Note: This week’s Movers & Shakers is being sent early as I’m out of pocket for most of today, but all of the stops are updated and I’ll be back online later today for those who have questions.
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The market has certainly had an interesting couple of weeks as volatility has picked up—the Nasdaq and especially leading stocks saw a big drop early last week, a sharp recovery through last Friday, followed two days of fairly heavy selling—and then we had Nvidia’s (NVDA) report Wednesday evening, which caused another rush of buying yesterday. Our thoughts:
Big picture, we remain very optimistic that a lot of stuff (indexes, sectors, leading stocks) will be higher in the months down the road. Obviously, there are no sure things (interest rates are still something to watch closely—they’re trending slightly higher again), but that’s what the odds favor.
Intermediate term, most of the evidence remains positive, too, but as mentioned above, leading stocks have been getting tossed around of late—and after a big run, the kind of down/up/down/up action is a sign the buyers and sellers are fighting it out (as opposed to the buyers simply swamping the sellers), which is a worry.
Even so, we’re not looking for reasons to turn cautious—just the opposite, in fact. Yesterday was certainly a positive, and if the market and leaders can hold/extend those gains, we may extend our line in the days ahead. Right now, we’ll leave our Market Monitor at a level 7 and see if the washing machine-type action continues, or if the two big hiccups of late were enough to shake out enough weak hands to continue the bull trend. We should know within a few sessions.
POTENTIAL BUYS
We’re not sure it’s best to pounce on it right away, but we love the action in ASML (ASML), which (a) broke out on earnings on its heaviest weekly volume in years, (b) extended nicely higher for many days after that, (c) etched slightly higher lows during the market’s two recent shakes, and (d) surged again yesterday to new closing highs. If the stock can calm down for a bit, we think it can go higher.
SUGGESTED SELLS
Partial Sells
Interactive Brokers (IBKR) is off to a quick start, bolting up more than 10% in just a couple of weeks—we think throwing a few shares overboard makes sense while holding the rest with a stop near your cost.
We don’t have a big profit in Snowflake (SNOW), but given the tech wobbles of late, we would consider selling some here and seeing how earnings (due February 28) play out.
Full Sells
Intra-Cellular Therapies (ITCI) – whipped out on a wild post-earnings reaction early yesterday morning. If you still own it, a stop at 68 makes sense.
Western Digital (WDC) – stopped out just under 50-day line.
We’ll likely prune some more names come Monday’s issue, but in the meantime, we’ve updated and added some stops below.
SUGGESTED STOPS
Advanced Micro (AMD) near 162
AppFolio (APPF) near 210
Ascendis Pharmaceuticals (ASND) near 137
Axon Enterprise (AXON) near 252
Cava Group (CAVA) near 44.5
Burlington Stores (BURL) near 191
Dave & Buster’s (PLAY) near 54
Lennar (LEN) near 145
Interactive Brokers (IBKR) near 95
Natera (NTRA) near 64
Nutanix (NTNX) near 48
Nvidia (NVDA) near 590
Pure Storage (PSTG) near 39
Spotify (SPOT) near 216
Taiwan Semi (TSM) near 116
Toll Brothers (TOL) near 99
TransMedics (TMDX) near 81.5
United Rentals (URI) near 583
WillScot Mobile (WSC) near 45.5
