Market Awaits Fed Decision. Robinhood, Nvidia, Rocket Lab In Focus.

0:00Over 60 years, Medline has demonstrated a track record of delivering consistent growth. Today, Medline is proudly NASDAQ-listed and is the largest provider of medical surgical products and supply chain solutions serving all points of care. See how Medline makes healthcare run better at Medline.com.

0:25Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Stock Market Today. My name is Ken Shreve. On today's show, as usual, we'll go over the action in the major stock indexes today. We had the two-day Federal Reserve meeting got underway today. We'll get that decision on interest rates tomorrow. But overall, a very quiet session for stocks with very modest losses for the major stock indexes. Before we get into all that, let me head over to our man, Ed Carson, who has got three stocks to watch for today. Yeah, I want to take a look at three stocks. Robinhood, NVIDIA, and Rocket Lab. Robinhood, NVIDIA, and Rocket Lab.

1:03I have heard of all three of those names. Yeah, a few small caps for us today. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So let me go ahead and share my screen here, and we'll start by talking about the NASDAQ composite to start things off. That really, well, we'll start with the S &P 500. That ended with a very modest loss. As you can see, several up sessions in a row across that 6 ,500 level without much trouble today. Only down one-tenth of 1%. Taking a look at the NASDAQ composite, that also had a very, very strong day. Six up sessions in a row here, and it barely budged. You can see closed very tightly to where closed yesterday, down less than one-tenth of 1%.

1:52And selling was concentrated in small caps for a good part of the session. But even the Russell 2000 came off lows, found support as it's been doing over the past couple of weeks at the 10 day moving average. And then finally, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, you can see here, really holding gains well up near all time highs, right along with the other major stock indexes, maybe getting a little bit of resistance here near that 46 ,000 level. But Ed, pretty quiet. We had the two-day Fed meeting start today, like I said, and we have a widely telegraphed rate cut tomorrow. Are you expecting any surprises or what could the Fed say that could jolt the market, if anything?

2:37Yeah, it's hard to know. I mean, sometimes I'm surprised by the market big moves up or down on the Fed. Really? Is that really that surprising? But the quarter point rate cut is baked in, and that's going to happen. Then the question is about what hints they might say, especially Fed Chief Powell, about future cuts. You know, they suggest that the market is not locked in, but largely expects two more rate cuts this year. And then we'll have to see from that. And so if the Fed says that, then there's not too much of a surprise. I'm not sure how the market will react. It could be a sell-to-news event.

3:11I mean, obviously, yeah, we paused today, but we've gone up a lot. I mean, so if we gave up some gains, you know, it's hard to be really that upset. I mean, the main, you know, yeah, go ahead. I was just going to say, it's still a market showing a lot of strength here. Again, the NASDAQ up for six days in a row, and it barely budged today. So still not much selling pressure in this market. No, and all the indexes basically held the ground. It was really, you know, again, we could have easily pulled back. And it can always happen later. But, you know, we could have pulled back more because we've had this run.

3:46And the Fed is coming. You just never know. And the market didn't want to do it. I mean, that's what comes down to. The market did not want to fall. And we're in a good situation. We're clear of all these recent little sideways, choppy action. But the major indexes aren't extended yet either. So it's a pretty positive environment heading into the Fed. Backdrop. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. We mentioned the S &P 500. That was down just one-tenth of 1%. And we did have some economic data before the open that was pretty good. The market didn't react much to it, but retail sales came in better than expected.

4:22And if memory serves, you know, the consumer is still showing pretty good resilience. Haven't seen any really big negative surprises in monthly retail sales, but that jobs picture is a little more uncertain. Would you agree with that, some mixed economic data that the Fed has to deal with here? Yeah, that's one reason why. Look, the fact that the market, if the market wanted to sell off because hotter than expected retail sales and the import prices were a little higher than expected maybe at the margin. So those are not the numbers you'd want to see if you're expecting a bunch of rate cuts. But the fact that, but given that the market is so locked into a rate cut, it's really what have been, it just didn't matter.

5:00I mean, that's how the market treated. It didn't matter. And so we'll just have to see because there'll be plenty of time to the next meeting. The Fed will probably leave the door open, and as long as the data is sort of wishy-washy, we'll probably get a couple more cuts. Yeah, we mentioned the Dow Jones Industrial Average, just down two-tenths of a percent, and also that Russell 2000, which came nicely off lows after a test of the 10-day moving average. We're always watching market breadth, and I was watching advancers, decliners on the NASDAQ. It was negative for most of the day, but not decidedly so.

5:34Just decliners seem to have a slight edge over advancers on both exchanges, maybe closer to two to one negative on the NYSE. But take a look at RSP. This is the equal weighted version of the S &P 500. This is still fighting a good fight, holding above its 50 day line. Yeah, it's given up a few, you know, with that one big spike we had a few days ago, but it's holding the 21 day line right at highs. Yeah. Yeah. And then the QQEW, which is the equal weighted version of the NASDAQ 100. This is also, you know, nice retaking of that 50 day moving average last week. So a lot of several stocks do that last week and they're kind of holding, holding, holding firm above the 50 day line here, at least with QQEW.

6:18you. Yeah, it's nice to see this hold. I mean, it's nicer to see, it would have been a little bit less pleasing to see the same action with RSP, like if this had fallen back and given up those gains, because that would have meant going back below the 50-day line. So it's really nice to see this index, which was sort of lagging, actually showing, you know, fractional outperformance today. Yeah, yeah. Then that 10-year treasury yield, it was up initially after the retail sales data, But it did, last check, it did turn tail. I think it went up to about 4.06%, eventually reversed lower for a loss of only about maybe three basis points or so, 4.03 % thereabouts.

7:02And then some ETFs we like to take a look at. FNGS, this is the FAANG ETF, basically mirrors the return of the NYSE FAANG index. This, just like the NASDAQ, is up near high, showing a lot of relative strength. Yeah, and that one clearly, you know, that one's really powered higher the last few weeks. Yeah. And then 50, this 50, Innovator IBD 50 ETF is up more than 30 % year to date. Last check, not including today, I think the S &P 500 was only up 12, maybe 13%. So, growth stocks acting well in this market. FFTY showing a lot of relative strength here as well. Yeah, I mean, it's down a little bit more today, but there are some big moves.

7:50And there were some big movers in that today. But yeah, really strong. Down seven-tenths of a percent, but really doesn't look too bad in light of that strong rally in recent days. NLR, not a ticker that I'm entirely familiar with, but this is the VanEck uranium and nuclear ETF that had a beautiful move yesterday. And, you know, 2.8 percent decline in heavy volume really doesn't look too bad in light of that big gain yesterday. No, no, this was one of the weaker areas. Some of the, but that's after, you know, two steps forward, one step back. I mean, some had bigger day, bigger drawdowns than others.

8:29Others held up very well. But yeah, I mean, this is a volatile area, but yeah, most of the gain is still there. Yeah. And let's take a look at XHB because it looked like this market leadership was going to start to broaden out and include these home builders. XHB. You can see several strong moves in recent weeks, but this has come under selling pressure over the past several days, battling right up the 21-day moving average here. What I find interesting is that - Yeah. I'm sorry? That's what it's been doing for the past several weeks, where it'll make a big jump or two big jumps and then give that all back or give most of it back, come to the 21-day lineabout, and then bounce off.

9:16So we'll see. So this could be an area that, you know, like banks and housing stocks, those are the kind of areas where you could really see some moves on the Fed or not. I mean, but those would be some areas. So maybe a place to buy this one is off the bounce off the 21 day line because that seems to be the way to go. It sure looks that way because, yeah, three bullish price gains in a row followed up by pullbacks to the 21 day line and XHB actually closed off its lows today and held support. So don't give up on the home builders just yet. All right. Fusion powers the sun and stars. General Fusion is working to bring the zero carbon abundant energy source to Earth.

9:58As global electricity demand surges, Fusion has the potential to deliver clean, scalable power for a growing world. Proudly NASDAQ listed, General Fusion is the first publicly traded pure play fusion energy company in the world. With its magnetized target fusion technology and operational demonstration machine, General Fusion is advancing toward commercialization, targeting a first-of-a-kind fusion plant around 2035. Learn more at GeneralFusion.com. Let's take a look at Robinhood, which recently got the nod. It was long-awaited, but it's finally being added to the S &P 500. That's when the stock gapped up sharply above all of its moving averages last week, I think it was.

10:41But this one is still showing a lot of relative strength and a good setup here. Yeah. So you could probably treat$117.70 as sort of a buy point from a short consolidation. It's not long enough to be a proper base. Let's be clear. It'd be a good place to add on. If you really want to buy, you can. There's probably been opportunities along the way to buy it, you know, that were maybe off the 50-day line. But you could start a new position. But I think this is a good add-on buy. It's been really, really strong. It's now part of the S &P and or will be at any moment. I mean, it's effectively their strong growth.

11:15You know, you just look at that really strong growth numbers and it seems to be expanding and what it's doing. So it seems to have a lot of growth potential, you know, out there yet. So, yeah, really, really been a big winner in 2025. You can see even for the third quarter, the next earnings report that we'll see in several weeks, you can see that top line still expected to grow 74 % year over year. Growth is going to start to slow after that, probably due to tougher comparisons, but still a compelling growth story in the market is Robinhood Markets. And I have to say, NVIDIA still offers a pretty compelling growth story here.

12:01in terms of their dominance in the AI chip market. This is a stock that went on a big move and definitely seeing some higher volume declines in the stock recently. But all that said, it is still holding above its 50-day moving average. Story may not be done here with NVIDIA. What do you see here, Ed? Yeah, and let's be clear. NVIDIA right now is not the AI leader in terms of the stocks. There's a lot of stocks that are outperforming it. Now, that's not happened before. It sat out a long stretch before that. It's amazing how much during the AI rally that NVIDIA has gone sideways during that stretch.

12:48But it's got a flat base, 184, 48. Basically, at 180, there's a short-term high that you could use as an early entry. At the same time, it's like, so, you know, this one definitely has an opportunity here on that. If the growth is still really strong, you know, some of the high volume losses were on earnings. It's not great to sell off on earnings, but some of it was there. But now the question is, can it hold the 50-day line? You know, you don't want it to be breaking through there. I think that it's not the sell signal that you would normally do because there's the losses from, you know, recently before that.

13:25But, yeah, this one, the thing is if it moves above that trend line or moves above 180, there's a pretty clear buy signal. I think a move below the 50-day line would be a sell signal at that point from that buy. Yeah, no doubt. I like how the gap up here, it gapped up close to the 180 level right in this area here. And then for three days, it has basically just kind of come in in very light volume. So you had heavy volume followed up by three days of lower volume. So we'll see how this test plays out. But I agree, you know, a decisive move above this 180 level would probably make the stock actionable.

14:04You mentioned NVIDIA not being the leader in the AI space at this point. Obviously, Oracle, you'd have to put in that group after a stellar earnings report recently. And, of course, Broadcom that we've had in the leaderboard model portfolio for some time has also been performing very well in the AI space. All right, let's conclude by taking a look at Rocket Lab. This is another leaderboard stock that came under pretty heavy selling pressure today. We were hoping for a better close, but we wanted to give the stock the benefit of the doubt at the 21-day line. But a breakout last week, that's when we added it to leaderboard, just showing that breakouts still can be tricky.

14:52Yeah, and this one, they announced a$750 million stock offering. There was canceled a prior one, you know, sort of at the market. So, I don't know, maybe a little over$600 million is really what's going on here. or six, you know, but, and also the CEO sold some stock. I think that might've been out under a normal stock plan. It wasn't a surprise per se. It tumbled, it did hold the 21 day line. I mean, but that's what this does. On the one hand, it's like, oh, okay, it's done that a few times and then it's bounced. It did that just a couple of weeks ago and it horrific sell off and then came right back.

15:24On the other hand, yeah, right there. So it certainly could. And it did hold where it absolutely, you know, like the 21 day, I think for the breakout, I mean, From the chart standpoint, it could have fallen to the 50-day line, but I don't think holders could have held. But just keep in mind, it went from 33 or so to 1471 in just a couple of months. Now, that was during a correction. That was during a bear market. So there's all sorts of things. And so you can have a 50 % sell-off in this. I mean, a couple of days, you know, if this one sells off, if you're down 4 % or 5%, I understand if you held, and that's fine.

15:58But just remember, you have to have a line in the sand. And like if it closes below the 21-day line or certainly below the 50-day line, you need to be out of there because this could turn very ugly very quickly. And then the worst thing is it goes down to 40. You finally sell, and then it rebounds. So you take a 20%, 25 % loss. You're getting into the investor psyche here. Yeah, and so you need to do it. It's better to take that small loss. If you take a small loss, you can buy it when it comes back. It's sort of like if it's safer to do that. But it's not – yeah, it's not the lowest price, but it may be the best price if you bought it back at 50-52 after selling it.

16:37So just keep in mind. I'm sorry. I should be talking. I want to hear, but – so I like what you did. Did you – Yeah, no. This is a tricky one because, you know, support – the support area was basically 8%, give or take, below our purchase price around 51.50. But we decided to, we sent an alert out to subscribers, letting them know we were going to just see how a test of the 21-day line plays out. So we'll see. We'll see what tomorrow brings. But just felt like we wanted to give this one a little more room, only because, A, it was a very new ad on Friday. And, B, we know it can whip around. But your points are well taken as well.

17:19So we'll, you know, entry around 5150. So it's hanging on by a thread and see if we can get a little bit of a bounce tomorrow. You know, one other thing is that when you have a volatile stock like this and you might say, I want to give it a little more leeway, that can be like you can think about we have a position calculator. One thing you can do if you have something like that, if you decide, I'm going to let this fall 10%, 12%, well, then you might probably want to take a smaller position. So you don't, you know, risk as much capital in that situation. Again, everybody has to make their own decisions.

17:48Some people are a little quicker on that. Some people aren't on how. So you need to find ways that work for your style and make sure that you do minimize losses, but take advantage of good opportunities. Well said. I appreciate that very much, Ed. That'll do it for today's show. Lots of good information. Ed, I appreciate your insight. That'll do it for today. We appreciate you watching. I'll be in the host chair tomorrow morning for IBD Live, so be sure to join us. If you haven't checked it out yet, investors.com forward slash IBD Live. You can take, I think there's a two-week trial. But again, I'll be hosting tomorrow.

18:28We'll be getting the show going right just before the market open, 6.30 a.m. Pacific time. And we go for a solid hour, hour and a half each day talking about actionable stocks, underlying market health, etc. So we'll see you tomorrow morning for that. And it will be Ed and I again tomorrow. So you're stuck with both of us for the Wednesday Stock Market Today video. Have a great afternoon, folks. We'll see you tomorrow.

19:11Mississippi is breaking new ground for business at a historic pace. Amazon, XAI, Toyota, Milwaukee Tool, and GE Aerospace have all tapped into our deep talent pool, prime geographic location, and welcoming communities. This is bigger than mega sites. Mississippi offers a thriving business ecosystem with affordability, greater collaboration with energy partners, and record-breaking speed to market. Looking to expand? Break new ground at Mississippi.org.