S&P 500 Hits High; Cameco, Rubrik, Micron Among Stocks Flashing Buy Signals

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0:25Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Stock Market Today. For Thursday, August 28th. It's Alexis Garcia here. And the S &P 500 hit fresh highs today as the market digested those NVIDIA earnings. And here with me to help break down all of today's market action is IBD News editor Ed Carson. So Ed, I've had my cold brew. I've had my matcha. I'm ready to tackle this. We're through NVIDIA earnings. And we also got some economic data with better-than-expected GDP and weekly jobless claims numbers. But before we kind of dive into that, what stocks do you want to talk about today? Yeah, I want to take a look at Cameco, Rubrik, and Micron Technology, and they all showed similar bullish action today.

1:11All right. Well, hopefully I can be a better-than-expected host for you today, Ed. But while we jump over to the market action here, let's check in on the major indexes and see how they finished. The S &P 500 up about three-tenths of a percent today. The Dow up about almost two-tenths of a percent. The Nasdaq leading the way up five-tenths of a percent. And small caps up around two-tenths of a percent. So, Ed, let me get my screen share up. And we can just start with NVIDIA earnings because that's kind of been the big headline today. And we can see NVIDIA here pairing some early losses down around eight-tenths of a percent today.

1:52But how do you characterize the market reaction to these earnings today? I think the reaction was great, really. The market has been coming up the last few days and continued to move higher, even though NVIDIA fell. And there was a lot of, there was good, there's reasons to be happy about NVIDIA. There's reasons to be negative if you've wanted to be that way. Ultimately, the market is just going sideways. This is still staying in a little range. It's got a three weeks tight. It's on track for four weeks right now. So that seems fine. And while the S &P hit a record high, the Dow hit a record close, the NASDAQ came just within inches of a record high.

2:27So we're seeing a lot of, you know, when that's happening, they're sort of right around either stock. The indexes are moving out of or at the very top of ranges. So that's translating into stocks, either setting up or moving out. A bunch are rebalancing off of key levels or forming handles. So a lot of stocks that investors could have bought today, even if the indexes weren't moving that much and NVIDIA was slightly down. And we're on the S &P 500 daily here, Ed. And as you said, hitting those fresh highs. And we're right at around that 6500 level. So talk to me about your thoughts about how this is developing and what you're looking for.

3:08We had that big test just before we sort of got a shakeout. There were some concerns. It was just a week ago. I mean, that's where we were a week ago at this time. It's like, oh boy, I mean, things are fine. But if Powell things doesn't go right, it did. But look, the market is on a solid uptrend. Tomorrow we do get the PC inflation data, which is the Fed's favorite inflation gauge. But it's probably going to take a lot to derail a rate cut for a lot of reasons. So I don't know if it'll have that big of an impact. But right now, just everything looks really on course here. All right. Let's take a look at the NASDAQ composite quickly.

3:43And again, this one just shy of those highs, but three straight days of gains here, Ed. So thoughts here? Yeah. I mean, just nice little modest gains. Not every day has to be a huge gain, you know, but you rise, even if it's rising 0.3 every day, you'd get a huge return. And there was a lot of strength beyond this headline number. All right. What about the Dow, Ed? So let me pull that up here and we can get your thoughts, as you mentioned, just shy of those highs here. But thoughts on the Dow? Yeah, really, you know, it was, I believe, a record close. So just that sort of moved out. I mean, this one, like the S &P, has sort of moved out from the highs, essentially.

4:29So a lot of strength here. NVIDIA is actually a component. It's a component of the S &P and NASDAQ as well. There's a lot of breadth to this market right now, not necessarily today. Today was more about growth stocks and tech stocks. But you look at these indexes are all at highs. The Russell 2000, which has struggled to get any headway. But IWM is at the highest levels of 2025 and, you know, moving quite a bit higher here recently. So clearly above recent levels. So that's encouraging as well. All right. Let's briefly check in on the 10-year Treasury yield, Ed. So thoughts here, as you mentioned, you know, we're looking out to a possible interest rate decision in a couple weeks here.

5:17This down around seven-tenths of a percent today. But what are your thoughts here? Yeah, it didn't move a whole lot. But, you know, very quickly, a few days ago, we were butting up against the 50-day line heading into Powell. And it's come right back down to essentially the lowest levels in four months. I mean, it's not quite there. And that's with stronger than expected economic data. It would have been perfectly normal to see that rise a few basis points. You know, this is probably one reason why stocks had a modest gain today. It's just seeing lower rates on that end, mortgage rates and other things.

5:51We're seeing that trend over the last few months. So another positive for the market right now. All right. Let's check in on some sector ETFs, starting with the VanEck Semiconductor. And as we mentioned, NVIDIA down slightly today, but this one making a gain of around four-tenths of a percent. So thoughts here? Yeah, it was sort of nice to see this up, even though NVIDIA was down. AMD wasn't really up much. Taiwan Semi, I think, adds lower, which makes NVIDIA chips. I mean, so some of the bigger names were flat or down, and yet SMH was still able to come up. This is strong. All right, let's take a look at software then, Ed.

6:31This one making a little bit of a comeback here, flirting with that 50-day line. A nice gain today, 1.5%. So what's your take? Yeah, I mean, it's made a comeback. It obviously has more to go. And it's interesting because there's a couple of the names that were propping it up, like Palantir, aren't really moving it right now, again, after a huge run. But some other names have, we saw some strength today. We're going to look at one stock that's in, like, Rubrik was in there. We'll look at that in a few minutes. But there was definitely names like CrowdStrike and MongoDB and Snowflake have lifted some positive results that after a lot of lagging action underlying the software sector.

7:13All right. Well, let's take a look at the IBD growth 50 here, Ed. And as you mentioned, a lot of growth stocks having a good day today. This went up 1.7 percent. So what's your take here in terms of what this is saying about, you know, market breadth and what stocks are participating? Yeah, well, it's certainly saying that growth and speculative growth is doing well. And sometimes you can have a little luck of the drawable what names are in there because ARKK didn't have as good of a day. It had us all day. I mean, it was fine, but it wasn't like surging to that same extent. So there can always be that lucky stock that surges, lucky stock that falls.

7:50But, yeah, speculative growth is still doing very well. It looked discouraging a week or so ago. I mean, that was looking ugly, but things bounced back and really taken off. So a lot of strength there. All right. Let's check in on the cybersecurity sector. This is the NASDAQ cybersecurity up about 1.1%. You mentioned Snowflake, that company reporting earnings today. And look at this earnings. jump here at up around 20 % today. So let's look at cyber, Ed, and give me your thoughts here. Yeah, and this is benefiting to some extent from CrowdStrike, which I think lifted the group. CrowdStrike reversed higher today on its results.

8:34At first, it looked like it wasn't going to be good at all, but found support, nice bounce, and definitely some other names rallied on that. So I think people could have said, I don't know what's happening here, but I'm going cyber. Cyber, you want to take a look. There's a few ETFs that are in the cybersecurity phase. So you want to go under the hood and say, which stocks are in there, which ones you like. But that looked actionable to me right there. You know, I didn't notice it till late in the session, but nice downtrend above the 50-day line. And honestly, we see a lot of, there was a lot of stocks that were going above or rebounding from their 50-day line or their 21-day line and breaking a trend line.

9:09So this is definitely one way you could have played some of the movement today. All right, let's take a look at ITA. ETA, that's the Aerospace and Defense ETF. This went up four-tenths of a percent. So why is this one on your radar? You know, there's definitely a lot of aerospace names now. The big move was a couple of days ago, but there's a lot that are doing well, including some big giants like Boeing and RTX and General Dynamics, but also, you know, some profitable names like FTAI, Carmen, KRMN, you know, so there's all sorts of things in there. and I'm not sure if all these names are in that ETF, but that whole space, Rocket Lab, RKLB, space like it's not profitable, but it's growing strong.

9:52So there's a lot of, whether it's big or whether it's sort of speculative, there's a lot of things in this sector, you know, and it's probably an area that investors want to be aware of. So they're not, if you want some growth, but you know, want some diversity from AI, this is definitely a way right now to get it. Savvy investors understand consistent growth is built on scale, resilience, and trust. For more than 60 years, Medline has proven this, driven by an unrelenting commitment to their customers. Today, Medline is proudly NASDAQ-listed and is the largest provider of medical, surgical products and supply chain solutions serving all points of care.

10:29With a focus on what healthcare needs next, Medline strives to make healthcare run better. See how Medline is woven throughout health care and learn more at Medline.com. All right, Ed, well, let's move on to some individual stocks, starting with Cameco. And as you mentioned today, Ed, a lot of stocks, some powerful moves here. This went up about 4.4 percent, moving above this 21-day line in a strong way. Yeah. So this is uranium producer, which means it's a nuclear play, which means it's an AI play. So, you know, it doesn't feel like AI, I'm sure, to people in lead-lined suits, you know, digging out uranium.

11:11But it is definitely bounced right off the 50-day line. you know it wasn't tremendous volume but it picked up from earlier on there's a downtrend from the top of this base it's probably on its way toward you know a flat base after this week there's almost a little double bottom aspect to it as well so today's move sort of got it above the middle of that w so you could have also used that or if it can you could also use that like if it just making sure that it gets above that if you if you didn't buy it now you could probably still buy it off of that so yeah there's this nice growth on this one this one does this is also one that, you know, it's probably great to find it off the 50-day line, sometimes even the 200-day line.

11:52There's just sort of a history of some choppy breakouts. You can look even just here, you can see a couple of times it tried to break out or hit new eyes and then it rolled over. So this is one off and it's good to try to find an early entry on. But yeah, there's a lot of stocks like this today. All right, let's take a look at Rubric. This was also one you mentioned. Again, another move here off the 50-day line. This went up about 6.3%. Ed, so thoughts here. Yeah, so clearly benefiting from CrowdStrike. And we'll see. On just like today, getting above the short-term highs or maybe a very short trend line from that 97, you could see that there is sort of an entry in that situation.

12:36It sort of came up intraday. if you do a trend line from the top of the base, it sort of came up to that from all the way over, yeah, from over at the 103 or wherever that is. And, you know, sort of came up to that level and hit resistance. So I think if you didn't buy it already, you could say, well, wait a second, I'm going to see if it clears this trend line at this point. The issue with Rubrik, and it has strong growth, losses are declining. There's a lot of, you know, in fact, last week or so, it undercut the lows of the base and then rebounded. So all that can be encouraging. On the flip side, there have been a lot of downside reversals in this base, especially the last few weeks.

13:15And even that one time when it got up to 97, it very quickly just turned around. So even when it held the gain for a day, it couldn't hold it. So that makes it tricky. Sometimes it's like, well, when do I finally get into this? Because there could have been people who played this two or three times and got shaken out. And there are earnings in 12 days. This is definitely a stock that could build a cushion in 12 days, but that is something to watch out for as well. But nice action here. You know, people have been waiting for this one to move. Is this the time it's going to move? Well, we'll see.

13:48All right. Well, let's wrap then with a look at Micron Technology. Another one here at up 3.6 % today, moving above that 50-day line. Yeah, broke the downtrend of the handle, bouncing off the 50-day line. Yeah, again, just over and over. There's so many stocks that had that kind of thing. So early entry there. This already gave them strong guidance a couple of weeks ago, which is one reason it almost hit a new high. And it pulled back with the market with some growth stocks, but this one had a nice, solid performance. You can look over there and see on the growth trend, a huge growth scene for fiscal 2025, which is almost over.

14:28But then solid growth again next year as well. So this was definitely an opportunity. And one reason why SMH was up, this is one of the bigger components in there. So this was one of the top performers, especially among the big names. All right, Ed. Well, thank you so much for your thoughts today. And I know you and I have another earnings cheat sheet episode that we're going to be having out here soon to wrap up the cycle. So be sure to tune in tomorrow for that. And that's it for today. We'll be back with more market analysis tomorrow morning, starting with IBD Live. You can head on over to investors.com slash IBD Live for all the details there.

15:14And come right back here tomorrow. We'll have Justin Nielsen and Mike Webster doing their weekly extended version of Stock Market Today. So you won't want to miss that. So thank you so much for watching and we'll see you back here tomorrow.

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