Major Indexes Extend Bounce; HCA Healthcare, Sterling Construction, Micron In Focus

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0:40Ed Carson:good afternoon everyone and welcome to stock market today for wednesday march 4th it's alissa quorum here and stocks continuing their bounce today but we've still got some key levels to conquer joining me now to discuss is ed carson my colleague who also has some notable stocks for our radar. Ed?

1:00Alissa Coram:Yeah, I'd like to take a look at HCA Healthcare, Sterling Construction, and Micron Technology.

1:05Ed Carson:All right, we'll get to those stocks. But first, we want to take a closer look at the major indexes. So here's a look at the Nasdaq composite in today's session, up 1.3 % by the close, leading on the day. Meanwhile, the Russell 2000 up about 1.2 % on the day. That was followed by the S &P 500's gain of about eight-tenths of a percent. And some key levels marked here from earlier that I had, Ed. And then we had the Dow up about a half a percent on the day. So encouraging to see that we're not falling apart here just yet after some notable intraday declines in Tuesday's session to see a follow-up on this rebound is encouraging.

1:55Ed Carson:But we want more progress, right?

1:58Alissa Coram:Yeah, we want more progress. I mean, it's definitely, look, on Tuesday morning, we were undercutting levels like multi-month lows on all the major indexes. The Russell 2000 was below the 50-day line. It was like, not looking good. I mean, it wasn't. But, so it's nice to see this rebound. But just looking at any of these indexes, I think the NASDAQ is the easiest to look at just because it's a sideways action that's sort of obvious. but all of these indexes are sort of prone to a couple of days up, sometimes a few more, but then a few days down, and it's just hard to get any traction. So it's hard to buy unless you buy right at the lows of these things, and you have to be really, you know, lucky, honestly, to do that.

2:38Alissa Coram:You know, there's a good chance that you'll buy near a top. Like, you know, if the pattern holds, maybe we rally for another day, or maybe we roll over tomorrow. And, you know, we've, you know, in the NASDAQ, we've been having lower highs recently, makes it even trickier. But even on something areas where we've had more of a sideways or an upward bias, it's still tough because you buy on strength. There's still that up and down, up and down. You buy at the top, sell at the bottom. Some things will work if you do it. If you're very nimble, some of these things will work. And then you cut the ones that are losing.

3:07Alissa Coram:You know, some people will have made headway. Like if you bought the chip equipment makers or the memory names back in January, sure. But it's just been very hard to make headway. So if you didn't know anything about Iran, nothing's really happened the last couple of days that wasn't unusual, you know, for that. So if we see more of this, then we then, you know, if we get above the 50 day line, we keep on doing it, you know, you can gradually get more confident. But just we've been here before and we happen, you know, we need to get out of this cycle, the sideways cycle to and really get an uptrend.

3:40Ed Carson:So, Ed, speaking of getting into an uptrend, something that our audience asks us all the time when we have choppy markets like this, do we need a follow-through day? And what would it take to look like? You know, what do we want to see? How many days do we need? All that good stuff. Give us a status update on follow-through day watch.

4:02Alissa Coram:Yeah. I mean, for here, like, you know, yesterday would have been day one. It would be a pink rally day in my view. And Mike might have said something different. I'd be alive. And I think, But we closed well up in the upper part of the range yesterday. So today would be day two. We usually look for a fall today on day four. And the thing is, and this has been a great example of why we wait for that. Because, yeah, anybody can have a good day or two. I talk about like a basketball game. You're down 20 points. The other team always seems to score a three-pointer or two. They're still down by a lot.

4:35Alissa Coram:They haven't really changed the dynamic of the game. But if you see that over and over, I mean, if you just wait a few days, if we have a rally that shows itself, certainly it could go more than four days. So four days, five days, seven days, sometimes it's 12th or beyond. You look for that day of strong gain on higher volume than the prior day and one or more of the major indexes, usually the NASDAQ or S &P. And so that's when we start talking about going into it. But, you know, some other indexes, like some parts of the market, you might think, well, you don't need it. You don't necessarily need it.

5:11Alissa Coram:Like you probably might not have thought of that if you were looking at the Russell or the Equal or RSP, which is, again, what makes it so difficult. There are definitely portions of this market that are working, which is just frustrating. It can be a little back and forth and especially with the up and down. So it's just been a tricky market because there's enough strength to lure people in, but also shake people out.

5:35Ed Carson:And in addition to looking at these different index charts, I think probably the best way for individual investors to gauge how good of a market it is is by looking at their portfolios. How are you doing? Have you been making easy money or has it been tricky for you? And if it is the latter, then perhaps dialing back that exposure and waiting for more of those signals of strength is something to look out for because that helps when you have the odds in your favor.

6:08Alissa Coram:Yeah. I mean, look, in any year, there's usually periods that are pretty easy to make money because there's a consistent uptrend. And there's other times that are not. I mean, yeah, there's some years that are just terrible or some years that are just amazing the whole way through. But most years, there's good times and bad. You know, you go outside when it's sunny, you stay inside when it's rainy, and that's the way to go with things. And so if you want to mess around, do little nibbles here and there, or if you have long-term holdings that are still holding up well. But otherwise, for the most part, a lot of cash and just waiting for that time.

6:41Alissa Coram:And it could happen any moment. It could be in a couple of days. We're really off to the races. Or it could be two weeks, two months. So we don't know.

6:48Ed Carson:Right. Right. And in the meantime, we'll be looking for that follow through day and to see if we can get the NASDAQ and the S &P back above that key 50 day line. All right. Moving on, Ed, let's add some more color to what we saw out there in today's session. Give me a rundown of some of the notable sectors and themes that you saw.

7:11Alissa Coram:Yeah. I mean, there was a lot of things out there. Obviously, we looked at RSP, but I think QQQE is another one. That's interesting because that's back above its 50-day line. Not by a lot, but that's beating it there because obviously there's been some weakness in some of the mega cap techs and some of the really big techs. You know, US, you know, MAG-70, yeah, that's still just, I know it's bouncing, but it's obviously had a lot of issues. USO, that was sort of flat. I mean, oil really didn't do anything today, but it's still been such a big move. Oil was actually only up 0.1%, but it's been a big surge.

7:49Alissa Coram:So it hasn't come down. GLD, that bounced a little bit, I think, after. But this has been tricky. Even the stuff that you think is, say, hey, it jumped on Monday, then tumbled on Tuesday, back up here. It's like, I don't know, where is gold going to go in this, in the renowned war conflict? I don't know. IGV, that's continuing to bounce. And we're seeing some names in there, but there's still so many of them are beaten down. And arguably, at some point, well, we've had bounces before. There was a nice bounce in November, you know, kind of thing in there. It ran up right up to the 50-day line. And then that turned out to be a classic shorting opportunity, you know, something I didn't do.

8:26Alissa Coram:But, you know, that's something to watch out for is that SMH, I think that had a nice bounce, as I recall, for the chip. We'll see because we're going to take a look at Broadcom maybe after the close.

8:38Ed Carson:Up 2.1 % on the day, not bad.

8:41Alissa Coram:No, no. So this has been doing pretty well. So that's acting well. ITA, just the aerospace. There's been some – there's some – and a variety of things, some space stocks and traditional names. This is one that people should be looking at for sure. and then Bitcoin, iBit, bounced today, but we'll see. It has a lot of repair. But there were a lot of crypto names, and it's really exciting to see names. Oh, they're up 8%, 9%.

9:05Ed Carson:It's like, there's a reason they got up that much.

9:08Alissa Coram:There's a long road back.

9:11Ed Carson:What was driving the strength in crypto today, Ed?

9:14Alissa Coram:I don't really know. I mean, the dollar was down a little bit, which I guess, you know, that would be, you know, something to look at. But that's not down that much. Maybe it just felt like a risk-on kind of situation. It just felt like there was softwares bouncing back. So beating up stuff was there. I don't know if it'll last.

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9:59Ed Carson:Yeah, that makes sense. All right, let's take a look at a couple of stocks, starting with HCA Healthcare. Setting up in a little shelf, arguably actionable above a trend line. or, you know, perhaps folks want to wait for it to clear that high around that 550 level ed.

10:21Alissa Coram:Yeah, I would have done it today. And this was our stock of the day. And I think it has a lot of the characteristics. I'm not sure if it meets every final definition of it, but of a three weeks tight. And a three weeks tight when it's basically here as a shelf. That's actionable as a new buy point. When it gets pretty extended, those are more like add-on buy opportunities. But it was very tight action. This was also a closing high. So that's another thing. So, again, most people are pretty happy. There's very few people who aren't up on this stock, and that's always a nice thing. It's a characteristics of breakouts and other things that usually, hey, are most people happy?

10:55Alissa Coram:They don't want to sell, and that's definitely the case here. The fundamentals have been pretty strong with this name. Sales growth has been, you know, is slower here, but they've been able to leverage that with some decent fundamentals here along the way. And so this is a place that's a little bit safer, honestly. I mean, you know, medicals tend to be a safer area in shopping markets because people, somebody else is paying for it, honestly, the government or insurance companies. And so that makes it easier. You're not worried about people cutting back as much in that kind of environment. And HCA has done pretty well here.

11:33Ed Carson:Yeah, I think you've always been good to point out sort of that defensive growth element of the health care space.

11:40Alissa Coram:Absolutely.

11:41Ed Carson:Okay, let's go to STRL. This is Sterling Infrastructure. And this building heavy construction group, Ed, ranked number 18 out of the 197 industry groups that we track. A recent breakout. That's holding it. It's a little choppy. The action got a little choppy here, Ed, but it is holding, especially in terms of those weekly closes. Yeah.

12:06Alissa Coram:So there's reasons to be encouraged and also there's reasons to be discouraged about this and buys in general. I mean, it broke out. That might have been probably the best place to do it right there. But it did break out and it was up and down. It had a downside reversal after hitting a record high on earnings. And the earnings seemed pretty good. But nonetheless, it reversed lower. Yesterday it went through there. But the market was weak. And that was part of it is that the market had a bad couple of days even before all the stuff that happened this week with ups and downs. So this makes it tough.

12:40Alissa Coram:You know, you think you have things that are going and then the market can go in there. So it did get back into the buy zone today or it was right on the edge of that. This is, you know, the heavy construction firms have tended to seem to have held up reasonably well when a lot of other names had bigger drawdowns. it's just been very choppy. It's like, well, where do you get into it? It does make it tough.

13:06Ed Carson:So yeah, there's a good chart to show you that strength.

13:09Alissa Coram:Yeah. And this is, there are a lot of things that have a lot of involvement in the AI data center plays. So yeah, it's very choppy, but it also shows you how difficult it is to be buying in this environment because it may end up working great and it hasn't broken down, you know, and you look at the weekly action on Sterling, you look at the relative strength line, it's pretty strong. You know, it's just that, you know, It's like, where do you get into a name like this and feel safe? Because there are downside reversals for sure.

13:36Ed Carson:Yeah, I think those early entries, whether it's a trend line, a retake of the 50-day line, some sort of lower buy point before a breakout to all-time highs, can be helpful with that risk management and just the holding and the sitting. But even still, you know, if you get two downside reversals off highs, that can be tough to stomach.

14:01Alissa Coram:It's tough to stomach. And I agree with you. I think in a sideways market, if you are going to play it, early entries are good because you want to get it as soon as possible when things are getting good. You know, it's not in a normal trend where you might have six weeks, eight weeks. And so buying the breakout is easier.

14:13Ed Carson:Mm-hmm. Okay. And let's move on and take a look at Micron. You mentioned, you know, these data storage memory type plays that had fantastic runs starting last summer. We're seeing them take a little bit of a pause here and holding up well. So walk us through what you're seeing in Micron.

14:35Alissa Coram:It rebounded from Tuesday to day from the 10-week line. And I think it's today's high. It was probably actionable. Now, it cooled back down a little bit because it's, you know, you could buy it off the 10-week line. You could still buy off of that. But I think getting above, and it is above the 400 level, but getting above that or on a daily, you could even do a shorter term trend line. I think it sort of got above that, especially when it was above the 21-day line. This is your sort of playing with fire, but these stocks have held up pretty well. They took a break when you sort of like them to.