Indexes Muted As Oil Prices Swing, But AI Stocks Strong. ASML, GSK, Cameco In Focus

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0:33Ed Carson:Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Stock Market Today for Tuesday, March 10th. It's Alyssa Coram here. While the action for the major indexes was muted, but wild swings in the oil market. And joining me now to add perspective on that and much more is my colleague, Ed Carson. Great to see you, Ed.

0:51Alissa Coram:Great to see you, Allie. I want to take a look at ASML, GSK, and Cameco.

0:56Ed Carson:Okay, we'll take a look at those three stocks. But first, a look at the major indexes and, as mentioned, the oil market. So we'll start with a look at the NASDAQ composite today. Essentially flat, just up a fraction coming off of intraday highs. And this after that explosive upside reversal right at the 200-day line in the prior session. Meanwhile, the S &P 500 down two-tenths of a percent on the day. So a downside reversal here at some of the shorter-term moving averages. The Dow down less than one-tenth of a percent and the Russell 2000 down about a quarter of a percent. The ETF tracking that small cap index, the IWM here.

1:40Ed Carson:So a downside reversal there. So with this look at the major indexes, Ed, we are in a rally attempt. What are you seeing and what do you want to see from here?

1:51Alissa Coram:Yeah, right now all the major indexes in the Russell are still below their 50-day lines. I want to see them get over there. I want to see us have more than two days up. I mean, we have these rally attempts, but, you know, we sort of limply, you know, we, I mean, it's basically one and a half days or we can't seem to manage any kind of real consistency. So there's the danger we could have a follow through day. I mean, with a little, with a little different timing, we could have had a follow through day yesterday. Like if the good news came out a little earlier, maybe we would have had one, but it wouldn't have changed this chop.

2:24Alissa Coram:I mean, you can't really tell the Iran war from this chart because it's still the same thing. It's still the same up and down that makes it really difficult to do. So, again, I want to see lots of gains, you know, is what it comes down to. It's one thing to tiptoe. I think people could have tried tiptoeing. Maybe they'll regret. Maybe they're down on some of those tiptoings today. But that's one reason why you tiptoe if you did anything because there's just a danger. So if you tiptoe, if it's cold or too hot, bring those toes out again is what it comes down to. You know, don't stay in there.

2:59Ed Carson:The temperature of that water and if there are any sharks, all that good stuff, right, Ed?

3:04Alissa Coram:Absolutely.

3:05Ed Carson:Okay. So that 50-day line, very important above us and then below us, especially for the NASDAQ here, that 200-day line. And we want to continue to see that level hold. And it does happen to coincide right around that low from the session on Monday.

3:25Alissa Coram:Yeah, and those lows, the 200-day line, it's close to the lows from like November. You know, there's a lot. The NASDAQ, you can imagine if it breaks from there, would be really, really ugly. So we're a couple of days away from looking really good or looking bad. But that's where we've been for the past four months. We're a couple of days away, it always seems, and we never quite seem to get there either way.

3:50Ed Carson:Yeah. Well, there, I think, were some interesting setups, to your point. Maybe some folks decided to make pilot position type buys yesterday after leading stocks had pulled back and then started bouncing. But there is definitely added risk to doing that because we don't have a clear trend in the market. Absolutely. So I would say that. Okay, let's quickly look at the S &P 500 here, Ed, and talk about levels to discuss. You mentioned the 50-day line. Looks like there is a lot of trading around this 6 ,800 as well.

4:28Alissa Coram:A lot of there and hit resistance at the 21-day line, I guess the 10-day line. So just even these short-term levels, just tough getting above.

4:39Ed Carson:And we'll go to the small caps. What are you seeing here, Ed?

4:42Alissa Coram:Yeah, this one had the biggest gain. This was up over 1%. So disappointing. That's why it gets so hard. You can get excited. Look at this. We're moving. We're moving. And it did look really good for Monday's lows. And then it just, again, it's just hard to sustain anything. And it's just hard to, how can you move in there when the moment there's even like a moment of strength, it seems like things are going to turn around. It just makes it so tough.

5:06Ed Carson:It does. OK, well, the real drama over the last couple of trading days has really been in the oil market. And Ed, you were mentioning to me before the show, it's all a matter of the time frame that you're looking at where these wild price swings leave us. So tell us more about what's going on.

5:31Alissa Coram:Yeah, it's really tough because USO, which isn't an exact thing, but it sort of tracks oil prices, that shows an increase. But crude futures fell 11.9 % today. So how could this be so far off? Well, that's because crude futures closed at 2.30 Eastern. Well, after 2.30 Eastern on Monday, President Trump came out. So oil prices went from, say,$94, I'm trying to remember, down to about$86. Well, today we had prices and they closed down at$83.45, but they moved back up. There was weird stuff going on today. Energy Secretary Chris Wright mistakenly said, hey, a tanker was escorted through the Strait of Hormuz, which is just a huge news.

6:14Alissa Coram:Oil fell down to almost$80. And then he deleted that tweet. And the White House said, no, no, I guess that didn't happen. So, I mean, it just – but yes, that makes a big difference. And that's, I think, that's one reason why the market had muted gains. You go, wait a second. How could oil have fallen this much and stocks tend to flat to down? It's because, well, from the perspective of the stock market, oil prices were up. And it also just shows you we could have enormous swings. I mean, we swung basically from$120 on Sunday night to$80 Tuesday afternoon. We'll just have to see. There's still talk about, and one reason why the oil prices have really come down is we can have some reserve release, you know, from the U.S.

6:51Alissa Coram:and other rich nations. That could provide some temporary support. Obviously, if it's not fixed in a few days or weeks, that straight-up Hormuz closing will have some longer-term impacts that really reserve releases can't band-aid at that point.

7:07Ed Carson:And which is why tracking the oil futures right now is so interesting, right? because you can see perhaps what traders are speculating might be that.

7:18Alissa Coram:Yeah. And one thing is that when we look at these prices, and I don't know where they are right now, but the future months, like if you look at October, November, December, they're not forecasting prices nearly as high as they've been showing. So the markets still expect this to be temporary, that somehow, some way that the oils will flow again. Now, the markets is hoping we'll see. I mean, we'll see. And so that's going to be something to watch. If those prices start coming up and they start like, you know, that's a suggestion that they think is longer term and that's going to be a bigger deal for not just the stock market, but for the global economy.

7:49Alissa Coram:But we're not there yet. Yeah.

7:52Ed Carson:OK, thank you for that update, Ed. In terms of other sectors and themes with notable action today, what stood out to you? Any ETFs we should look at? You know, I think maybe SMH just thought was looking that showed some strength.

8:08Alissa Coram:I think it came off highs. Yeah, it came off highs quite a bit. But definitely the SMH, there's AI plays. AI infrastructure was really an area of strength, especially early on. So, yeah, this still has acted pretty well. This is around the 50-day line. Nice to see if this come up. And honestly, this is one decent way to play SMH. I mean, to play chips, to play chips. Great way to play SMH. But it's a good way to play chips with some things more extended or pretty out there, some things not quite in position.

8:37Ed Carson:Yeah, right at a key level after undercutting a prior low. So you get that undercut, that turn, a retake of some moving averages. So whether it's the ETF or some of the individual leaders, we're definitely paying close attention to these setups as they develop. And we'll be taking a look at one in the group here soon. Let's take a look at GDX. We'll just run through a couple of these ETFs quickly here, Ed. Sort of similar. You had a pullback, new highs, now another pullback, and some support at that key 50-day.

9:14Alissa Coram:Yeah, it's hard to know how to do this. I mean, there's all sorts of things that are moving with the dollar, with not. So around the 50-day line is probably a decent place to try to buy something like this, but it is very wild. It's not going to be safe. There's nothing really safe out there right now. I mean, that's just the truth of it right now. Yeah.

9:32Ed Carson:Well, speaking of, let's just take a quick look at the volatility index, the VIX. It has come down a bit, but it is at elevated levels. So this is one way of sort of looking at that elevated risk in the market, just the volatility.

9:50Alissa Coram:Yeah. And yeah, it wouldn't take much. We're already, as you say, elevated levels. So if fear returned, that could come up, which would be in some ways a positive thing. But it could obviously, you know, that's short term. If you go to a weekly, you can see how it's still nowhere near where we were last April when we had a combination of DeepSeek and the tariffs. So that, you know, we could get a lot higher. Yeah.

10:13Ed Carson:Okay. We'll continue to monitor that. Just a couple more quick ETFs that we will look at. Then we'll look at the individual stocks. Here's a look at IGV, just an update on the software sector, which had been very hard hit, then started leading that short-term relative strength line spiking, seeing money flowing to this area. And then we talked about on IEBD Live this morning, the potential for short setups in this group. A lot of names in this area, CrowdStrike comes to mind. We'll have to see where it closed today, but it closed tires. But it's right at a key level where one potentially could, if you're into that sort of thing, go on the short side with that declining 50-day line after a prior uptrend.

11:03Ed Carson:And then you get that rally up and then resistance at the 50-day. But it shows you that it's hard on the short side, too, because this one closed in positive territory. Yeah.

11:13Alissa Coram:And that thing is shorts are even more dangerous than longs in kind of these volatile markets because you can have these fear like they whipsaw so fast. So even if you're right. So, yeah, but there definitely were names like CrowdStrike and some of them that did come down that were around those levels. So definitely something to watch either way, because if they can punch higher again, that would be in some cases, you know, it'd be a really positive sign. But yeah, software Steam may have run out for a little bit.

11:40Ed Carson:We'll see. Okay. And then XBI, the biotech sector, we're monitoring that as well in a nice setup here, Ed.

11:49Alissa Coram:Yeah. So that's bounced back a little bit and had a couple of days. So that actually bounced back on Friday. So, you know, a little bit of momentum. Yeah, I gave up gains, but yes, setting up pretty nicely.

12:00Ed Carson:And the industrials were tracking that as well. It's been one of the leading groups. some recent turbulence, but support right where you'd like to see at the 50-day moving average. So this is something I think especially on a weekly chart, and it's early in the week, you know. We still have three trading days left. That support at the 10-week line after a breakout going a couple months back, potentially a buying opportunity for some investors. That sort of set up. So we'll keep that in mind. Every day, the people of Meta work to protect over 3 billion users around the world. Our people get that the eyes of the world are on us.

12:41Ed Carson:So there's no version where we can't have really good and really robust systems. My name is Nathan, and I support our product risk and compliance team. We've been using AI to help make sure everything that needed a privacy or a risk review was getting it. And everything that needs a set of human eyes is getting one. Get the facts at meta.me slash risk. Okay, well, let's take a look at ASML in the chip sector, pulling up a chart here. So speaking of a prior run-up and then a pullback to the 50-day slash 10-week, that's exactly what we're seeing here. And a solid bounce the first two days of the week, Ed, so far looking pretty good, up 7 % this week.

13:25Alissa Coram:Yeah, and there's a number of chip equipment and memory plays that have been among basically the hottest stocks in this MP500 for the year, mostly because of January. But this one's still pretty close to that. I think this – I'm not even sure if it closed above its 10-week line. It's above its 50-day line. So you'd like it to at least be above its – so just below it. So I think you'd like to see this get above the 10-week line. On a daily chart, maybe get above its 21-day line. It was there intraday, but it's not too far from those levels. That's the thing. Some of the levels are already – some of these names are already 10%, 15 % about there or even 20 % of their 50-day line.

14:05Alissa Coram:And so it's like, ah, that's pretty hard to get excited, you know, to do that in this kind of market. But this one's finding support at the 10-week line for 50-day for the first time since sort of its breakout or even maybe the moves like in this area, yeah, since earlier in the year. So that would be a place where you could buy it. Again, I'd be careful. It's such a wild market. I wouldn't, you know, there's a number of AI infrastructure plays. I certainly wouldn't buy them all. I mean, just because of the risk downside. But chip equipment, there's a lot of names that are really acting well. And so this is, if nothing else, people should definitely be watching this one closely.

14:40Ed Carson:Yes. Okay, let's go on over to GSK. This is in the medical sector and a similar setup.

14:49Alissa Coram:Yeah, you don't have to be in tech. And it was something that, you know, David Ryan, who makes that point on IBD Live, he's often like, you know, you can find growth elsewhere. He didn't name this one, but GSK. It's, you know, the growth has picked up in the last few quarters. It's not amazing. Don't get me wrong. But a little bit of a pickup. There was a strong run. Yeah, stocks, it's pulled back a little bit, but to where you'd like it to find support. So this one has, this one, you know, the relative strength line has improved for several weeks. I will admit that if you look at a monthly, it has been a long, long road for this name.

15:23Alissa Coram:In fact, I think it's like a 17-year high or something, or like it just got above, like a 17 or some kind of base that just have to go forever to get to. But we are seeing, and the relative strength line, of course, has been terrible throughout because obviously the stock market has surged over all that period. Just something to keep, you know, so I don't want to, but there are a lot of big name pharma names. Those have come up. Those have done well. There's Merck, there's AstraZeneca, there's some other names out there. So this is this especially maybe, you know, if it, you know, find support off the 50 day line or pauses here for a little while, might have another opportunity, you know, for investors.