SpaceX: The Hard Questions Are Here
Peace is coming (hopefully) to the Middle East, sending oil lower while equities stabilized. But if you expected a sleepy summer, you’re disappointed. Because this market remains action-packed. So let’s talk about what’s happening: SpaceX Comes Down to Earth Last Friday, SpaceX (SPCX) came public in the biggest IPO of all time. And it hit Earth with a bang. The deal priced at $135. The stock opened at $150 on the dot and hit a high of $225.64 on Tuesday, from where it started sliding: Even after this 20% drop, its $2.36 trillion market cap is larger than: Broadcom (AVGO) Tesla (TSLA) Meta (META) Micron (MU) Walmart (WMT) JP Morgan (JPM) Analysts expect SpaceX to grow revenues from $35.9 billion this year to $130.9 billion in 2029. Elon Musk himself said he expects SpaceX to generate about $1 trillion in revenue in 2030. But now the tough questions are coming: Was the entire rally engineered through limiting the supply of stock and giving more retail traders access to the IPO? Can Elon Musk sell SpaceX the way he’s sold Tesla? Even if SpaceX can hit growth targets, is the valuation out of control? Will the stock collapse when insiders get the green light to sell? Will the company have to raise even more capital? There are now reports of a potential $20 billion bond offering on the way. I own a whopping 10 shares of SpaceX myself. And I’m thinking about selling, and buying some out-of-the-money puts. Because if SpaceX crashes, it’s bound to be ugly. JR Romero had some harsh words for SpaceX (the stock, not the company) here, and we went deeper into the potential dangers facing this iconic name: The Epic Semiconductor Run Won’t Stop, and Has Another Catalyst The VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH) might be incapable of going down. It’s up 83% this year and hit another record high on Friday thanks to big moves in names like Intel (INTC), Taiwan Semi (TSM), and AMD (AMD). And it would be up even more if SanDisk (SNDK) was in the ETF. SanDisk is the #1 stock in the S&P 500 this year with its 819% gain. Plus, there’s another catalyst on the horizon: Micron’s (MU) earnings report on Wednesday after the close. Based on the number of AI-related capital raises we’re seeing from the likes of Alphabet (GOOGL), Nvidia (NVDA), SpaceX, and others, demand for memory remains insatiable. So Micron should extend what’s been a monumental winning streak for semiconductor earnings. Warsh Confirms the Drift Towards Higher Rates New FOMC Chairman Kevin Warsh made a big splash at his debut meeting on Wednesday. Warsh shortened the post-meeting statement, ditched the dot plot, announced five new task forces, and declared war on inflation. Warsh’s hawkish show came as a surprise to many because he was viewed as a loyalist to President Trump, who has been vocal in wanting lower rates. And 9 of 18 Fed officials now expect at least one rate hike this year. The market was already leaning in the direction of higher rates, and the Fed reinforced that. Now markets are pricing in an 85% chance of higher rates by year-end, according to the CME’s FedWatch Tool. So the breakdown of expectations is now as follows: 15% chance of rates staying unchanged 37.6% chance of 25 bps in hikes 33.3% chance of 50 bps in hikes 12.5% chance of 75 bps in hikes 1.7% chance of 100 bps in hikes This isn’t a major change from last week. It was more a reinforcement of what the market is looking for. Still, I’m eager to see if the President starts tangling with the independent-minded Warsh. Stocks Go Up, Traders Go “Meh” The latest AAII Sentiment Survey shows that 36.6% of investors are bullish. This is up from last week. But it’s still the 5th straight week of below-average bullishness. That’s even with equity markets hitting record highs, and a US-Iran deal coming together. Meanwhile, CNN’s Fear & Greed Index is at 37, smack dab in the Fear category. But overall, the numbers are healthy because it shows that not everyone is bought into this rally. The last thing we need is euphoric sentiment, which typically happens around tops.
Continue Reading -->New: SpaceX & SanDisk Price Targets Revealed
JR Romero’s made plenty of waves with big calls on big stocks. And he just revealed his new price targets for SpaceX (SPCX) and SanDisk (SNDK). JR shares: Why SpaceX has different short-term and long-term outlooks Why Spacex feels like Facebook all over again The basic supply-demand dynamics that helped SpaceX shoot up Why the public is so obsessed with SpaceX The reason SanDisk remains unstoppable Where these names are going next His favorite ideas right now And more!
Continue Reading -->Observe the Structure, Wait for the Signal
The business of speculation is entirely unique. What’s required to succeed in this business often runs counter to what’s required to succeed in other lines of business. Virtually all other businesses involve some element of salesmanship. Sales is denoted by its busyness. In sales, being busy, or even just the appearance of being busy, confers to others that you are working. Not so with speculation. The work of speculation is denoted by its lack of busyness. This apparent lack of activity is easy to mistake for idleness; even after years of trying to explain what I do for a living to my wife, she still can’t believe that work is anything other than continuous motion and constant action. I can’t blame her for thinking my lack of appearing busy is idleness, but what I’m actually doing is anything but idle. I spend on average 25 to 30 hours a week doing real work, and about 5 to 10 doing admin and maintenance. Of the 30, at least 15 hours is spent in observation. To her, my work in observation looks like doing nothing, but it’s the most critical activity for my work. I’m observing the market and waiting for something to appear that looks familiar to me. I’m searching for the one setup I know works for me. There’s really only one technical setup that I can attribute to all my winning trades: a long base and a breakout within a strong general market. Here’s my best winning trades from 2025. They all share the setup I like with a base in white, a breakout in green, elevated RSI in yellow, and most importantly, a stop in red: $AGI: $ATUSF: $GIFI: $DAC: $MT: Each of these trades had two things going for it: 1) a technical setup that I recognize combined with the SPX above it’s 8 and 21 day moving averages, and 2) a fundamental theme or compelling valuation. The technical setup writes its own story: there is a negotiation between buyers and sellers inside the white base that forms a price structure with a flat top. All throughout this price structure formation, I’m observing. I’m waiting to see a signal. The breakout in green is the exact moment in time that the buyers have bought up all the available supply of stock. In order for the auction to occur, the price must work higher. The best stocks will show strength for some period of time before the breakout. The very best trades have a logical stop that is not more than 7% below the breakout level. The closer the logical stop is to the breakout, the less risk there is and the larger the position can be. I use a constant risk position sizing so any trade will never risk more than 1% of my account, and each stock should be under 10% of the account in case of a gap down beneath the stop. I’ll relax this requirement if I have a compelling fundamental reason for feeling OK with a large single stock position. The fundamental part of owning a stock is a lot more difficult to pin down than the technical. Each stock from my 2025 trades had a fundamental appeal to institutional investors that made it compelling to own. $AGI’s cash flows were surging with the price of gold, and it was trading at the same cash flow multiple as the average stock when it should have been trading at a premium due to the cash flow ramp. $ATUSF was very cheap at 7x cash flow when it broke out at $20. This is far too cheap for a company with as high a caliber management as Altius. $GIFI, Gulf Island Fab, was right in the sweet spot – oil and gas ancillary services was the right theme, they had no debt, and growing backlog and earnings for several quarters. It was all right there in their SEC filings. I had no idea they would get a buy out so quickly after the breakout signal. $DAC broke above $100 right at the beginning of 2026. It was trading at less than book value at the time, and earnings were stable. I figured it shouldn’t trade at a discount to book. I had no idea the shipping disruption that was about to come with the Strait of Hormuz, but institutional buyers did. They bought up all the supply under $100. $MT was in the metals and mining theme that was working so well in 3Q and 4Q 2025. I didn’t know it at the time the stock broke $35, but the EU was ramping up steel tariffs in a big way. ArcelorMittal was trading at 70% of book value before the EU tariff announcement while US companies like $NUE and $STLD were already rallying and trading much higher than book value. $MT was an easy target for institutional sponsorship. The reason I was able to participate in these moves is because I was observing. I know what I want to see, and I keep on the look out for it. I won’t always get every move, and it’s painful when I see a technical setup I recognize but can’t get a fundamental understanding of the valuation component. Because a lot of the story-stocks in this market are pretty un-analyzable from a fundamental perspective, I have to sit on the sidelines for a lot of the big moves that these stocks achieve. Stocks like $TSLA, $ASTS, or $RIOT can have great setups, but if I can’t get an understanding of why they may be compelling from a valuation perspective, I’ll have to pass. Some stocks which are more suited to my analytical abilities that I’m observing right now are: $BIIB, $MRK, and $NVS. The technical setup is easy to see: a base with a flat top forming and strong RSI. I’ll be observing those stocks as the price structure develops and waiting for a breakout that occurs with the SPX above it’s 8 and 21 day
Continue Reading -->SpaceX: This Is How It Ends
JR Romero believes SpaceX (SPCX) is a groundbreaking company. And it will be a leading tech stock. But a simple law will crash this blockbuster IPO before then. That law is supply and demand: JR explains: Why he’s been long SpaceX, even with trouble down the road What the Netscape, Facebook, and Coinbase IPOs say about SpaceX How Elon Musk has captured some Morgan/Rockefeller magic When the stock will be in trouble How SpaceX will eventually become a leading tech name The power of cult of personality with this name And more!
Continue Reading -->My #1 Long-Term Name
The broader action is neutral. But there is plenty to get excited about. Including Sami Abusaad’s #1 long-term trade: Sami explains: His #1 name with a monthly buy setup on the verge of a breakout Why the broader markets are neutral Why QQQ stands out right now The bullish action in airlines and cruise line Why he is bullish on Twilio (TWLO) once again 3 names set to decline as crude oil drops And more!
Continue Reading -->Why 2026 rhymes with 2008 when it comes to deflation
Why a new T3 Live contributor is saying the ‘crowd’ noise’ is different than what the market is saying I’m not saying 2026’s setup is similar to 2008’s. I’m saying it’s exactly the same. The crowd is shouting again. It’s shouting about inflation — the same way it shouted in 2007 and 2008. And just like back then, the market is whispering something else entirely. After almost two decades in this trading and investing game, I’ve come to accept that winning in the markets is a choice. You show up regularly, you practice with intention, and you execute your plan on game day — no different from winning at anything else. But the first thing you have to choose is who you listen to: the crowd, or the market. They’re rarely saying the same thing. My 2008 story of using vegetable oil for fuel… because the ‘crowd’ said to When I first started trying to operate in the stock market back in 2007, I knew none of this. I treated it as a hobby, not a profession. Hobbies cost you money; professions earn you money. My hobbyist approach cost me embarrassing amounts of both time and money. Back then, I was fresh out of college, working my first “real job” as a telephone salesman for a big tech company. The cubicle is a miserable environment — they couldn’t have invented a more sorrowful place to spend your waking hours. I saw trading stocks on the internet as a way out, and it became a mental escape more than an income stream. And those were crazy times. Crude oil was pushing through $120… Cars were a way of life for me and my friends back then — building them, racing them, buying parts for race cars and 4x4s — so we felt the looming gas shortage in our bones. Building a car was already expensive, and driving one was getting worse by the week as China bought up every commodity on the planet to pull its population out of poverty and into a middle class. We started making biodiesel out of vegetable oil and lye, because we knew — we just knew — we were only months from running out of crude and gasoline. We just knew the trucks would stop delivering and the grocery stores would empty out. We knew all of it because we were listening to the shouting. The media. The politicians. The people around us. I was learning to be a trader, and instead of listening to the deafening noise of the crowd, I should have been listening to the whisper of the market. Gold can predict the future of inflation… and it’s doing it again Here’s what I didn’t know then but know now: gold front-runs the money printing. It starts moving 18 months to two years before the central banks do. By 2008, gold, wheat, and crude had already priced in the inflation before it ever entered public awareness — and as they topped out, they began whispering what came next. Not more inflation. Deflation. The most violent deflation to wash over the money system since 1929. Gold’s four-year run from autumn 2004 to autumn 2008 looks awfully similar to its run from autumn 2022 to now. It was a deflationary bust that dragged gold down into October 2008 as the financial crisis hit: Back then, it was the fertilizers running geometrically as China bought up all the potash and nitrogen in the world. Today, it’s the hyperscalers buying up all the DRAM. Here’s $MOS then versus $MU now: This is where it gets uncomfortable. Almost no one who was warning about deflation during the 2008 top could be heard over the shouting. Home prices — and the property-tax receipts riding on them — were ratcheting higher, and we were told they always would. By the end of 2009, property taxes were slashed across the country. Homeowner’s insurance cost a fraction of what it had a year earlier. Getting work done on your house in 2006 and 2007 came with an astronomical price tag, if you could even find someone to do it. By the end of 2009, the market was flooded with contractors looking for any project at all. It’s the exact same story, repeating verbatim, today. The signs were everywhere in 2008, but they didn’t boast… Frantic road-construction projects as towns rushed to spend every last tax dollar that had come in the year before. Look around your own town — see anything similar? The social excesses, too: the Hummer H2, a beefed-up Tahoe built for suburban moms who wanted to feel like they were on patrol because the drive to the grocery store had gotten too mundane. Nothing marked the top better than that thing. Are you seeing this in your town? Now look at your streets. I’ll bet you can’t drive across town without passing two Hummer EVs. The auto industry is writing off its wasted EV capex as we speak — Honda’s just the latest. None of those signs announced themselves. The astute speculator had to watch for them and listen to the quiet voice within — the one that whispered: sell. I’m watching, and I’m listening. Being 90% long gold miners from 2023 until autumn of 2025 got me to where I am today, and I’m always hunting the next high-probability position to size into. Right now, that position is cash. My current portfolio holdings I’m in 75% cash, with about 15% in gold miners left over from my last big trade, plus small trading positions in $ATUSF, $DAC, and $FTK after peeling some off over the past few weeks. I’ve also got a small long-term hold in $VITL and a bigger one in $EPD. As long as $SPY stays below its 8- and 21-day moving averages, I’m not taking on any new breakout trades. I’ll keep what I’ve got, trail my stops, stay in the upside, and run my game plan into August 2026 — when I
Continue Reading -->The SpaceX IPO Was Boring?
We’ll skip the preambles this week. You know what you want to hear about: 1. SpaceX IPO = Boring? The SpaceX (SPCX) IPO is a hit. The deal priced at $135, and the stock opened at $150 before hitting $176+. That was a sizable move, but it felt rather almost too orderly. Just boring. I expected more back-and-forth violence because of the crazy day-one action in Cerebras (CBRS) in May, along with the presence of Elon Musk cultists, and the huge valuation assigned to SpaceX. It felt combustible. But as of 1:25 pm ET Friday, this feels like an anticlimax in terms of volatility. It’s downright boring. I picked up a whopping 10 shares of SpaceX at the offering, so I’m not complaining. Every tick higher is good for me. Now it will be interesting to see if Elon’s true believers stick with the stock and hold it up. You can get our team’s full reaction to the IPO here: 2. SpaceX Sets a Hilarious New Mark for Leveraged ETFs This morning, Defiance ETFs relaunched their Defiance Daily 2X Space ETF (SPCL), saying this: “Effective June 12, 2026, all or a predominant portion of SPCL’s Target Portfolio consists of exposure to SpaceX (Nasdaq: SPCX), making SPCL the world’s first and only ETF to have 2X exposure to SpaceX on IPO day. The fund’s SpaceX exposure was established at the $135 IPO price.” So we got a leveraged SpaceX ETF the same day as the IPO. And it was trading before SpaceX opened at 11:46 am ET. Based on the Defiance website, it looks like the SPCL ETF went to cash before buying 52,888 shares of SpaceX at the $135 IPO price. That’s why SPCL has a trading history. And it had a notable price and volume explosion today: It traded just 49K shares Thursday, but was at 941K on Friday as of 1:42 pm ET. However, “normal” SpaceX leveraged ETFs will hit the market soon after the SEC delayed listings to avoid mucking up the IPO. 3. SanDisk Refuses to Stop On May 29, JR Romero predicted SanDisk (SNDK) hitting $2,000. And it crossed that mark today. Close enough for government work? The stock is now up 717% year-to-date, making it the #1 stock in the S&P 500 by a long shot. The #2 name Micron (MU) is up “only” 249%: And as you can see, the leaderboard is dominated by semiconductors and tech hardware names. Because it feels like there is near-unlimited demand for AI hardware, based on recent news like: Oracle (ORCL) raising $40 billion to help fund its AI buildout Alphabet (GOOGL) selling $80 billion in equity to expland AI infrastructure Super Micro (SMCI) raising $7 billion to buy components to fill new $39 billion in AI server orders And a lot of this money is going towards flash memory, DRAM, hard drives, processors, and all the other stuff that powers AI. 4. Higher Rates? The ECB raised rates on Wednesday and traders are thinking the US will follow suit following the hot CPI and PPI reports. The market is now pricing in a mere 39.4% chance of rates remaining unchanged for the rest of 2026. This is down from 61.8% a month ago. And now the following rate hike odds are being priced in: +25 bps: 41.0% +50 bps: 15.1% +75 bps: 2.1% +100 bps: 0.1% So in total: Traders are pricing in a 58.3% chance of higher rates by year-end. Remember when we debated how many cuts we’d get? Of course, next week we get the first FOMC announcement and press conference from new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh. It will be interesting to see what tone he sets to kick off his term. And if he’ll signal he will go along with President Trump’s wish for lower rates. 5. Sentiment Is Bearish? The latest AAII Sentiment Survey shows that 30.4% of investors are bullish. This is the lowest reading since March 18, when the S&P 500 closed at 6224. It’s also the fourth straight week of below-average bullishness. AAII says the #1 concern is “the economy and/or inflation.” That makes sense given this week’s hot CPI report, plus ongoing concerns about AI taking jobs. Meanwhile, the CNN Fear & Greed Index is at just 33, squarely in the “Fear” category. So the decline from the early June highs has taken a clear toll on the mood.
Continue Reading -->SpaceX: Pro Traders React
SpaceX (SPCX) finally came public on Friday and our team gave their instant reactions: Find out: Exactly how our team is trading SpaceX Why today’s rally was a sure thing Key levels SpaceX stock needs to hold now to stay alive If “data centers in space” even make sense What made this a generational event Our favorite names And more!
Continue Reading -->Sami and JR Agree on SpaceX
The SpaceX IPO is coming. Sami Abusaad and JR Romero have the same opinion on it: Find out: Why everyone is talking about SpaceX SpaceX’ connection to the broader market How SpaceX could create more volatility Why the deal is reminiscent of Coinbase (COIN) and Facebook (now known as Meta What Anthropic and OpenAI have to do with this P.S. Want to rock the market before 7 am ET? Then check out JR Romero’s new Premarket Pit VTF®.
Continue Reading -->SpaceX-Mania Is Here. So What’s the Problem?
Stocks hit record highs this week, but tumbled after a semiconductor giant inspired a sell-off to close the week. Meanwhile, the biggest IPO of all time is about to land right on our heads: SpaceX-Mania Is Coming The SpaceX IPO is next Friday, June 12. Elon Musk’s baby will trade under the ticker SPCX. Word on the street is the deal is oversubscribed, maybe thanks to brokers like Fidelity lowering account size requirements to get on the deal. I have my order in to buy 10,000 shares. Whoops, that was a typos. It’s actually 10. As in ten. Enough to give me a thrill, but not enough to ruin my life. But after hearing JR Romero and Sami Abusaad talk about it, I’m thinking about cancelling my order: SpaceX aims to sell 555.55 million shares at $135 to raise $75 billion. That’s a target valuation of $1.75 trillion, which would give SpaceX the 8th largest market cap of any publicly-traded US company. Bigger than luminaries like Meta (META), Micron (MU), and Eli Lilly (LLY). To put that in perspective, the entire US 2025 IPO market (including SPACs and other such vehicles) was $70 billion, according to the SEC. And with AI giants Anthropic and OpenAI also coming public this year, we’re on track for a blockbuster year for IPOs. If all three companies come public, 2026 will likely sport the three biggest IPOs of all time. Saudi Aramco holds the record at $29.4 billion in its 2019 offering, which should easily be dwarfed by The Big Three. But there’s a catch. The market tends to top out in years with surges in public offerings: It happened in 2021, 2014, 2007, and 2000. Why? Likely because we get surges in offerings when capital markets conditions can’t get any better. So call me a little cautious. Speaking of Caution… First Broadcom, Now Oracle? The AI/Storage/Semi stock boom was raging out of control, until Broadcom’s (AVGO) underwhelming AI chip forecast ended the party Wednesday. AI-levered companies have been knocking the ball out of the park, so Broadcom’s disappointment felt out of nowhere. Broadcom is indeed growing like a weed. Just not fast enough for the hungry masses. And there’s no evidence it means AI demand is slowing, let alone dying. But the stakes go up on Wednesday, June 10 when software giant Oracle (ORCL) reports earnings. Oracle is a major AI player, and the market may not react well to another AI-related disappointment, no matter how small it is in the grand scheme of things. Rate Hike Odds Are Going Up Following Friday’s strong job report, traders are pricing in increasingly higher rates. Right now, the market is pricing in a 28.5% chance of rates staying the same through year-end: That’s down from 54.4% last week. Meanwhile, these are the implied odds of each level of rate hikes: Odds of one 25 bps hike are at 42.9%, up from 36.4% last week. And odds of 50 bps in hikes are at 22.5%, up from just 8.1%. I bet new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh is going to have some very interesting conversations with President Trump… What Happened to Bitcoin? I’ve heard people call Bitcoin a “store of value” and “a hedge against inflation.” But it’s one of the worst asset classes of 2026, dropping 30% in a banner year for risk assets. The bulls’ last hope is a double bottom at the $60,000 area: The big question is why? Some blame the US dollar and the prospect of higher rates. I think the problem is much simpler. People saw how fast semiconductor and AI stocks were rising, and took their capital elsewhere. Look at this Bitcoin vs. SMH chart: They were very loosely correlated until last November, when they took divergent paths. One to the promised land. The other to the wasteland. Sentiment Remains Neutral The latest AAII sentiment survey shows that 36.3% of investors are bullish on stocks. This is the second straight neutral reading in a market that’s made record highs. Meanwhile, the CNN Fear & Greed Index is 50, right in the neutral zone. This is healthy to see. Because it shows some caution out there, even with stocks blasting into orbit. Or maybe not everyone caught the hot semiconductor/AI trade, which was brutally strong up until Broadcom.
Continue Reading -->