Market Pauses Into Fed; Amer Sports, ATI, Amphenol In Focus

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0:24Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Stock Market Today for Tuesday, December 9th. My name is Ken Shreve. On today's show, we'll talk about a day of outperformance for small caps, a tough day for J.P. Morgan and the Dow Jones, and a mixed and mostly unchanged performance for the S &P 500 and NASDAQ composite. Before we talk about today's session in the stock market, let me bring in our news editor, Ed Carson. Ed, it looks like today's Stocks to Watch brought to you by the letter A. Good afternoon, Ed. Yeah, I was going to say, whether or not we're the A-team, we're bringing the A-team. We're going to take a look at Amerisports, ATI, and Amphenol.

1:06Okay, sounds good. Three good names there. Let's go ahead and start by taking a look at the major stock indexes here on a very quiet day for the stock market today. Let's start by taking a look at the NASDAQ composite here. And you can see the NASDAQ looks like it ekes out a very, very small gain today. Not sure this is the final closing price here as the prices settle out here. It looks like, yeah, up one-tenth of a percent for the NASDAQ composite today. We'll see the S &P 500 closes just for a minor loss of one-tenth of one percent. Small caps today. Take a look at IWM outperformed. Looks like they were up two-tenths of a percent for the day.

1:59I mentioned that tough day for JP Morgan. They talked about higher expenses for 2026. Bad day for JP Morgan. That was down 4.6 % on the day. Really didn't have too much of an effect on the Dow Jones industrial average. It did lag today. But you can see down just four-tenths of a percent or so. Ed, we've been talking about the strength in this market, taking a look at the NASDAQ composite, just holding gains very tightly here. We had some economic data this morning. The JOLTS report job openings survey was much stronger than expected, maybe hawkish on the surface, but really didn't change too much in terms of the calculus for tomorrow.

2:51Everybody expecting another rate cut by the Fed tomorrow. Yeah. And so that's all I didn't have. And so that Joltz report didn't seem to have much impact on the markets. And yeah, the Fed's going to cut rates tomorrow and we'll see. The Nasdaq acting very well here. It's just been pausing. If anything, a minor pullback might be healthy because then you'd see some handles form because we sort of crept forward. And so some of the handles, I mean, there are some handles out there, but we're seeing some short pauses. It's just nice to get that little shake out. But, you know, you can't fault the market for it's gone up.

3:24and then a gradual increase is really nice because it's giving people a chance to buy, to add exposure. I wouldn't really recommend it until after the Fed. And there's also other things like Oracle earnings and the Broadcom earnings. But nice action here. NASDAQ's near highs, S &P near highs, Dow Jones near highs. Russell actually briefly touched all-time highs for just a moment. Like, you know, you had to blink and you missed it, but it was there. And that's just holding up. That came off the highs. But you can see that's just doing all these things are doing well. And again, it's a remarkable improvement, pretty steady here and just have to see how the Fed and some of these bigger earnings are in the next day or so.

4:05Yeah, I think on an intraday basis, we did get an all time high for the Russell 2000. We were on track for an all time closing high, but you can see the Russell 2000 did back off highs by the close. breadth was positive on both exchanges. It did weaken by the close. We ended up barely positive on both exchanges. Here's a look at the equal weighted RSP, equal weighted S &P 500 ETF. You can see that ended lower by about two tenths of a percent. And then the equal weighted NASDAQ 100 ETF, that ended basically flat. We did see quite a bit of selling in the healthcare space today. XLV, I don't know if there was anything driving this selling today, but a pretty sharp drop, Ed, for XLV today, down 1 % extended losses for the fourth straight session.

5:06Was it earnings? Any particular news here that was fueling the selling in XLV today? I did not see it. We just saw it with a lot of drug makers, biotechs. Like if you look at XBI, the biotechs were down. You know, ARKG, which has been doing very well, but that's really getting the really more speculative stuff or more high beta stuff. I mean, that was just down 1%. I don't mean to make too much of it. But they were just, you know, so it did seem to be pretty broad based in terms of the medicals in some of these areas. Healthcare, biotech. Medical products like ISRG was down 1.55 going below the 21 day line.

5:48Didn't seem to be anything major like, oh, my goodness, look at that huge sell off. But just seemed to be a lot of declines. And I think one of the questions we have to see, market leadership has been broad. Will it stay broad? Or like, let's say, what if the high beta growth names take off? Will the medicals just sort of lag? I mean, not necessarily fall, but will they lag again or will there be, you know, so, you know, it'll just be interesting to see how that goes. And so I think investors have to keep an open mind and not be sure, aha, not get out of this mindset. OK, now medicals are the thing and they'll be the greatest thing forever.

6:20Well, we don't know. I mean, so. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Here are some of the names in the leaderboard model portfolio. IDEX Labs, IDXX. You can see that did extend losses for the fifth straight day, still holding above its 50-day moving average. And then Globus Medical, also in the leaderboard model portfolio, a strong performer, also in the health care space under some pressure. So just some broad-based selling in the health care medical field today. SMH, another ETF that we've been following, showing a lot of relative strength. This, like the NASDAQ, perched up near all-time highs and still seeing a lot of strength among semiconductor stocks.

7:05Ed, kind of an interesting reaction for NVIDIA today. That was strong in yesterday's after-hour session. News that the H200 chip, apparently the Trump administration, is going to let NVIDIA sell some of these chips to certain customers in China. The U.S. is going to take a 25 % cut, but that still needs to be sorted out, I guess. But that after-hours gain for NVIDIA ended up being a loss in the regular session today. Still a lot of things need to be sorted out there, I suppose. Yeah, and SMH is doing pretty well in part because of Broadcom, and we'll see how that does in a couple of days. And then whoever does well, TSM is likely to be a winner.

7:54TSM is, in my view, the chip stock that right now looks the most actionable. I mean, Broadcom may be stronger. I'm not going to argue about that. But it just seems like you could buy this now, and it has another buy point. TSM will report sales tomorrow morning. So those are a couple of big pieces of news in the chip space coming up. Yep, absolutely. And then airline stocks still seeing some outperformance in this area of the market, talking about this broadening out of leadership. Airline stocks extending gains a little bit today. Here's a look at JETS. And then we can't forget about gold stocks because this was one of the big areas of outperformance today.

8:39GDX sort of on the cusp of a breakout here, seeing a lot of gold stocks outperforming here. This is the gold miners ETF kind of setting up in what we would call a cup with handle base here, Ed. So still looking to make money in the gold space, this gold miners ETF in a pretty bullish technical setup here. Yeah, and a lot of the gold names that were rising were part because of silver. SLV has just been absolutely, it's like bears have turned into werewolves and they are just running because silver has just been skyrocketing lately. Another big gain for silver today. Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed. We were looking at AG, first majestic silver.

9:27We're looking at this name and the market surge growth 250 today. First majestic silver. Nice gain up 7 % today in higher volume. You can see this one is trying to reclaim a 1569 buy point. So fast growing name in the silver group here. All right. Well, we talked about the three stocks to watch brought to you by the letter A. Let's take a look at Amer Sports. Probably a name that people are not familiar with, but they are familiar with the name Wilson Sports. So let's take a look at AS. Stock staged a pretty nice breakout today. Talk to us about Amerisports, Ed. I'm Steve Booth, CEO of Baird, an independent wealth, asset management, and global capital markets firm.

10:19At Baird, our 5 ,000-plus employees are united by an unwavering commitment to excellence and a genuine passion for helping our clients and each other succeed. As a privately held, truly employee-owned company, we treasure our independence since we can focus on delivering results to clients and taking care of our people throughout the cycles in our serve markets. Learn more at rwbear.com slash wsj. Yeah, I mean, this is just nice to see a classic breakout. I mean, it may be nice to see the relative strength line a little higher, because this one has been basing, though, for several months, and the market is not.

10:56but this one has solid fundamentals. It had really strong earnings. You can see how the stock really took off again with that last earnings report, got back above the 50-day and 200-day lines, moved up there, paused in light volume, and now has moved out in strong volume. So yeah, a nice action here, seeing this kind of turn in this name. It was a frustrating stock because it gapped up a couple of quarters ago and then kept on teasing, teasing, teasing, did a breakout and then fell off a lot of things going on, but maybe this time it'll work. They do sell a lot of upscale gear. So they've had some pricing power that maybe some other apparel makers, you know, it's sort of hit or miss.

11:39I mean, some apparel makers are doing fine, some are not, because it's like how much can you pass on the higher prices that have come down the pike? They have done well, certainly with the fundamentals the last few quarters. Yeah, no doubt about it. Look at their third quarter earnings here, up 136%, revenue up 30%. And, yeah, I think Arcteric is their premium outerwear, their winter coats. Starting to see more of them in the U.S., but this is their premium outerwear that is starting to gain traction, almost like Canada goose. Very, very pricey winter coats. And I mentioned also Amerisports is the parent company of the Wilson Sports brand as well.

12:27So we added Amerisports to the leaderboard model portfolio today on this nice breakout. So in the aerospace and defense group, let's take a look at ATI, which is a company that makes specialty alloys used in the aerospace industry and other industries as well. ATI is the symbol here. This was another earnings breakout. You can see here, rather than extend gains after the breakout, it just started moving sideways right along the 21-day moving average, kind of straddling this 100 price level. Yeah, because this is when the market has had more of a sideways action. The relative strength line just went sideways.

13:17And so it's been really nice. When this one gapped up, it had already sort of made a move. It had sort of made a move a few days before earnings. You know, before earnings. And so by the time it broke out, it was getting sort of extended. And it's nice that it paused. Sometimes you'll see a stock pause for a few days with the market sort of going, you know, sort of iffy here and there. So this has been really nice. It's held the 21-day line for quite a while now. Really tight action. Just so a lot of things setting up for this name. This was our stock of the day, I think, on Monday. Just wanted to see if it can move out.

13:52But, you know, the aerospace group has some this and that, but it's this name has some really strong fundamentals, at least on the earnings. The sales would be nice if they were a little stronger. Yeah, you can see the sales down at the bottom here. You had 10 % a couple of quarters ago, and then the last two quarters, just single digit. But again, in terms of a technical setup here, AT and ATI really showing some good tight action, good example of what a flat base looks like here. Pullback from high to low, peak to trough, only 10%. So that's exactly what you want to see here. Relative strength rating of 92.

14:33Good to see as the stock is forming a base here. We'll see if this can attempt an upside breakout here. So ATI looking pretty good. composite rating of 93. And again, that accumulation distribution rating of A is helped by some good volume here, especially this nice up week here as the stock started moving higher and breaking out. So ATI, definitely a name to keep an eye on in the aerospace defense group. Another name, Amphenol, A-P-H. We track this stock in the electronic parts industry group, but this is also a fiber optic stock, or at least partly fiber optic. So we know that the fiber optic group has been red hot in the stock market.

15:25Amphenol has been a tremendous price performer as they participate in this data center buildout. You can see a really, really strong move here on the weekly chart and Ed really consolidating tightly above the 10-week line. Big company here, $169 billion market cap, but I would imagine this huge move post-breakout here. They do have some data center exposure here, which is a big reason why the stock has been up so big. Yeah, and just a lot of acceleration here. Several quarters of accelerating earnings growth. Finally, revenue growth slowed down a little bit after a long string as well. So just really on fire here, just really strong growth.

16:10It's going to have a base after this week, assuming it doesn't clear this short consolidation. So it basically held the 10-week line, held the 50-day line, or immediately got back above it on the 50-day line. And tight action here, as you say. So this, again, while having a little bit of pause, there's handles and there's also things like this. Stocks that have just had short consolidations, a little bit more time to get a nice base in there. And, yeah, definitely one to look at because it has such great numbers. The up-down volume is a 1.4. So very positive. RS line basically at highs. Hasn't given anything back after an enormous, enormous gain.

16:51This is going to be the first base, it appears. Assuming it can make it a few more days. It's the first base since that huge run. So investors should at least be taking a look at this because this hasn't given an opportunity like this in a while. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. The last base this stock formed was all the way back in March earlier this year. So just an incredible run for Amphenol. Another thing that pops out here is this outstanding return on equity of 26%. That's pretty impressive for a company with a market cap of$169 billion. And then the annual earnings, you mentioned really that growth expected to earn$3.28 a share this year, up sharply from$1.89 earned in 2024.

17:42And then growth in 2026 expected to be very, very impressive, up 22 % compared to 2025. So still a good growth story going on at Amphenol. And again, these fiber optic connectors are finding a new home in data centers. So Amphenol definitely capitalizing on that. All right, Ed, well, thank you very much. I'm going to stop my share. And as always, we appreciate your insights. We'll see you back here for another Stock Market Today video. Appreciate it very much. Have a good rest of the day. Thank you, Ken. All right. All right, folks, that'll do it for today. I mentioned Ed and I will be back here tomorrow for another Stock Market Today video.

18:33We're kind of headed into the end of the year in a sort of a quiet time, low volume period of the year for the market. We do have an important Fed meeting tomorrow. Some say we may hear a hawkish Fed. We did get that jolts report today that was a hotter than expected number, job openings stronger than expected. So maybe we get a hawkish tone at anybody's guess how the market will react to the Fed tomorrow. But we are in a nice uptrend as we head into the end of the year. So we'll enjoy that while we can. I'll be hosting IBD Live tomorrow morning with the normal crew. We'll have Webby on the show tomorrow along with Hat Man and our normal crew.

19:20So if you haven't joined us yet, go check out investors.com slash IBD live. We'd love to love to see you tomorrow morning and that'll do it for today. So have a great rest of the day. Ed and I will see you back here tomorrow after the close. So thanks for watching and we'll see you back here tomorrow. Thanks.

20:05Thank you.