Every reclaim attempt has failed to produce sustained momentum.

The indices are not truly broken. There is no impulsive downside expansion. But structurally, this is not a healthy tape either. It is a grind lower with failed rallies.

and continue to tell a slightly different story. Both remain in defined uptrends. Small caps and industrials are holding structure far better than large cap growth.

That divergence matters.

We are in a split market. Growth is weak. Broader value and industrial exposure is holding.

The environment remains choppy and leaning bearish until proven otherwise.

Leadership - Not Healthy

and have been rallying. When money flows into staples and utilities, that is traditionally risk off behaviour. Investors are prioritising defensives over growth.

At the same time, and remain strong. Energy and industrials continue to benefit from the infrastructure and AI build out narrative. Power demand, grid expansion and capex cycles are supporting these groups.

This is not broad risk appetite. It is selective capital allocation.

That is why the tape feels difficult. Leadership is fragmented.

Growth & Risk Assets

remains under its 200sma. That alone tells you speculative growth is not in favour.

Bitcoin has bounced but remains fairly sideways. Given it is in a major downtrend across higher timeframes, this consolidation is not surprising. Until trend shifts, rallies are tactical rather than structural.

broke its range this week. However, it has done so directly into the 200sma.

This is a pivotal area:

1. Bullish scenario - Undercut and reclaim of this level, followed by expansion and hold.

2. Bearish scenario - Failure at the 200sma and continuation lower. That would reinforce the idea that mega cap leadership is deteriorating.

This is one of the more important tells going into next week.

AI Disruption Spreading Across Sectors

One of the more important themes this year has been AI disruption compressing software multiples. Since the start of the year, many software names have sold off as AI coding tools and automation pressures raised questions around long term margins and competitive moats.

That theme broadened this week.

Financials were hit after Altruist introduced AI-powered tax planning inside its Hazel platform, positioning it as a tool that allows advisors to generate tax strategies in minutes. The reaction in names like SCHW reflected the market’s sensitivity to AI eating into traditional service models.

Later in the week, freight stocks also saw sharp selling as AI-driven logistics and optimisation concerns resurfaced. Whether justified or not, the market is clearly repricing businesses where automation risk is high.

This is becoming a cross-sector narrative.

It is no longer just software being questioned. The market is actively assessing which industries can be streamlined, automated, or margin compressed by AI tools.

That does not mean every move is rational or sustainable. But when a theme spreads across multiple sectors, it deserves attention.

If this continues, we may see:

• Defensive flows persist

• Higher multiple service businesses struggle

• Capital rotate further into hard assets and infrastructure

In other words, the split tape dynamic makes more sense in the context of disruption risk.

This is a theme worth monitoring closely in the weeks ahead.

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If you missed the news catalyst on , check out my trade recap here:

It will likely continue to be volatile this week and offer intraday trading opportunities. The theme is active, and as long as volume persists, it remains in play.

Memory

Memory stocks are holding up well relative to the broader tape. Structure remains constructive, but breakout momentum could still be choppy in this environment.

If QQQ reclaims strength, these likely expand. If tech rolls over again, breakouts may struggle to follow through.

Datacenters

displayed relative strength after reporting earnings. Although they continue to operate at a loss with significant capex, the market reacted positively. That reaction matters more than the headline numbers in the short term.

The broader datacenter group continues to resist selling and is holding support for the most part.

This group remains one of the more structurally intact AI infrastructure themes, but can just remain rangebound while the broader market pulls back.

Fiber optics

The optics group remains in continued uptrends, but no clean entry setups are prevalent in this grind higher.

continues to trend constructively.

looks to have undercut recent support and is attempting to rally back. If that reclaim holds, it could offer a tactical long setup.

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Coming into the session, the tape had already been shifting.

Over the prior week we saw:

• Software sell off aggressively

• Financials break down, including

• Freight and logistics roll over, notably

There was a clear narrative developing around AI disruption across traditional industries.

Capital was rotating.
Legacy operators were under pressure.
Markets were repricing structural risk.

This backdrop mattered. The environment was already primed for structural winners and losers.

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The Announcement - Quantifying the Disruption

The company’s announcement gave the narrative substance.

Algorhythm stated that its SemiCab platform, an AI-driven optimization system for shippers and carriers, allows customers to scale freight volumes by 300 to 400 percent without adding staff.

According to the company, operators using SemiCab can manage more than 2,000 loads per year versus roughly 500 loads per broker under traditional models.

The platform automates network-level planning and decision-making, lowering cost per load, reducing administrative overhead, and increasing asset utilization as volume scales.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the announcement triggered an immediate reaction across freight:

• dropped 15%

• fell 16%, its worst day ever

• declined 5%

The disruption theme was no longer abstract. It was being priced in.

Interestingly, the stock moved the day prior but failed to sustain momentum. The reaction was there, but participation was not. It was not until the following session that price broke the prior high with real volume behind it.

The Catalyst - CEO on Fox

The spark came when the CEO appeared live on Fox TV.

Up until that point, $RIME had spent most of the session compressing between roughly 1.20 and 1.30 with limited activity.

Once the interview hit, participation changed immediately:

• Heavy influx of volume

• Immediate expansion in range

• Sharp reclaim and hold of VWAP

• Clear shift in tempo

Theme plus visibility attracts participation. Participation drives range expansion.

The Technical Inflection

There were two key technical shifts.

The first was the intraday range expansion that followed the surge in volume. That was the initial signal that participation had changed and that the session was no longer rangebound.

However, the larger inflection came at prior day high.

When price cleared that level on sustained volume, the structure shifted decisively from expansion to confirmed trend.

The intraday break signaled opportunity.
The prior day high break confirmed acceptance.

This was not a marginal push through resistance. It was continuation with participation behind it.

That sequence - expansion first, higher timeframe level second - is what gave the move conviction.

How I Traded It

I started buying as price broke over prior day high when the alert triggered.

Rather than full size immediately, I accumulated as volume remained consistent and the breakout confirmed. The key tells:

• Price holding above prior day high

• Higher lows building

• Respect of short-term trend structure

• No sharp rejection back into the range

The 5 minute 10 EMA acted as dynamic support during the move. As long as price respected that structure, I stayed with the position.

Into strength, I sold into spikes. The goal was not to predict the top but to monetize volatility while allowing a core position to participate in continuation.

Once the stock cleared 2.50 and later 3.00, momentum had clearly taken over. At that point it becomes a management exercise rather than an anticipation exercise.

The Afterhours Secondary Trade

After the initial expansion, the stock pulled back and formed a range in afterhours.

Once it broke the upside of that range with confirmation, I took a secondary trade.

Same principles:

• Break of defined range

• Volume confirmation

• Clear invalidation level

Continuation followed as liquidity expanded again.

Connecting the Dots in Real Time

The edge is not just in the chart. It is in connecting the dots and assessing what is truly in play and what the market cares about.

That requires consistently tracking narratives, catalysts, and shifts in participation as they develop.

Inside the discord community, we focus on identifying what is in play each day and positioning when theme, attention, and structure align.

Why This Worked

1. Active AI disruption theme already pressuring multiple sectors

2. Clear media catalyst increasing attention

3. Heavy volume confirming participation

4. Break of prior day high triggering technical flows

5. Structured execution with defined risk

The prior weakness in software, financials, and freight was not noise. It confirmed that positioning was already shifting around AI narratives.

aligned with that narrative and provided a clean vehicle for momentum expression.

P.S. Trying a more structured trade recap format here.

If this style is useful, let me know in the comments and consider liking the post so I know to keep building on it.

It was an overall volatile and action packed week, marked by sharp moves across multiple asset classes. Silver saw another surge in volatility, bouncing for several sessions early in the week before breaking down again and making new lows on Thursday.

Software stocks extended their selloff before finally finding some stability into Thursday and Friday, while Bitcoin continued its broader decline before capitulating near the $60,000 level and reversing sharply on Thursday. The simultaneous weakness in software and crypto gave the sense of broader market deleveraging, with spillover selling pressuring other sectors as well.

I noted both software and crypto were approaching extremely oversold conditions, setting up the potential for a sharp bounce, which ultimately played out and led to an opportunistic trade setup (trade recap).

To close out the week, rallied roughly 2% on Friday, with futures across all major indices printing engulfing reversal bars, and the Dow Jones closed at a new all time high. The Russell 2000 small cap ETF managed to close the week positive, continuing to show relative strength.

After a week filled with outlier moves, it appears leverage has likely been reset across many assets. The recent market has been dominated by value, industrial and energy stocks lately, but with Friday’s strong breadth, the conditions are in place for a potential new rally to begin forming in tech and growth.

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Watchlist

Earnings season continues, with several key names on watch this week.

and are in focus following recent capitulation moves, with earnings reactions likely to reveal whether peak pessimism has already been priced in.

a semiconductor company with strong fundamental growth, reports on Tuesday and has been building a base.

an AI infrastructure name, is setting up for a potential 200-MA breakout but reports on Wednesday, making earnings a key catalyst.

and also remain on watch.

A couple of sectors are standing out with relative strength.

In fiber optics tied to GPUs and datacenters, and are showing constructive action.

Within datacenters, made a strong move off the lows. saw a strong rebound on Friday and held the 200-SMA. also rebounded sharply on Friday, printing a higher low on the daily base. staged a strong rebound after capitulating in after-hours on earnings, while remains in a sideways consolidation range spanning the last few months.

still looks constructive holding the sideways range it’s been in since last summer, with earnings later in the month likely to be a catalyst to break either side of the range.

travel stocks have been breaking out, with making new highs last week.

steel stocks remain in uptrends but report earnings on Monday, making results a key catalyst.

oil stocks are in an uptrend with breakout potential.

solar stocks continue to trend higher and are digesting a recent earnings gap.

Overall, more stocks are setting up for bullish continuation patterns. While and remain firmly in uptrends, it would be constructive to see reclaim all of its key moving averages to signal full alignment and a more risk-on environment for growth and technology stocks.

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Trade Highlights

BTC reversal:

reversal in Coinbase with crypto basket:

reversal with crypto basket:

gold miner short after parabolic backside:

Markets don’t wait for weekly posts. For those looking to follow the market more actively each day, a daily livestream runs every morning at the market open, offering real-time commentary, screen sharing, trade ideas, and watchlists within the Discord community. Check out the link below:

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The week began with precious metals continuing their parabolic advance, while the dollar broke down on Tuesday before recovering as the week progressed.

The major inflection point came with sharp pullbacks across metals, where silver, despite a large drop early Monday, initially found support from continued strength in gold. I noted on X that both metals were getting extended enough to watch for a possible parabolic short setup:

Gold then accelerated higher before both metals reversed aggressively on Thursday, culminating in a historic and record breaking collapse in silver of roughly -30% in a single session, a move that was exacerbated by leveraged ETF rebalancing flows in .

Equities also came under pressure following the nomination of Kevin Warsh to the Federal Reserve, who is widely viewed as more hawkish, and it remains to be seen whether part of the broader selloff was driven by spillover deleveraging tied to the violent metals unwind as markets head into next week.

Earnings were mixed across technology, with reporting strong results and being rewarded, beating expectations but selling off alongside a weak software sector, trading largely flat, and posting blowout earnings but facing profit taking after its recent run.

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Watchlist

Earnings season continues, with several notable companies in the AI space reporting this week:

Metals remain a top watch. After a historic drop from extreme upside extension, they are arguably now extended to the downside in the short term. One potential trade this week is a bounce in silver and gold , which already began on Friday as the deleveraging-driven selling pressure appeared to exhaust.

Meanwhile in equities the major indices and remain mostly rangebound. continues to pull back on the small-cap side, while has broken down from its range and is now hovering right around the 200-SMA, a popular gauge for growth stocks and speculative appetite.

Crypto saw renewed breakdowns as $BTC and $ETH fell below their recent daily ranges after months of persistent relative weakness.

Several crypto-related stocks also made new lows, including and .

Another sector that broke down was quantum stocks, with the major names in the group losing the 200-SMA. triggered a clean technical breakdown (trade recap below), while and also broke key long-term levels.

Overall, there is a lack of bullish setups heading into the week following last week’s weak market action. Many sectors have rolled over, with charts firmly in downtrends.

That said, conditions can change quickly, especially with earnings acting as potential catalysts to renew enthusiasm in select names. With capital flowing out of the metals trade, it will be important to watch where that money rotates next, if anywhere at all.

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Trade Highlights

Gold parabolic short:

Silver overnight short:

breakdown:

breaking news trade afterhours:

Markets don’t wait for weekly posts. For those looking to follow the market more actively each day, a daily livestream runs every morning at the market open, offering real-time commentary, screen sharing, trade ideas, and watchlists within the Discord community. Check out the link below:

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U.S. equity markets saw a sharp selloff to start the week after Trump threatened new tariffs on several European nations as part of his broader Greenland strategy, reigniting fears of an escalating trade conflict and weighing heavily on the indices, with gapping down and closing weak on Tuesday.

Sentiment shifted later in the week as markets rebounded strongly after Trump backed away from the proposed tariffs and signaled progress toward a framework agreement, sparking a classic relief rally across both U.S. and European equities.

Even with the rebound, and remain rangebound, and overall conditions continue to be choppy, with only a narrow group of stocks sustaining clean trends.

During the early week volatility, gold and other safe haven assets surged, and despite the easing of tariff threats, precious metals continued higher into the end of the week. Silver and gold once again took center stage, with silver breaking above the $100 level for the first time on record and gold pushing close to the $5000 area.

Over the weekend, trade tensions resurfaced as Trump threatened to impose 100% tariffs on Canadian imports if Canada proceeds with a trade deal with China, adding another layer of uncertainty heading into the new week.

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Watchlist

Earnings season is starting with many heavyweights reporting this week. Some key stocks to watch will be:

Silver and gold will be closely watched if price accelerates into a potential parabolic short. However, if price consolidates instead, the trend could extend further to the upside.

Mining stocks also saw strength this week, with extending its rally, while smaller microcap names such as and showed notable movement.

In crypto, $BTC failed a range breakout earlier in the month and is now breaking down, trading back below the 50-SMA. $ETH looks similar, with both appearing vulnerable to a retest of recent lows. Stocks tied to crypto price action to watch include , , and .

Rare earth stocks are also on watch following reports of the Trump administration investing $1.6B into . Other names in the sector to monitor include and .

Keeping in mind the selectivity and choppiness of the current environment, datacenter stocks did show some strength on Friday, though they remain rangebound overall and could have breakout potential depending on how the week develops: .

If the market sees further weakness, the quantum sector looks technically weak and could set up potential breakdown trades alongside broader market pressure: .

is a microcap stock that surged from $11 to $68 in after-hours trading on Friday, making it a highly volatile stock to monitor this week.

is an extended biotech name that is running into resistance around the $8 level and could see downside if momentum fades after its recent run.

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Markets don’t wait for weekly posts. For those looking to follow the market more actively each day, a daily livestream runs every morning at the market open, offering real-time commentary, screen sharing, trade ideas, and watchlists within the Discord community. Check out the link below:

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continued to outperform during the week, reinforcing its leadership role, while remained stuck in a volatility contraction pattern, continuing to make higher lows but without a decisive breakout.

Software stocks were broadly sold, reflecting ongoing multiple compression and rotation away from the group, which I covered in more detail in my article on X.

In commodities, silver pushed to new highs before pulling back later in the week as geopolitical tensions with Iran eased after Trump stated there would be no strike.

On the macro front, the Supreme Court tariff ruling that had been scheduled for Wednesday was delayed once again, while CPI data came in cooler than expected, helping to support risk assets.

Over the weekend, however, new tariff headlines emerged, with President Trump announcing a 10 percent tariff on several European countries beginning February 1st, set to rise to 25 percent by June 1st unless the US reaches a deal related to Greenland, adding another layer of uncertainty for markets heading into the coming week.

Despite Monday being a market holiday, futures remained open and NQ gapped down -1%. From a technical perspective, price traded directly into the prior low near 25,265 and managed to bounce off those levels throughout the session. That area represents the last higher low in the trend and now acts as an important pivot, as a clean break below it could open the door to a deeper pullback, especially with price currently trading beneath the 50 day simple moving average. Outside of equities, both gold and silver continued to push higher, extending their recent strength despite the weakness seen in index futures.

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Watchlist

Sector and theme leaders continue to rally to the upside across multiple groups despite overall index weakness in large cap tech.

The space sector remains a strong leadership theme.

broke out after being named a prime contract service provider by the Missile Defense Agency (MDA).

continues to trade exceptionally heavy volume as it breaks out above the 200 moving average.

, and continue to print new highs.

In semiconductors, the memory space remains dominant, with and continuing to make new highs and leading sector momentum.

Within power infrastructure, and are breaking out to new highs as demand for grid stability and energy storage accelerates.

AI infrastructure and datacenters are also showing leadership.

saw roughly 3x average volume after announcing it secured 700 MW of capacity and signed a 10-year lease at Rockdale, marking a major pivot toward data center infrastructure.

broke out following news that Galaxy Digital completed a large load interconnection study and received ERCOT approval for an additional 830 MW of computing demand at its Helios data center campus in West Texas.

On the technical side, continues to hold its 10 EMA within a strong uptrend, while made a sharp rally off its recent consolidation. and continue to trend higher and remain constructive.

Some software stocks could continue to see downside after breaking fresh technical levels, with and remaining vulnerable.

Other software names have been selling off for an extended period and could be setting up for a reflexive bounce if downside extends further, including and .

Precious metals continue to be on watch as silver continues its parabolic ascent. On the rare earths minerals side some stocks like are approaching breakout levels:

saw huge volume and has exploded 200% off lows from $2 to $6 in Fridays afterhours session, after gaining attention on the X platform as well as having a large short interest of 35% float short. The stock is on watch for a mean reversion short trade when the momentum turns.

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Markets don’t wait for weekly posts. For those looking to follow the market more actively each day, a daily livestream runs every morning at the market open, offering real-time commentary, screen sharing, trade ideas, and watchlists within the Discord community. Check out the link below:

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