Stocks Jump, Oil Dives On Iran Hopes; Rush Street, Nextpower, Peabody Energy In Focus

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0:41Ed Carson:Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Stock Market Today for March 23rd. It's Alyssa Coram here. Now, stocks up on the day on Iran-related headlines, but there's more to the story when you take a closer look. Joining me now to discuss that and more is my colleague, Ed Carson. Good afternoon, Allie. I want to take a look at Rush Street, Next Power, and Peabody Energy. Okay, we will take a look at those stocks. But first, let's take a look at the major indexes. And we will kick things off with a look at the S &P 500, which had a nice percentage gain today, The S &P up 1.2 percent. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq up 1.4 percent on the day.

1:26Ed Carson:And same for the Dow, also up 1.4 percent on the day. And the Russell 2000 had a nice day. Small caps outperformed up 2.3 percent. But if you take a closer look at where we closed, Ed, we didn't have the best close in the world here. So what do you make of the session? Yeah, especially the NASDAQ and the S &P closing near session lows. They all came off highs. The major indexes all closed below their 200-day line still, basically recouped most of Friday's losses. I mean, that's really all we're talking about. It's one day. It's just not enough. to, you know, we talk about wanting to see real momentum.

2:06Many times over the last several weeks and months, we've had one or two good days, and then we've faded off. And today didn't really change that. Maybe it's the start of something, but right now it really hasn't changed anything.

2:19Ed Carson:And then to update folks on where we stand with the rally attempt, even though we had these solid gains today, that doesn't mean we've seen a follow-through. We need a follow-up on this day one of the rally attempted. And so at earliest, if we were going to get a follow-through day, it looks like we're looking at Thursday. Yeah, exactly. And that's about the IBD methodology. You want to get into a rally early, but not right away. So you want to see a few days and then see if the big institutions want to take part in it. We just haven't seen that. We have one or two good days and then we roll over.

2:53So that's one reason to really wait for that follow-through day. Follow-through days don't always work, but you really don't have rallies that work if you don't get one. So you need to see that kind of higher, you know, strong gain, you know, starting Thursday or later, strong gain in price on higher volume than the prior session on one or more of the major indexes. You know, we'll see if that happens. But, you know, right now there's just too much of a danger that we just roll over again. There was a lot of news today just to talk about it. President Trump talked about, hey, we had productive talks with Iran.

3:24man, I'm going to hold off on this ultimatum that I had made over the weekend. And okay, that really cheered things up. And then Iran said, what are you talking about? We haven't had any talks. So we'll just have to see how it goes. I mean, it could be that things in the next few days, everything is obvious. We're surging higher. Or no, the war intensifies. Oil becomes more in short supply. We don't really know. So it is an extremely news-driven market where you could literally see the market go up or down three percentage points, really just in an instant, you know, if it's that kind of situation.

3:58So investors should be really cautious, you know, so right now.

4:02Ed Carson:Yeah. And we've got that resistance at the 200-day. We know through our research of past market cycles that once you close below the 200-day line, you can see a lot of volatility pick up after that. It can take a while for things to repair and get back on track. There are some cases where there's a quick recovery, but that's not always the case. So I think at this point, we don't know which of those scenarios is going to unfold. So that cautious approach and when we do get some progress, make those incremental decisions with the portfolio is probably a good idea. Yeah, definitely not a time to be jumping into the deep end.

4:50Ed Carson:Yeah. There's still sharks swimming around, Ed. That's right. All right. Moving on. Let's take a look at RSP. This is the equal-weighted S &P 500 ETF. What are you seeing here, Ed? Yeah, I mean, this, well, it did come back above its 200-day line, so that's nice. But like everything else, closed near session lows, the 10-day line. When the 10-day line is resistance, that tells you something. I mean, look, there's just so much news. It's better to be above the two-day line than below it. But, you know, it needs repair work, too. Okay. So the high of today is a notable level to get above for starters.

5:31Ed Carson:And then those shorter-term moving averages, for sure. And, you know, especially if you're looking at the S &P 500, the NASDAQ, that 21-day line. In addition to that 200-day line, that's a big deal, very widely used on Wall Street. And then we're more focused on as active traders, that 21 day line. That's our senior market strategist, Mike Webster. He's really dialed into the action around that level, especially when you do have a market turn. So we'll keep our eyes peeled for that. All right. Let's talk about oil, Ed, because a lot of the market volatility can be associated with when we saw this really pick up.

6:17And USO, a rough proxy for the price of oil, down almost 9 % today on the headlines that we saw out there. Yeah, I mean, crude oil futures actually fell 10%. So it would have been understandable if the market had rallied even more. But, you know, oil has risen so much. It's actually, to some extent, the stock market has been resilient to some extent, you could argue. The fact that it hasn't fallen that much given this big rise in oil. So the big sell-off today in oil, while definitely a positive, didn't change everything yet. So we'll see. You know, there could be a headline tonight that pushes USO to a record high.

6:58Or we could see USO down another 10, 15 % tonight. Or we just chop around like, you know, for the next two or three weeks. It really all comes down to the news and what actually happens in Iran. And it's like, it's hard to look at the chart and go, aha, I can see what's going to happen. Nobody knows what's going to happen. So nice to see this. But yeah, it's just one day.

7:20Ed Carson:And next on our list, let's take a look at the 10-year treasury yield, because that's also been on the move higher, finally getting maybe a little bit of relief here today, still above that 4.3 percent level. So the highest levels in months, even with today's decline. Yeah, in some ways, this is a bigger factor for the U.S. economy than oil because we're a big oil producer, big natural gas producer. So to some extent, it's not that bad to see those things go up. But that treasury yield surging like that, I think, has really been taking a toll, hitting the highest levels in several months. We're now starting to price in, I don't know about today because things are all around, but we've shifted from pricing and rate cuts to maybe pricing and rate hikes.

8:04That's the kind of scenario. And in Europe, it's almost like a given that there's going to be rate hikes later this year, given their situation. So just a real sea change. That has a big impact on the economy, a big change on like growth stocks. Like you do this discount value on the yields and it's not good. So big factor here to watch in addition to oil.

8:26Ed Carson:So what would improve this situation, Ed? Oil prices coming down, honestly. I mean, that's, you know, because it's surprising we haven't seen a safe haven flow. Because you would have seen, you know, this is happening even though. So, you know, that's what it needs to do. We need to calm down all these things. And you can imagine a real improvement in the market if and when that happens. But that could be months from now or it could be tomorrow. So that's why, again, we talk about you really do need to be engaged. I mean, I know we're talking about this because you don't know when that turn happens.

8:57If you're engaged and not paying attention and then you wake up three or four weeks later and you go, oh, how's the market? Oh, it's rebounded. It's like, well, a lot of the big winners may already be out. So you want to be paying attention. You got to be patient, but stay engaged.

9:10Ed Carson:Yeah. And I think a great example of that was around this time last year. You know, it was a crazy market and terrible, terrible declines. But the market changed very quickly. And those who were staying engaged could take those signals day by day, whether it was on the index level or how individual stocks were acting versus getting caught flat footed. Right. That's that's what you don't want to have happen. Yeah, absolutely. That's a great, great point. Just a year ago, that's when the money was made from April to, say, September. And so you don't try to make money when things are going down. You try to make money when you see a real change and we had a real uptrend.

9:51We just don't have that right now. But that's what you want to be looking for.

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10:24Ed Carson:Okay, well, let's take a look at some notable stocks on the upside. Rush Street Interactive, RSI up 5 % on the day. Recently broke out of a double bottom here, Ed, and relative strength in spades in recent weeks. Yeah, and this is an online casino, but also sports betting. And so the sports betting pure plays have really been hit hard. But this one's doing very well. You know, it's sort of clearing a buying zone, but you could argue that the past couple of weeks sort of argue is sort of a high handle or shelf that, you know, could have provided an opportunity. There is some moves in Congress. I don't know how far it'll go, maybe to ban prediction markets from taking part in sports betting.

11:09So that's been something that's been eating into a lot of the traditional, traditional, quote unquote, online sports. Right. And so those pure plays. And so that's probably a positive factor for this and other names out there. But, yeah, relative strength line looks really strong, some pretty good fundamentals. And this is, you know, you want to be looking, not everything's going to be the most perfect things, but, you know, showing showed some real strength in the last few weeks. when it came down, the volume was sort of light. Today, the volume was okay. It was down a fractionally, but that was the best volume in a few weeks.

11:45So just a lot to like here. It's hard to nibble on anything, but this one was one that was, it's not an AI, it's not oil. There's a certain kind of situation that just feels a little bit insulated from all the things that are going out there.

12:01Ed Carson:Yeah. I mean, whether or not traders are buying stocks right now before we have some sort of confirmation of an uptrend depends on your risk tolerance, right? And how you're managing risk as well. And at the very least, even if these are just watchlist names, it's good to get a sense of where the money's flowing, right? And what's holding up and where you're seeing that strength. So yeah, that's a very good point. Okay. Next on the list, let's take a look at NXT. This is next power in the solar group. We have a double bottom here and an RS line blue dot. So that underscores the stock's price performance versus the S &P 500, even before the stock hits a new high.

12:49Ed Carson:And it looks like that 120 area there about here, Ed, is a notable level of interest on the chart. What say you? Yeah, you do a trend line. I think at this point it might even be a handle. I'm not sure which day was the highest, but it certainly feels that way. In some ways, this is almost really just a flat base. But there was a sell-off that happened because Arrival had some terrible results. And so the stock plunged, but this one bounced back. It was sort of like, well, you know, a little bit of an eclipse for this chart, and then it's come back. Here we are. I will say one issue is it's nice that with the latest earnings report, it seems like I think some of the estimates have improved because it wasn't that great.

13:30some of the estimates, as I recall, for 2026, 2027. There is a lot of interest right now for solar. It seems like I think there was concerns that there was some of the tax changes, but this one seems to be one of the leaders out there. As you say, the RS line is looking very strong. So again, yeah, we see more strength in the market. This might do very well, and it's not a direct oil play where you might expect that to sell off in an Iran war change. But so, yeah, acting very well right here. Yes.

14:01Ed Carson:All right. And honestly, that relative strength line going back quite a ways to the stock's bottom in late 2024, early 2025 has been quite strong and a couple of buying opportunities along the way with some bases. So looks like it's one to watch. Absolutely. And last but not least, let's check in on Peabody Energy. This is BTU in the Energy Coal Group. Now, Ed, I love when you give us some stocks here that it's a lesson, a learning lesson, a teachable moment here. Tell us more about this Peabody chart. Yeah. I mean, one of the difficulties, I mean, is that when you there are stocks like some energy plays that are doing very well right now.

14:52But especially when it's just the pure oil or natural gas or coal, the danger is that things will turn around. And so this one surge, it broke out. You know, it certainly even had an early entry on that day, but then it went all the way to a breakout, then faded. OK, but, you know, it's trending up. But now it's fallen back. So even if you had an early entry on in there, you're down. It's not horrible. And again, oil prices rebound or natural gas prices rebound. This is going to go right back up. But it's just so tough. If you think that you're playing the hot area, you know, what is working in a generally bad market, you know, if that news changes, it can be really dramatic.

15:29This has fallen from like what, like 41 to 35. So it's a pretty big drop in just two and a half days or so. So you might think everything's fine, but the rug can be pulled out from you very quickly in this news-driven market. Right.

15:45Ed Carson:And some breakouts, even in this treacherous market environment, can work. But it seems like even in the best market, a lot of us on the team are looking at breakouts to new highs when possible, not in all cases, but when possible, as an opportunity to add to a position. You pointed out that early entry. So especially when you are in a dangerous market, buying at the high of a breakout area, I think, presents added risk at minimum. So just something to keep in mind. Yeah. And even beyond the news, there's just been such a pattern of the up-down nature. You have two good up days in the market and you roll over.

16:28If you buy on strength, you're almost buying at the top of the sine wave. And you're just, you know, even if things... And so it just makes it really difficult to replay that. So early entries at possible, but even that's not a fail-safe by any means.

16:44Ed Carson:All right. Well, thanks so much, Ed. Ed, as this week gets underway, anything you think traders should be keeping in mind? You know, we'll see better days, okay? And it'll be obvious when we're in those better days. You don't have to force those better days. But, you know, just keep paying attention. That day, that time may come later this week, next month, you know, or later, quite later this year. But, you know, that's when you really want to be getting involved. So stay engaged and be patient. All right. And one way to stay engaged is to read Ed's content at investors.com. his nightly futures column.

17:19Ed Carson:So make sure you check that out. Is the first version already out or it's coming out soon? This is my day off from it, actually. But we still have it, but it's probably up by who else? You know, Scott Latone probably has his column up. So definitely should be jumping on that. Yes, sounds good. Well, you can follow Ed on X for his latest thoughts on all sorts of things and market stuff too. All right. Well, thanks, Ed. We appreciate it. Thank you. And thanks everyone for tuning in. That is it from us for today, but we will be back with more tomorrow morning on IBD Live, investors.com slash IBD Live for all the details.

17:59Ed Carson:We'll see you then. And then we'll also see you right back here tomorrow after the close.

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