Category Archives for Articles
We Want Rate Cuts!
We closed out another fun week in the markets, and it’s time to look ahead. Because traders have one thing on their minds: rate cuts! 1. Traders Are Still Pricing in Rate Cuts Following Friday’s in-line PCE Price Index report, traders were pricing in an 85.5% chance of a quarter-point rate cut in October. This is down slightly from last week. But next week, we get several key employment data points: Tuesday: JOLTS Job Openings Wednesday: ADP Nonfarm Employment Thursday: Jobless Claims Friday: Nonfarm Payrolls If labor markets continue to deteriorate, don’t be surprised if that number goes to 100%. 2. Equities Are Pricing in Lower Rates This quarter, we’ve seen notable strength in biotech, semiconductors, gold, small caps, and regional banks. That implies traders have been bracing for lower rates, in a classic example of pricing moving before the fundamentals change. And interestingly, we looked at our universe of 30 ETFs, and only 2 are negative in Q3: consumer staples (XLP) and natural gas (UNG): Data: Koyfin 3. Martin Shkreli Put Quantum Stocks on the Hot Seat Hands down, this is the most entertaining video I’ve seen this year. Pharma bro and Wu-Tang Clan antagonist Martin Shkreli laid the smack down on quantum computing stocks like IonQ in an intense debate with Shay Boloor of Futurum Equities. It was released months ago, but went viral on Twitter/X this week. WARNING: you may be tempted to short quantum stocks after you watch this. And depending on the market environment, that may be hazardous to your health. If you’re long ANY quantum computing stocks, please watch this video. Thank me later when you sell all your stocks.@MartinShkreli MOGGED. Shay is in fucking TEARS @ the end. Hard to not take out a mammoth short position after watching this lol.$QBTS $RGTI $IONQ $ARQQ $QUBT pic.twitter.com/bz8iyTORm3 — Zoomer 🧢 (@zoomyzoomm) September 24, 2025 And speaking of quantum… 4. Companies With No Sales Are Doing Great One of our favorite screens is for companies with a $2.5 billion market cap and under $100 million sales. In other words, high valuation and little to no sales. We found 18 US stocks fitting that criteria that are up more than 50% in Q3: The leader of the pack is the super-volatile QMMM Holdings (QMMM), which is up over 7,600% this quarter after pivoting to becoming a crypto treasury bet: And speaking of crypto Treasury bets… 5. Tom Lee Explains the Power of Crypto Treasury Companies A common question among traders and investors is “why buy a crypto treasury company like MicroStrategy (MSTR) or Bitminer (BMNR) rather than Bitcoin/Ethereum?” Tom Lee of Fundstrat explains: Tom Lee explaining why he thinks you should buy a Ethereum Treasury company over just buying Ethereum pic.twitter.com/rHyYCAwLZi — Treasury Edge (@TreasuryEdge) September 24, 2025 6. Intel Is a Star Intel (INTC) has been on fire as of late thanks to a $5 billion investment from Nvidia (NVDA), and speculation of some type of partnership with Apple (AAPL). It’s now up 76% year-to-date. And it would be the #1 stock in the Dow Jones Industrial Average in 2025… if it wasn’t kicked out last year. In fact, Intel is #16 in the SPX this year… more than doubling Nvidia’s return. 7. Investors Are Still Bullish For the second week in a row, 41.7% of investors are bullish according to the AAII Sentiment Survey: There was not a single bullish reading from August 6 to September 10. So there is a chance investors turned bullish right at the top. Of course, the indices are barely off the highs so let’s not get carried away just yet. 8. Tesla (TSLA) Took the Mag 7 Lead – and It’s Still Hated Tesla took off like a rocket in September, and is up 31%, crushing its Mag 7 brethren: Wedbush Morgan’s Dan Ives hiked his Tesla price target to $600 based on AI growth potential, making him the biggest bull on the street. But here’s a fun fact: the average Tesla target price is just $336.18. That means the average analysts thinks Tesla will DROP by 23%. Then again, Tesla is an island unto itself and often seems completely detached from its fundamentals. 9. Meet James Rich Young: Trading Prodigy and Mentorship Teacher In this episode of The T3 Alpha Show, I sat down with James “Rich” Young to learn about his meteoric rise in trading and social media. Want to learn from James? Check out the Pristine Mentorship with James Young and Sami Abusaad.
Continue Reading -->Introducing The T3 Alpha Show podcast
Yes, we finally have a podcast: The T3 Alpha Show! Host Michael Comeau connects you with leading traders, investors, and industry executives to provide a mix of education and entertainment. So far, we’ve published 5 episodes so far with special guests: Sam Rabinowitz: an aspiring trader who tried to get a Wall Street Job by holding up a sign Sami Abusaad: our Director of Education who went from bored CPI to top pro trader Charlie Moon: a former professional poker player who harnesses AI to supercharge his trading Scott Bauer: a former Goldman Sachs and CBOE floor trader that’s sharing his pro options trading strategies with you Rob Koyfman: founder and CEO of Koyfin, a leading financial data platform with 500,000+ users Here’s how to find us: The T3 Alpha Show on Spotify The T3 Alpha Show on YouTube The T3 Alpha Show Website (under construction) We hope you listen and subscribe!
Continue Reading -->9 Things You Need to Know: Inflation Is Back In Focus
We just wrapped up an exciting week that was all about the Fed. So what’s next for the market? This week we’ll be focused on inflation, the housing market, chipmakers, and more! Read on to find out what you should have your eyes on. 1. The Fed Still Cares About This Week’s Inflation Number Remember at Jackson Hole when Fed Chair Jerome Powell basically told the market they don’t care about inflation anymore and are instead focused on jobs? “The time has come for policy to adjust… The inflation and labor market data show an evolving situation. The upside risks to inflation have diminished. And the downside risks to employment have increased… We will do everything we can to support a strong labor market as we make further progress toward price stability.” -Jerome Powell, Jackson Hole 2025 Well that seemed to change at this week’s Fed meeting when the head of the Central Bank paired a dovish dot plot with hawkish language. The Fed cut rates by 25 basis points as expected on Wednesday with the dot plot showing two more cuts this year and one in 2026. But the Chairman called that move a “risk management cut” and said the Fed expects the impact of inflation on goods price “to continue to build” over the next year. So that means Friday’s PCE Price Index — which is the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge — means a little more to the market now than it would have before this Fed meeting. That number will be out at 8:30am ET on Friday morning and it could be a market mover if it comes in hot or cool. Plus, the week starts on Monday with a big group of Fed speakers including the Presidents of the New York Fed President, St. Louis Fed, Cleveland Fed, and Richmond Fed. 2. Key Housing Data Is On Deck Headed into this week’s Fed meeting, mortgage rates saw a massive drop with Mortgage News Daily showing the average 30-year rate hit a low of 6.13% on Tuesday ahead of the rate cut. But as the bond market rallied post-Fed, mortgage rates jumped alongside the 10-year Treasury yield. As of Friday, here’s a look at where rates stand: We’ll get some important data on the health of the U.S. housing market this week with two reports: August New Home Sales, 10:00am ET Wednesday August Existing Home Sales, 10:00am ET Thursday 3. Can Micron Keep Running? Micron Technology (MU) still hasn’t reported earnings… why do these chipmakers report so late? The company reports Fiscal Q4 earnings after the close on Tuesday and analysts love this stock: Expectations for this earnings report are: EPS: $2.86, +49.5% from last quarter Revenue: $11.13 billion, +19.6% from last quarter MU notched a fresh all-time high of $170.45 per share this week and is up over 30% from its last earnings report. So how good does that earnings report need to be? We’ll see on Tuesday. 4. Is Intel the next MP Materials? Nvidia (NVDA) announced a massive $5 billion investment in Intel (INTC) on Thursday. That deal comes after the U.S. government took a 10% stake in the chipmaker back in August. It’s all a little reminiscent of MP Materials (MP). In mid-July, the Department of Defense said it would invest $400 million in the rare-earth materials company and Apple (AAPL) announced a $500 million partnership with the company. Since then, the stock price has rocketed higher from around $30 to over $70 per share. INTC surged 22.8% on Thursday, the day the deal was announced, for its best daily performance in 38 years. Inner Circle’s David Prince discusses whether INTC is next in line for a massive move like MP: P.S. David is hosting a free webinar next week, sign up here for a special opportunity to join his elite community inside the Inner Circle VTF®. 5. Still Waiting on a TikTok Deal After a call on Friday, President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping still haven’t come to an agreement on a deal for the U.S. to take over TikTok. In a Truth Social post, Trump said it was a “very productive call”. In a follow-up post, the President also said he agreed to “go to China in the early part of next year” and that XI “would, likewise, come to the United States at an appropriate time.” Oracle (ORCL) is expected to be the biggest beneficiary of a TikTok deal after it was confirmed this week the company is part of the consortium of investors looking to take over the U.S. arm of the social media site. Oracle already hosts TikTok’s U.S. data and a new agreement could present additional revenue opportunities for the tech company like advertising revenue. 6. Quarterly Earnings Reports Could Go Away The SEC Chairman told CNBC on Friday the agency will propose a rule change to do away with quarterly earnings reports for publicly traded companies. This comes after President Trump called for the change in a post on Truth social earlier in the week. “In principle, I think to propose change in what our rules are now, I think would be a good way forward, and then we’ll consider that and move forward after that.. for the sake of shareholders and public companies, the market can decide what the proper cadence is.” -Paul Atkins, SEC Chair President Trump floated the idea of semi-annual reports saying such a move “will save money, and allow managers to focus on properly running their companies.” 7. iPhone 17 Global Sales Begin All eyes are on Apple (AAPL) as its newly announced iPhone 17 line hit store shelves globally on Friday. The company’s iPhone sales have been under pressure in recent years as it faces more and more competition – especially in China. But data from JD.com showed the first minute of iPhone 17 series preorders surpassed day-one order volume for the iPhone 16 series. That may be a good sign for the tech giant. Apple launched 4 phones in the 17 series: the iPhone 17, iPhone 17
Continue Reading -->8 Things You Need to Know: The Fed Is Dead Ahead
1. The Fed Is Dead Ahead Buckle up buttercups, because the FOMC Rate Decision is dead ahead. Following this week’s CPI and PPI reports and last week’s stinker of a jobs report, the CME’s FedWatch tool is pricing in a 100% probability of a rate cut. As you can see on the right side of this chart, the odds show a 96.4% chance of a 25 bps cut. The odds of a 50 ups cut are a mere 3.6%. But of course, traders are looking for guidance on the future rate trajectory, which feels like a mystery at this point. But what are equities saying? 2. Rate Sensitive Stocks Are Rocking Homebuilders and small caps are rocking in Q3. Look at these numbers: The SPDR Homebuilders ETF (XHB) is up 17.9%, while the iShares Russell 2000 ETF (IWM) is up 10.4%. Meanwhile, SPY is up just 6.4%. So traders are absolutely pricing in a more dovish Fed. 3. Oracle Stole Nvidia’s Crown Oracle (ORCL) popped 36% on Wednesday after the company said AI-driven cloud revenue will hit $144 billion by FY2030. That’s more than 7X what it will make this year, taking the entire trading and investing world by storm. The stock is now up 77% YTD, knocking Nvidia off the top of the megacap AI heap. And Oracle estimates are going through the roof. According to Koyfin data: The FY2028 consensus revenue estimate went from $99.6 billion to $114 billion. That’s a 14% bump OVERNIGHT. The FY2029 consensus revenue estimate went from $120.4 billion to $165 billion. An increase of 37%. We haven’t seen anything like this since Nvidia (NVDA) in late 2023, when the AI story was just emerging. 4. The 90’s Are BACK Speaking of Oracle, have you noticed how many 1990’s stock market darlings are up huge in 2025? These are the best performing S&P 500 stocks of 2025: Western Digital (WDC) Micron (MU) CVS (CVS) General Electric (GE) Corning (GLW) Lam Research (LRCX) Broadcom (AVGO) KLA Tencor (KLAC) Jabil (JBL) Most of these names have ties to AI, data storage, and the power grid, so it makes sense. Plus, Old Navy is pushing Nirvana shirts and the Backstreet Boys sold out The Sphere in Las Vegas… so the 90’s really are back. 5. Tim Walz Took on Tesla and Failed… Again Minnesota Governor Tim Walz scored an 8/10 with this Tweet making fun of Elon Musk losing his status as the world’s richest person: https://t.co/piZWl3Cl9B pic.twitter.com/m4VAeh3uHv — Tim Walz (@Tim_Walz) September 10, 2025 Back in March, Tim Walz put in the bottom when he celebrated the weakness in Tesla stock. That was when Sami Abusaad infamously bought 2,500 Tesla shares. And you know what? Tesla Tim gave his second buy signal of the year – the skyrocketed following the Tweet we just showed you: As the proud owner of 500 Tesla shares, thank you Tim! Actually, that was a typo. I have 5 shares of Tesla. Carry on… 6. The Bears Are On Patrol The AII Sentiment Survey shows that just 28.0% of investors are bullish on the stock market for the next 6 months. This is the 6th straight week of below-average bullishness. And it’s the lowest bullish reading since April 30. This is great news because it means people are still on the sidelines. 7. OpenDoor Is the #1 Short King Opendoor (OPEN) stock skyrocketed this week after it named Shopify (SHOP) COO Kaz Nejatian as CEO. Opendoor cofounder and new chairman Keith Rabois told CNBC “There’s 1,400 employees at Opendoor. I don’t know what most of them do. We don’t need more than 200 of them.” Nejatian’s claim to fame is eliminating almost all meetings at Shopify so people can get stuff done. So this looks like a match made in heaven. We used Koyfin to screen for US equities with 15%+ short interest and a market cap over $500 million. And Opendoor is #1 by a mile with its 467% gain: 8. This Might Be the Hungriest Kid on Wall Street T3 just launched its first-ever podcast “The T3 Alpha Show.” Our first guest is Sam Rabinowitz, a young buck hungry for a job on Wall Street. So he physically walked to Wall Street to get his shot by holding a sign. This is his story:
Continue Reading -->Pro Trader AI Roundtable: Is the Trend Alive?
Sami Abusaad, JR Romero, and special guest Charlie Moon of Prosper Trading came together today for a wide-ranging discussion on AI in trading: We went over: Why so few traders are using AI How Charlie uses AI extensively as a high-speed analysis and automation tool JR’s specific use of AI in testing his strategies Why Sami hasn’t found a use for AI yet Why Oracle (ORCL) rose so much after earnings The reason the AI trade is not done yet Why the market remains bullish – and impossible to short Everyone’s favorite ideas – including China plays, semiconductors, retailers, and more! And more!
Continue Reading -->Just 31.7% of Traders Use AI, Survey Says
Do Traders Use ChatGPT and Other AI Tools? According to a recent survey of our community… not really. We emailed our fans asking a simple question: Are you using AI in your trading in any way? 379 traders answered the question. 31.7% said yes, they are using AI tools like ChatGPT in trading. And 68.3% said no. Why Aren’t More Traders Using AI? Overwhelmingly, traders who aren’t using AI offered some variation of “I don’t know how.” Here’s a sample of unedited survey responses: “Don’t know how to. I am used to reading charts myself…” “No idea of where to find” “Myself. Learning curve.” “Don’t have the knowledge” “The few AI trading I came across was too complicated.” “Don’t know how to use it” “Unfamiliar how to use effectively” This shows there is a lack of education regarding AI in trading, or at the very least, a lack of awareness. Some respondents also have a lack of trust in AI tools, and the companies behind them: “haven’t seen any AI tools that I think will help. they might be available I am just not aware” “Glitches and potential losses” “Desire to remain off the grid in terms of ongoing info tracking, hacking, etc. Don’t trust AI completely as it’s used maliciously too much “ “Don’t see how it could be useful for me to use it for trading. I see how firms with millions of dollars could have teams of phd’s using it.” We also asked those who don’t use AI in trading “What could make you start using AI?” The answers mostly revolved around proof and education. Here’s a sample of unedited responses: “High degree of confidence that AI is not going to hallucinate” “Demo on how it would work and help” “Seeing how it works and if it works consistently!” “I would have to clearly understand how it would work for me and make money with less effort and greater results.” “Teach me how to use it and implement it into my trading platform” “Clear evidence of consistent lower risk and higher gain” “If I could trust it, but I don’t know enough about it to know what that would entail.” So it seems like more traders would use AI if they had proof it helps, and a clear path for learning. But what about the traders who are using AI? What AI Tools Are Traders Using? We asked traders who are using AI “Which AI tools do you use in your trading?” Here are the most commonly mentioned tools, in order of mentions (most to fewest): ChatGPT Grok Perplexity Gemini Claude How Are Traders Using AI? We asked the “Yes” respondents “How do these tools help you?” The answers largely fell into 5 categories: Information and Research: finding top-performing stocks, dividend dates, YTD percentages, revenue increases, company research, fundamentals, technical setups, heavily followed stocks, categorizations, correlations, betas, news, and summarizing reports/data. Analysis and Ideas: generating option ideas, backtesting, analyzing charts, creating possible scenarios and reasoning models, finding bullish sentiment, custom queries for trends and levels, trade review, strategy analysis, and identifying shared positions among traders. Time-Saving and Efficiency: optimizing backtesting and script writing, parsing information, bulk data generation and refinement, fast and quick information retrieval, reducing manual legwork, speeding up organization, and record-keeping. Decision Support: making better decisions, double-checking decisions, and acting as a thinking partner for swing trade ideas. Trade Execution Support: Finding entries and timing, selecting expiry, stops, and limit targets, sifting trading ideas. And here are a few specific answers (unedited) we found interesting: “AI to me is research, learning, and idea-bouncing without bias or judgment. I upload charts for Wyckoff and pattern recognition help (wedges, triangles, flags, etc.), and I use it to bounce swing trade ideas as a thinking partner — never as a trade signal generator. Sometimes I’ll reverse engineer a pro’s trade I didn’t fully understand, and AI helps me break it down step by step. What makes it invaluable is education: it explains concepts in multiple ways until they finally click.” “Be more disciplined, find stocks, compare stocks, define risk, suggest tier and trim, keeps track of watch list. Logging trades. Plans the news, interpret technicals, summarize news” “It’s the perfect data finder among the emotional outpouring. It’s unbiased and can put together trends.” “Optimize backtesting and script writing mainly with some help in parsing information from the tools I use” “Ideas for investing, and lots of calculations and forward projecting with my Risk parameters.” What Do Traders Want from AI? Finally, we asked current AI users “What do you wish AI could do for you?” There was a huge range of answers, falling into these categories: Prediction and Forecasting: Users want AI to predict future market prices, such as tomorrow’s market movers, the impact of interest rates on stocks, and accurate forecasts for detailed decision-making approaches. Automated Trading/Recommendations: many traders want AI tools to scan databases for optimal entries, set stops, and targets, generate option ideas, execute trades based on user-defined rules, create specific charts with indicators, suggest trading systems, identify high-probability stock moves, and find setups. Enhanced Analysis: many traders want AI to analyze charts on multiple timeframes, plot price points in relation to news, analyze news for trading probabilities, provide solid market analysis, perform trade journaling analysis, analyze strategies and setups with suggestions/corrections, and pick top stocks in sectors based on various parameters. Performance Improvement: traders want AI to improve their P&L in many ways, like minimizing losses, improving trading discipline, findind better trades, and providing a competitive edge against high-frequency trading. Full Automation: some traders want AI to take care of the entire process from idea generation to entry to exit. Here are some unedited individual answers we found interesting: “See the future. For example: interest rates will probably go down in the next few months. If ai could look ahead and see this and then analyze which stocks might benefit the most from this in the future.” “Pick the top stock in each sector
Continue Reading -->10 Things You Need to Know: The Job Market Stinks
Serious about markets? This is what you need to know: 1. The Jobs Market Stinks For the second straight month, the BLS dropped a crappy nonfarm payrolls report with downward revisions to prior readings. And immediately, traders started pricing a 100% probability of a September rate cut, with an 11.8% chance of a 50 bps cut, according to the CME’s Fedwatch tool. That wasn’t the only disappointing employment data point this week. We also had misses on: ADP Nonfarm Employment ISM Manufacturing Employment ISM Non-Manufacturing Employment Initial Jobless claims The job market stinks. And this has traders thinking about… 2. Revenge of the Small Caps For years, small cap rallies have failed and failed again. But a rebound is starting to feel real. Growing expectations for Fed rate cuts pushed up rate-sensitive stocks on Friday, including small caps. And the Russell 2000 is now up 9.6% in Q3, more than doubling the SPX’s performance. We also saw big strength in housing stocks, with the SPDR S&P Homebuilders ETF (XHB) up nearly 2%. And XHB is now up over 24% over the past 3 months, so traders are already pricing in an improving housing market. But, one high-profile stock is looking pretty sad: 3. Nvidia Lost Its Shine Last week, you learned about Nvidia’s growing “awareness problem.” Nvidia’s earnings beats keep getting smaller because analysts have boosted estimates so much. So those upside surprises have lost their oomph. And then this week, Broadcom (AVGO) announced a $10 billion AI chip deal with an undisclosed customer. The word on the street is that ChatGPT maker OpenAI is the mystery buyer. The street viewed this as a market share loss for Nvidia, so the stock showed relative weakness Friday. So Nvidia is in the penalty box for the first time since the release of the DeepSeek AI model, which was allegedly so efficient that it would hurt demand for AI chips. (didn’t happen) 4. Sydney Sweeney Turned Up the Heat on Cracker Barrel A month ago, American Eagle Outfitters (AEO) came under fire for its “Great Jeans” ad campaign starring Sydney Sweeney. Mainstream media critics hated the campaign. Young denim buyers loved it, and American Eagle’s strong earnings report sent the stock higher than Ozzy circa 1982. So for now, American Eagle is the champion of “Culture War Earnings Season.” The only question we have is did Ms. Sweeney get paid in stock? If she did, she made the trade of the year. Pelosi-esque, if you will. Next up is Cracker Barrel (CBRL), which has come under fire for alienating its core customers with its modern rebrand. If the cultural tide is shifting the way it looks, Cracker Barrel’s next earnings report (should be around 9/19) could be a big ol’ mess. 5. There Is a Lack of Faith in the Market Despite the SPX hovering near all-time highs, and markets pricing in a September rate cut, there is little trust in this market. The AAII Sentiment Survey came in at just 32.7% bullish this week. That’s the 5th straight week of below-average bullishness. But this is healthy for the market. Because it implies there is still capital on the sidelines ready to be deployed. 6. Earnings Estimates May Be Too High Factset reports that analysts raised estimates slightly for S&P 500 companies for Q3. This is a big turnaround for Wall Street. During the last 20 quarters, analysts CUT estimates by 1.0% on average in the first 2 months of a quarter. But this time they are RAISING numbers. This is bad bad bad. In recent quarters, companies smashed estimates because the bar was so low. The higher estimates go, the harder it is to come by beats. Which you just learned is Nvidia’s biggest problem. And estimates have risen most in tech. +4.4% to be exact. 7. The Yoga Pants Economy Is in Freefall Lululemon (LULU) has been in freefall all year, and got destroyed on Friday after cutting guidance again. So middle-to-upper-income consumers are tightening their wallets. One must wonder… are fellow “yoga pants demographic” stocks like Starbucks (SBUX) and Target (TGT) destined for lousy earnings in coming quarters? The job market can’t be helping, and these names have been underperforming as it is: 8. Gold Is In Chainsaw Mode It’s been a banner year for gold bugs. And on Monday, GLD cut through $317 resistance like a chainsaw through butter: And it hit a record high at $331.44 Friday. Why? It’s a perfect storm. We have economic fears, geopolitical concerns, a weak dollar, and central bank/ETF demand. I’ve made fun of the gold bugs many times. Now I wish I was one. Gold bugs: pic.twitter.com/ejyEKIQfqv — T3 Live (@t3live) September 5, 2025 9. You May Be Ready to Be a Sultan! JR Romero just launched a brand service called “Sultans of Swing Trading.” You can see a sneak preview of how he sets up a swing trading watch list here: 10. Let’s Remember Terence Stamp Legendary British actor Terence Stamp passed away two weeks ago, and shame on us for not mentioning him. Because he had a memorable turn as Gordon Gekko’s nemesis Larry Wildman in “Wall Street.” “I could break you mate..” never sounded so good.
Continue Reading -->10 Things You Need to Know: Nvidia’s Big Problem
We’re closing out August and headed into Labor Day weekend, so let’s look ahead at the 10 things you need to know about the market right now, starting with: 1. Nvidia Has an Awareness Problem Right now, you’re yelling out loud “well everyone knows about Nvidia.” Yes. That is the freaking problem. The entire investing universe is aware of Nvidia’s epic AI-driven growth story. Wall Street caught up, and estimates have skyrocketed. And the beats are getting smaller. Nvidia reported strong numbers Wednesday, but delivered its smallest revenue beat since the launch of ChatGPT ten quarters ago: The upside surprises keep getting smaller – not good for a stock that more than doubled off the April lows. Yes, we know this is partly because of China. But that doesn’t make the situation good. 2. Investors Do Not Trust the Rally The latest AAII Sentiment survey shows that just 34.6% of investors are bullish. This is the 4th straight week of bearish readings. This is very positive. Because it implies some people are still on the sidelines – even with the $SPX just hitting yet another record high at 6,508. Timing the market on sentiment readings is very tricky business, especially outside of extreme levels. But this current 34.6% reading is much healthier than a super-positive 45%+ reading. 3. Traders Are Still Banking on a September Rate Cut Traders are pricing in an 86.9% probability of a September rate cut following Friday’s in-line PCE Price Index report. But what could lock it in? Next Friday’s nonfarm payrolls report. The last one was an all-time stinker thanks to lower revisions of prior readings. And as a result of traders’ expecting a more dovish Fed… 4. Small Caps Have Been Kicking Butt Traders have been waiting for small caps to rally since Moses wore short pants. And by golly, the small cap surge is finally here. IWM was up 7.1% in August vs. a 1.9% gain in SPY. Conventional wisdom tells us that rate-sensitive stocks rally in advance of an easing Fed, so this makes sense. And speaking of rate sensitive, have you seen the homebuilders this month? They were up over 11%. 5. Culture War Earnings Season Is Coming to a Theater Near You Two of the biggest business stories of August 2025 were American Eagle Outfitters (AEO) “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans” ad campaign, and Cracker Barrel’s (CBRL) comically off-kilter rebranding, which it just reversed. American Eagle stirred up memories of Calvin Klein’s controversial (and massively successful) early ads with Brooke Shields. Cracker Barrel was accused of going woke and forgetting its core customer base. But guess what? American Eagle reports earnings on Wednesday September 3. And Cracker Barrel should hit around September 19. Note: both companies’ quarters ended on August 3 (before these controversies), so their outlooks will be critical. So we might see if and how people voted with their wallets. 6. It’s a Banner Year for the Metals Gold has been ramping hard the past few days, and looks ready to blast through resistance at GLD $317: Gold has been a massive outperformer in 2025 with a 30%+ gain. And it looks like it wants to keep pumping higher. Interestingly, Silver (SLV) has done even better with a 37% pop. And the Global X Uranium ETF (URA) is crushing everything with a 51% gain. Heavy metal thunder, indeed. 7. Ethereum Got Tested Ethereum has been a superstar this year thanks to regulatory tailwinds, institutions becoming more crypto-friendly, companies like Bitmine Immersion Technologies (BMRN) sucking up supply, and good old-fashioned momentum. But the #2 cryptocurrency just got tested. Ethereum just exceeded its 2021 highs by a hair to set a new record at $4,958. Was that a breakout failure just as the world seemed to rally behind Ethereum as the next big long-term theme? Fundstrat’s Tom Lee has been among the biggest Ethereum cheerleaders. His haters want him to be wrong about this: 8. Next Week Won’t Be as Boring As You Think The market is closed Monday for Labor Day. But there’s still plenty going on. Aside from the nonfarm payrolls report on Friday, there’s: Wednesday: JOLTS Job Openings & Salesforce (CRM) earnings Thursday: ADP Employment, Broadcom (AVGO) and Lululemon (LULU) earnings. So we’ll get clues on the job market, AI chip demand, and whether consumers can still afford fancy yoga pants. Here’s the full calendar: 9. Solar Stocks Are Shining Pardon my pun. Sami Abusaad has been pounding the table on solar stocks for weeks: His favorite has been Solar Edge (SEDG). Look at this beauty of a chart: It looks ready to take off, right? 10. JR Delivered an EPIC Lesson & Rant On Thursday afternoon, JR dropped an wild stream of truth bombs about how you can find your edge as a trader. Want to win big in the markets? Watch this twice:
Continue Reading -->10 Things You Need to Know: A Jackson Hole-in-One
Let’s skip the preambles. You know what everyone cares about this week: 1. Fed Chair Jerome Powell Hit a Jackson Hole-In-One Traders were itching for a dovish Powell at the Jackson Hole Symposium on Friday. Their dreams came true. Powell said “downside risks to employment are rising” and acknowledged that the economic picture “may warrant adjusting our policy stance.” In other words, the Fed may cut if things get worse. The result? The SPX took off like a rocket to get within striking range of all-time highs. And rate sensitive stocks like small caps, regional banks, and homebuilders outperformed, big time. 2. A September Rate Cut to Remember? As of Friday afternoon, traders were pricing in an 89.3% probability of a September rate cut, according to the CME’s FedWatch Tool. This is up from 75% Thursday, and 58% one month ago. This makes the next nonfarm payrolls report a critical one. The July report was a mess because of large downward revisions to the May and June readings. Another sloppy report could make traders gear up for an even more dovish Fed, and also a weaker economy. 3. Housing Stocks Knew All Along On August 20, homebuilding stocks were ripping and I asked a simple question: Could markets be sniffing out rate cuts already? In hindsight, the answer is yes. Because the SPDR S&P Homebuilders ETF (XHB) has been gently gliding higher in the face of major concerns about the housing market. So that’s what the smart money has been up to… 4. Nvidia (NVDA) May Be in Danger. Nvidia (NVDA) earnings are Wednesday after the close, and traders are bracing for an 11th straight earnings beat. The stock is up 105% from the April lows, aided by big capex spending plans from the likes of Alphabet (GOOGL) and Meta Platforms (META). However, post-earnings reactions are all over the place the past few quarters, so tread carefully if you’re placing a bet: With expectations so skewed to the upside, there is an element of danger here. 5. Nvidia’s Not the Only One Nvidia’s not the only tech name reporting next week. We also have: MongoDB (MDB) Crowdstrike (CRWD) Snowflake (SNOW) Dell (DELL Marvell (MRVL) Alibaba (BABA) These names cover a decent spectrum of the tech universe, so keep ’em on your screen. Here’s the full calendar for the week: 6. Ethereum Is THE Momentum Superstar Ethereum was up 13% on Friday, and is now up over 200% from the April lows, crushing Bitcoin: The FT reported that the EU is exploring Ethereum and Solana as a basis for a digital euro. And plenty of market strategists have been throwing out wild Ethereum price targets. Standard Chartered recently upped its forecast to $7,500, and FundStrat’s Tom Lee said today that “Ethereum is arguably the biggest macro trade for the next 10-15 years.” Ethereum is arguably the biggest macro trade for the next 10-15 years 😍 Tickers: $BMNR $GRNY https://t.co/iDXtNmoMJY — Thomas (Tom) Lee (not drummer) FSInsight.com (@fundstrat) August 22, 2025 And major Ethereum holder Bitmine Immersion Technologies (BMNR), of which Tom is chairman, popped 15%. 7. Cathie Wood’s “Secret ETF” Is Kicking @$$ Cathie Wood’s flagship ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) is kicking butt, up 35% this year thanks to big bets on winners like Coinbase (COIN), Tempus AI (TEM), and Shopify (SHOP). But she has an even bigger winner in the lesser-known Ark Fintech Innovation ETF (ARKF), which as you’d think, is levered even more heavily to booming fintech stocks like Robinhood (HOOD) and SoFI (SOFI). Why is ARKF doing so well? A perfect storm of strong financial markets, a dovish Fed, and a favorable regulatory environment. Keep it on the radar. 8. Investors Are Bearish For the third week in a row, the AAII sentiment survey showed that investors are bearish. This bearishness set the stage for Powell’s dovish turn at Jackson Hole. Because you have to imagine that lots of bears rushed in to avoid getting left behind. 9. Cracker Barrel Got Cracked Casual dining chain Cracker Barrel (CBRL) got slammed this week after unveiling its new branding. This: Led to this: So now Cracker Barrel’s next earnings report is suddenly a big deal. Because so many people want to see if the controversy kills sales. Kind of like American Eagle Outfitters (AEO) after its controversial “Good Jeans” ad campaign with Sydney Sweeney. 10. JR Romero Will Lead You Through Nvidia Earnings Week Last week JR Romero said “garbage stocks” are working in this market. And he was right as small caps skyrocketed Friday after Powell’s dovish twist. Want to trade with JR for a week? He’s opening up his Momentum Express VTF® for free August 25-29. It’s bound to a be a big week with Nvidia (NVDA) on the earnings calendar! Sign up here.
Continue Reading -->10 Things You Need to Know: The Fed Heads to Jackson Hole
We just closed out another exciting week which saw: Conflicting inflation reports with a cool CPI and hot PPI CoreWeave (CRWV) report a wider loss than expected, crushing the stock Circle (CRCL) report a loss in its first post-IPO earnings report Warren Buffett bet big on a major U.S. healthcare provider A face-to-face meeting between President Trump and Russian President Putin And MORE! So it’s time for the 10 things you need to know right now. Starting with… 1. Traders Pare Rate Cut Bets – Fed Heads to Wyoming A 50 basis point rate cut was creeping up in conversation after the cooler-than-expected CPI report on Tuesday. But Thursday’s hot PPI put an end to that talk. Traders are still overwhelmingly betting the Fed’s first rate cut of the year will come at the September 17 meeting : The PPI signaled more tariff-related pain may be ahead for consumers as companies pass down rising costs to buyers. Fundstrat’s Tom Lee shook off the hot PPI on Thursday saying, “I don’t think that one data point is enough to change a thesis around the trajectory of inflation. Our base case remains that this is going to ultimately be viewed as transitory by the market.” We’ll get a clearer picture on the Fed’s outlook as the annual Jackson Hole Symposium begins on Thursday. This year’s theme is “Labor Markets in Transition: Demographics, Productivity, and Macroeconomic Policy.” Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s speech is slated for Friday, August 23. Coincidentally, the Fed cut rates for the first time in 4 years at its September 2024 meeting. And that was a 50 basis point cut. 2. Next Week’s Earnings Are All About Retail The retail sector is in focus for next week’s slate of earnings. Here’s the schedule: Tuesday AM: $HD Wednesday AM: $TJX $LOW $TGT Thursday AM: $WMT $BABA Friday AM: $BJ Analysts are loving Walmart (WMT) right now: That may just be the name to watch in this group next week. Friday’s retail sales report showed U.S. consumers are still spending. July retail sales rose 0.5% monthly, while retail sales excluding autos rose 0.3%. Both were in line with expectations. 3. Ethereum Inches Toward New All-Time High Ethereum crossed $4,700 early Thursday morning before pulling back and stalling. The previous all-time high is $4,868. Is a new record mark ahead? Tom Lee remains extremely bullish. In a note on Wednesday he wrote, “We have stated multiple times we believe Ethereum is the biggest macro trade over the next 10-15 years.” While Ethereum gets closer to its record high, Bitcoin notched a new one this week. Bitcoin rose to a high of $124,496 overnight on Wednesday before getting hit by the hotter-than-expected PPI Thursday morning. 4. Is The Next Big Crypto Play Bullish? New crypto exchange Bullish (BLSH) debuted on the NYSE Thursday at $90 per share, 143% higher than its IPO price of $37. The company is led by former New York Stock Exchange President Tom Farley and backed by Peter Thiel. Thiel also bet big on BMNR – buying a 9% stake in the company back in July – and we all know how that’s worked out since then. Here’s what the Bullish CEO had to say about their future: “The last leg of growth in crypto, the last 10 years, was basically all retail and … the institutional wave has begun. It’s here, and it’s a question of how big it will be. Based on the reception we’ve gotten thus far as part of our IPO, it feels like institutional investors feel like this could be the moment.” 5. Housing Market Updates Ahead It’s going to be a busy week for those focused on the housing market. We’ll kick things off Monday with the National Association of Homebuilders August sentiment index at 10:00am ET. Will the recent cooling of rates have builders feeling better about the future? The market will also get a look at how building is going with July Housing Starts and Building Permits out at 8:30am ET and then existing home sales on Thursday at 10:00am ET. In addition to all that data, homebuilder Toll Brothers (TOL) reports earnings after the market close on Tuesday, the first of the largest builders in the U.S. to report Q3 results. Of note, Berkshire Hathaway appears to believe in the future for homebuilders as they added Lennar (LEN) and D.R. Horton (DHI) to their portfolio this week. Speaking of… 6. Warren Buffett Bets Big on UNH Warren Buffett triggered a huge rally in UnitedHealth Group (UNH) on Friday after Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) revealed a $1.6 billion stake in the company in a regulatory filing Thursday. As of Thursday’s close, UNH was down nearly 122% from the April high: UNH is the largest private health insurer in the U.S. and has been under fire in the face of public scrutiny over the rising costs of health care. The company is even facing a DOJ investigation into its Medicare billing practices. So why would Berkshire buy the stock now? Buffett has a history of bargain investing and this appears to be the latest move in that direction. UNH is now the 18th largest position in the Berkshire portfolio. Other names added this week include Nucor (NUE), Lamar Advertising (LAMR), and Allegion (ALLE). 7. The Week Could Be Light Although we are getting data on the housing market and some key retail earnings, there aren’t any big market-moving numbers set to be released next week. Take a look at the full calendar: But one earnings name could be one to pay attention to… 8. Keep An Eye On PANW Earnings Palo Alto Networks (PANW) reports earnings after the market close on Monday. Software stocks have been beat up lately on fears of AI disrupting the space. The market expectations are: $2.50 billion in revenue, +9.31% from last quarter $0.89 EPS, +10/7% from last quarter And the overall consensus from analysts is positive on this name: PANW is down over 20% from its most recent post-earnings high of $210.39 on July 29. This earnings season, it’s been all about where a stock is
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