Nasdaq, S&P 500 Mask Tough Day For Growth Stocks: Figs, Fortinet, Howmet Aerospace In Focus

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0:40Hello and welcome to another episode of the Stock Market Today video. It's Justin Nielsen here and I'll be hosting for you today. It is May 7th, 2026 and it was a really rough one out there, especially for growth stocks. Some of the MAG7 kind of hiding the weakness elsewhere, But to help walk us all through it, it's Ken Shreve, our senior markets reporter and one of the co-portfolio managers of our model portfolio, the leaderboard product. Hey, Ken, how are you doing? You get bruised up? A little bruised, a little bruised today, but we did find some stocks to talk about as usual. You know, I was going to talk about FIGS because it had a nice move today, but they did report earnings after the close.

1:22The stock's not doing great, so I'm going to replace FIGs and talk about Apple's breakout attempt today. It tried to make a move. It did reverse lower. We'll start by talking about Apple. Fortinet had a great earnings report in the security software group, so let's talk about Fortinet after that. And then in the Aerospace and Defense group, let's talk about HowMet, which also moved on earnings today, HWM. Great. Right. Ken calling an audible. Well done. Had to call the audible. Yeah. I'm with you. That's the kind of market we've got. So sometimes it's not up to us. Right. So, yeah, let's let's go ahead and walk through the indexes.

2:07Again, not so bad on the indexes. The S &P 500 only down four tenths of a percent. The Nasdaq composite down a little bit more than a tenth of a percent. So hardly budging at all. The Russell 2000, a little bit more damage there, down 1.6 percent for that one. And the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 0.6 percent as well. But I have the NASDAQ pulled up right now. I'm going to go ahead and just give a quick shout out to MAG7. This is the Roundhill Magnificent 7 ETF. And you can see that this was actually up. I mean, it was up 2 percent during the day, you know, closed off its highs and was only up three quarters of a percent.

2:46But that was certainly one of the things that was making the composite not hit quite so hard. So a little bit of a downside reversal, but really fairly tight action. What do you think, Ken? Yeah, so also had some nice earnings in the software sector that we'll talk about that also probably buoyed the NASDAQ as well. But yeah, I mean, we were just looking at a lot of really strong performers year to date in the leaderboard model portfolio. We had a lot of stocks there that were down 3%, 4 % today. Just some plain old-fashioned profit-taking hit a lot of top performers today. I think our FFTY IBD50 ETF that just got a name change, that lagged the market as well.

3:40You can see that was down 2.6 % today. So that was a downside reversal as well. Volume, not too bad compared to some up sessions that we saw in prior sessions. But, you know, downside reversal. So it's just like one of those days, Justin, you said not the percentage declines in the NASDAQ and the S &P 500, not too bad, But definitely some some profit taking in some of the, you know, top performing leaders in in the IBD 50 and some of our growth stock screens today. No doubt about it. Yeah, definitely on the growth side. Just to kind of take a look at ARK Innovation ETF by Kathy Woods there, that was down about one point eight percent, one point nine percent.

4:30So, again, certainly a tag on growth. But as you said, there were these areas, certainly one of the areas that was buoyed pretty good was the software area. And we'll go over some of those stocks. But can you talk a little bit about IGV here? Some folks were thinking, I mean, gosh, it got pummeled so hard, especially with Anthropic coming up every day with it seemed like something else that was going to kill a software, an area of software. but the bounce here has been pretty incredible and certainly clearing an area of resistance right here around 88.58. Yeah, I mean, this was a pretty compelling case for a bottom, especially during the most recent rally where it had seven up days in a row and then came down to the 50-day moving average just recently and then found support and then just made that move above the 90 level today.

5:28I think it was Datadog in the group today, which just absolutely made an explosive move on earnings. I'm not sure I've ever seen Datadog move as powerfully as it did today. But then again, these double-digit percentage gains that we've seen in stocks, not only today, but in just recent days, recent weeks. I mean, it seems like 10, 15, 20 percent, 25 percent moves have just been really the rule and not the exception lately. I mean, look at the move in Sterling infrastructure just a couple of days ago. Yeah, 50 percent? You know, like hold my beer on your 10 percent right there. So, yeah, some pretty incredible, you know, earnings moves.

6:17So, you know, but at least the growth with Sterling a couple of days ago. I mean, this is a company that's just been delivering phenomenal growth. And yeah, to these companies' credit, the bottom line and top line growth certainly has been impressive. So the earnings season certainly has far exceeded expectations. And a lot of these stocks are going up and seeing multiple expansion for a very good reason. Well, and what was interesting is that in the same group, heavy construction, you had things that did not fare so well. You know, here's Promoris, which just goes to show sometimes it can be a little bit of a crapshoot on those earnings numbers.

7:05Because as great as SteroCycle was, Promoris, not so much. I'm sorry, Sterling. I always say SteroCycle for that. I don't know why. So Sterling. But yeah, Promoris was the opposite way. Now, granted, the fundamental story here, the earnings growth was just in a very different category than Sterling. But, yeah, it can be a little tough. And in addition to Datadog, it's worth mentioning that, you know, Microsoft, which has been a little bit beleaguered, that was certainly helping prop up the Mag7 a little bit. That was up over 2 % intraday, but, you know, settled down at a 1.7 % gain. and we'll get into some of the cybersecurity names because those had a good day as well.

7:48But before we - Take a quick look at that. Yeah, I wanted to take a look at the Russell 2000, which you were just going to put up because that's where really the selling was really concentrated today. But you can see, you know, IWM, just a test of the 10-day moving average. These indexes have performed, you know, so well after a recent breakout for IWM. You get a, you know, 1.6 % drop today And it's just really amounting to a test of the 10-day moving average, which the IWM has been testing now for, you know, what, almost 10 days or so. Not quite 10 days, but just kind of hovering near support there hasn't really even come that close to the 21-day line.

8:29So, you know, still maintaining a nice solid uptrend. And even though the small cap ETF lagged today, it, you know, just didn't even touch the 10-day line. So still on a nice uptrend here. And, you know, it lagged it lagged today. And there's obviously a lot of smaller, more speculative names in the Russell 2000, but still looking looking like it's on a nice uptrend here. Yeah. And just to kind of give a little bit more sense of that breadth. So in addition to the small caps, we have RSP here that was down about six tenths of a percent compared to its market cap weighted, you know, sister there.

9:11that was only down 0.3%. So definitely a little bit harder hit when you take away the influence of those magnificent seven stocks, those heaviest market cap weighted stocks that really influenced the NASDAQ composite and S &P 500 in a big way. And then just to kind of round things out, let's go ahead and end with the Dow Jones Industrial Average in terms of our roundup of indexes getting turned away at 50 ,000. Yeah, this is a round number where no one would be surprised to see the index. You can see several weeks ago, this was back in late January, early February, the Dow initially tried to move over 50 ,000.

9:56It actually went to 50 ,500. Again, this was back in early February, and this is where the market first went into that first meaningful pullback, corrected all the way down to the 45 ,000 level. So this is going to be the Dow's second attempt to try to move above 50 ,000. But you can see this is an area where it may decide to just kind of pause and consolidate here. I don't know that it's going to pull back all the way down to the 45 ,000 level again. But after a strong move off of 45 ,000, it could pull back and consolidate maybe down to the 21-day moving average, that green line there and pause and consolidate and take a breather.

10:39We'll see what happens. But clearly, it's bumping up against 50 ,000. That's a round number. And we'll see if it pauses and consolidates here. Wouldn't be surprising if it did, you know, that pause that refreshes. But we'll just have to wait and see. I also want to just, we mentioned IGV, which again, it's the strength in the NASDAQ has mostly been due to the semiconductors. And this is SMH, the VanEck Semiconductor ETF. I do have a position in this myself. You know, again, down 1.76, which isn't fun, but it's kind of an inside day. So it's not anything that is particularly worrisome, but it was kind of a little bit of a swap, right?

11:23software has been weak, dragging the NASDAQ down, whereas chips have been kind of saving the day. Now it was kind of opposite. So what's your take on the chips here? When you need to build up your team to handle the growing chaos at work, use Indeed Sponsored Jobs. It gives your job post the boost it needs to be seen and helps reach people with the right skills, certifications and more. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Listeners of this show will get a$75 sponsored job credit at Indeed.com slash podcast. That's Indeed.com slash podcast.

11:59Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. Well, I debated, you know, talking about Qualcomm and putting Qualcomm on the stock market today, you know, script today because Qualcomm had, you know, earnings report where, you know, earnings and revenue declined from a year ago. But look at this move that Qualcomm has made over the past two weeks. I mean, it's down around$140 a share, and now it's up to$202.50. So this was a technical breakout today, really, just across that$205.95 level. You can see that blue dot near that RS rating of 75. So the relative strength line just shot into new high ground with Qualcomm.

12:49So, you know, we've been, you know, talking nonstop about the outperformance of semiconductor stocks. There just seems to be kind of a re-rating going on in this whole sector as, you know, companies are just seeing this newfound, you know, earnings momentum, whether it's data centers or artificial intelligence. Again, Qualcomm is not growing the bottom line and top line. The results in the most recent quarter were down from a year ago. But obviously, they said things about future growth here. So I didn't have a chance to dig into the earnings report. But not only Qualcomm, but you have NVIDIA, which has been sitting this chip rally out.

13:37But all of a sudden, we put NVIDIA back on the leaderboard model portfolio yesterday. And it started to re-break out again yesterday. And we actually got a little bit of follow-through today. Tough day overall for growth stocks. NVIDIA managed almost a gain of 1.8 % and followed through a bit from yesterday. And you have NVIDIA right on the cusp of a movement to all-time high ground here. So we'll see if NVIDIA can get going. Obviously, that long sideways consolidation, it has been lagging the market for quite some time. A lot of people scratching their heads as to why NVIDIA was not participating while a lot of other data center and AI stocks were hitting new highs.

14:22But maybe NVIDIA might be ready to get going here. We'll see. Yeah. And worth mentioning that NVIDIA also earned itself an additional buy from Leaderboard. So kind of increase that to a larger position. And I do have a position in that myself. I followed Leaderboard right in there. I was with you 30 minutes later. Yeah, myself as well. Yep. Well, let's get into some stocks, Ken. Oh, you know what? Before we do, though, I do want to mention some folks on the live YouTube feed here are also asking about oil. Certainly, oil has been something very top of mind for folks, and that was down for most of the day, although well off its lows.

15:05So market and a lot of these growth names kind of getting weaker as oil had its own little upside reversal there. So is this something that you're tracking very closely? Well, I was watching XLE, the S &P sectors that you and I both monitor on a daily basis. XLE was the worst sector today on a percentage basis. XLE ended down 1.8%. So USO basically tracks the WTI front-end contract more or less. uh xle is just kind of a a basket of uh individual stocks so it's not gonna not gonna really track what you uso tracks but um yeah it's uh you know it's something we're still paying attention to the headlines are so so volatile between uh you know the the u.s and iran uh you know maybe there's going to be a deal maybe there's not we were supposed to hear maybe today uh some sort of response from Iran as to what they were going to say about the most recent U.S.

16:10proposal, but I haven't heard anything yet. So we'll see. But we'll see if there's going to be some sort of deal or not. I know there's a lot of skepticism out there, but just a lot of volatile back and forth action in the oil market. We're kind of right in the middle of a lot of earnings reports in the oil and gas sector. We're kind of near the tail end of our earnings season, but this is the time when we're seeing a lot of reports in the oil and gas sector. So we'll kind of pore over those and see what's going on. But this is not really where the action is in the market right now. So I'm not seeing a whole lot of leadership outside of some of the oil tankers.

16:50They're doing well. But E &P firms, I was watching some earnings reports from Devon Energy and EOG. They didn't react very well to some earnings. EOG and DVN, I think, reported earnings earlier in the week and didn't have great responses. But we'll keep an eye. We'll keep an eye on names like this. But, yeah, lots of volatility in the oil market for sure. Absolutely. Very headline-driven. And I'm going to correct you real quick because XLE wasn't actually the sector spidered down the most. That was XLB edging it out for the worst performer today. Oh, yeah. The materials. Some of those, you know, chemicals and others that were down considerably copper and everything.

17:37Okay, let's go ahead and get to your substitute stock here, Apple. So speaking of the Mag 7, I mean, this wasn't the best close for the big cap name here. But what do you think of the look here? Well, I mean, it's just a classic example of a big, long, you know, kind of shallow cup base. And it was a stock that tried to break out today. But, you know, it just kind of reversed slightly lower. Volume was slightly above average. But, you know, it's a nice technical setup. I mean, several up weeks in a row. Maybe just kind of ran out of some steam here. But, you know, not a bad stock to keep an eye on because after so many up weeks in a row, I mean, this is a stock that probably is just going to maybe drift a little bit lower here and maybe try to add a handle to this, you know, structure.

18:36So today may just be the start of a little handle. Maybe it pulls back to the 10-day moving average. So I think Apple's still a name to watch here. Obviously, they've got a new CEO that's about to take over, and sometimes that can be a good catalyst for a stock. I forgot the gentleman's name, but I know he basically ran their hardware division, so it should be a good seamless transition. So we'll see if Apple adds a handle here. Tried to break out today. fundamentals you know i like the fact that it's strung together you know two quarters in a row of double digit uh you know top line and bottom line uh growth so the new iphone is uh you know selling quite well so uh not not out of the question that this one could could try to stage a meaningful uh breakout we'll just see if it adds a little handle here maybe uh shake out sellers one last uh time and and try to try to break out here yeah and i mean it's it's tough You know, as much as this wasn't a great look for it to run out of steam, I mean, given the market action, flat is certainly better than a lot of the other stocks are doing.

19:51And I think it's Ternus. I can't remember if it's John or Jim. That is. Yeah. No, it's John. Yeah. Yeah. John Ternus. Tim Cook is getting replaced by John Ternus. So that's right. Yeah. There we go. And yeah, let's go ahead. And we were talking about software earlier and in the computer software security area, Fortinet came out with earnings. One of those big 20 percent moves. And it wasn't alone there. I mean, Palo Alto also had a very, very nice move in sympathy that was up 7 percent. CrowdStrike, a whole host of them in this area up significantly. But let's turn our attention to Fortinet. And what are your thoughts here?

20:35I really haven't been paying attention to any of these security software stocks just because the relative strength ratings of so many stocks in this group have gotten so weak. The earnings reports, they've just been on downtrends. And you can see, you know, Fortinet has just been, you know, just recently moved above its 200-day moving average. But this is just one of those earnings reports that turned a lot of heads because all the metrics were just so far above expectations. They just, they raised their second quarter guidance well above expectations. They raised their full year outlook well above expectations.

21:14You can see the material acceleration in the bottom line and the top line growth from the December ended quarter. So that's always good to see growth accelerating. Their product revenue is up 41%. Their total billings were up 31%. So all the metrics were really, really strong here. When you get a gap up this powerful, can we go to the weekly chart and just see, just take a look at the short interest? Because I don't think that this was a stock that was heavily, heavily shorted. So I don't know that this was a huge short covering rally. But if you look. Oh, yeah. Only about 3.2 % of the float. Yeah, so the float was only 3.2 % of the float was shorted.

21:59I mean, if you see a float where the short interest flowed, you know, maybe 10, 15, 20%, that's really getting up there. I know like Sezzle, for example, SEZL is a stock that made a big earnings move today. There you have 25%, 30 % of that float that was short. Look at that, 28.6%. So this is a heavily shorted stock that really started to move today. So that's an example of a heavily shorted stock, Sezzle. But Fortinet, not really heavily shorted at all, but still made a very nice move today on earnings. But, you know, the metrics were very, very, very solid across the board. So when you see a move with Fortinet this strong, I like to just kind of watch how it trades from here and see if it just moves sideways.

22:48And I suspect that it's going to do a good job and kind of hold on to the bulk of the gains because the earnings were so strong and the comments from the company were so bullish about demand going forward. So if it can just kind of, you know, trade tightly and move sideways, it's very possible you could see an alternate entry. So I'll probably come around to stocks in the security software group after what Fortinet had to say. And I'm probably going to keep my attention focused on Fortinet at this point just because the call was very bullish. And again, all of the metrics inside the report were very, very strong.

23:28So if we can get just good, tight, bullish trading sideways after this really bullish move today, very possibly you could see an alternate add-on buy point here. Yeah, very good. And let's see. Let's go ahead and round it out with Howmet, HWM, Howmet Aerospace. So if folks were getting a little defensive today, why not look at Aerospace Defense? breakout here. Yeah. And this was another earnings report, a longtime fundamental leader in the aerospace and defense group. They do a lot of business. Well, I think Boeing is a customer here. They do highly engineered metal components for the aerospace and defense industry.

24:23And you You can see a gap up over a pretty clear pivot here, 259.82. We would refer to this as a cup with handle base. So the high point in the handle there, 259.82. And yeah, it gapped up. And you can see the bottom line growth there, 42 % earnings growth and the revenue up 19%. And nice results here too. This is, again, you go back to the weekly chart here. It's been a longtime leader in the aerospace and defense group. The group at one point was filled with leaders. It's kind of a mixed bag now that the group has kind of fallen down the ranks a little bit, 98 out of 145 groups in our database at this point.

25:11Looking like a later stage move, you can see the stock has really come a long way. You know, an$80 stock back in June 2024, thereabouts. So it's made a series of bases on the way up. It did reset the base count last year. So probably a third stage pattern at this point, which isn't late stage. But you always want to just kind of keep track of how many bases a stock builds on the way up. So I wouldn't call this late stage, but still a later stage move. Doesn't mean that the run is over, but it's just been a longtime fundamental leader in the aerospace and defense group. And another good earnings report today.

25:57So I still think it's a name you can own just because of a real consistent track record of performance. And you can see the growth prospects when you look at the annual earnings in the top left there. very steady, very steady growth. And when you look at growth in 2026 and 2027, they're still churning out pretty impressive growth amid pretty good fundamentals overall in the aerospace and defense industry. So looks like growth here expected to continue and I expect them to still be a leader going forward. Yeah. It's worth mentioning that, you know, for those that might have thought just a few weeks ago that aerospace defense was higher, higher ranked.

26:44Something that you know is that we did change the way that we construct our industry groups and the way that we also track performance. So the indexes are now market cap weighted as opposed to price weighted. And so you've had, you know, some of the big wigs like LMT, Lockheed Martin, and others that, you know, just haven't really been performing as well, that have kind of dampened that with the with the new performance rating. So just something to be aware of. Now, again, you've got some things on tap for us in terms of earnings that are coming out today. And it's a mixed bag, applied optoelectronics.

27:25This is coming out with earnings, or it looks like it did come out with earnings and taking a little bit of a hit today, I think, in the after hours. Any thoughts? Yeah, yeah. It looks like... Oh, it came right back during the conference call. It looks like the conference call is going on right now. And after an initial hit all the way down to 1.30, it's right back at 1.58. Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah. So this is a fiber optic company tracked in the telecom equipment group, Obviously, a big high flyer. Took a big hit today down. This is, again, some growth stocks just really got whacked today. AAOI came down to the 21-day line.

28:10So it's been volatile. She's kind of whipping, whipping back and forth. But very, very strong top-line growth here. So we'll see what they have to say. Big, big, strong pre-earnings move here. So we'll see what they have to say. But, you know, look at the look at the look at the estimates here for this company in 2026 and 2027. Just huge, huge growth for applied optoelectronics. You know, I mentioned we were going to talk about FIGs at the beginning. FIGs did report after the close, but it looks like it's a bit of a messy, messy report. It's down down 14 percent. I like the stocks move during the regular session.

28:53It was up six percent in heavy volume. So it looked like it was breaking out over a little trend line. I thought that they reported before the open. I didn't realize the report was after the close today. But it looks like it's taken some heat after hours, down about 14%. Great fundamentals here, a company with a good track record of growth. You can see 23 % growth expected in Q1 after 33 % top-line growth in Q4. But, yeah, it looks like the numbers were not, or at least maybe the outlook wasn't up to snuff, but this one's taken a hit in after hours. Did want to take a look at Cloudflare, too. This has been a pretty strong performer.

29:42Yeah, so this might have an effect on software just because, yeah, this is looking like it's down 12 % after hours after that big move on a lot of those stocks today. Yeah, another high multiple stock in the enterprise software group. Benefited from the software rally today up 3%, but taken a hit after hours. And then I think MCHP in the chip space, microchip technology, MCHP, that one has been performing okay. I'm not sure if it's, yeah, this one's been a leader and that's up a little bit. Nice breakout. Nice breakout. Recently triggered the eight-week hold rule after that breakout over 83. That one's up a little bit.

30:25Boy, the earnings reports among these chip companies, it's just been kind of nonstop. We don't have the numbers in yet for the first quarter, but look at the earnings growth. Expect it to be up 359 % to$0.50 a share with revenue up 30%. So pretty compelling growth story here for microchip as well. Yeah. And then just to kind of round it out, Rocket Lab, a lot of attention on this one as it's been kind of consolidating in this cup with handle. Looks like the earnings are out on this and up 6%. Yes, sir. Your thoughts? Anything to add on that one? Nope. It's cup with handle base here setting up.