Techs Rally Into Nvidia Earnings; Apple, Globus Medical, nVent Electric In FocusIn Focus

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0:33Ken Shreve:Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Stock Market Today for Wednesday, February 25th. It's Alyssa Coram here, and we saw a tech-led rally in the stock market today ahead of NVIDIA's hotly anticipated quarterly earnings report after the closing bell. And joining me now to discuss the action in today's session and some stocks for your radar is my colleague, Ed Carson. Ed, what are we going to be taking a look at today?

0:59Alissa Coram:I want to take a look at Apple, Globus Medical, and Envent Electric.

1:04Ken Shreve:All right. Sounds like a plan. We will do that. But first, let's take a look at the major indexes. Like we said, a tech-led rally, but really significant here, Ed, to see the move by the S &P 500 back above its moving averages, closing up about eight-tenths of a percent on the day, but the Nasdaq was the leader here, up 1.3 percent or so. It still has that 50 day line to conquer. Meanwhile, the Dow was up six tenths of a percent today and the Russell 2000 up about four tenths of a percent. It was a little wobbly intraday, but did close in the green. So what do you make of the fact that we're seeing now two days in a row here of strength out of technology, which by and large, other than the chip sector primarily, has been not in the lead as of late.

1:59Alissa Coram:Yeah. I mean, it's certainly nice to see more of that, the tech moving up. But a couple of days is a couple of days. And that's sort of been the pattern for the last several months is that a sector or the market will rally for a couple of days and then come back. I mean, the NASDAQ did this a few weeks ago, got close to the 50-day line. It's like, here we go, here we go. And it's like, no. And so I think we need to see more. Obviously, tonight's earnings report with NVIDIA and the real reaction, not what it is overnight, not at the open, but what it is tomorrow, I think will be really important.

2:30Alissa Coram:But yeah, it's nice to see chips are doing well. Software is trying to rebound. I mean, that's been a dumpster fire, but at least somebody's putting their foot down on the dumpster trying to get that fire out. But I mean, so it's sort of a weird situation. There's not necessarily a lot of tech stocks to buy because a lot of the chips are extended and the software is trashed. So, but I mean, not that you can't buy it, but still nice to see that. We just have to see, well, can we sustain that? That's the problem. I mean, it's, you know, we get going. It's sort of like just when you get going, it reverses.

3:02Alissa Coram:So need to get above the 50-day line, need to see more.

3:05Ken Shreve:Yes. And as our senior market strategist, Mike Webster, likes to see, we want to get above the 21-day line. That's the green line. So that's step one. Let's see if we can get the low above the 21-day for a couple of days. That also, in theory, if we're making progress, would coincide with a move back above that 50-day moving average. And then eventually you want to see those moving averages stacked in the right direction. But one day at a time, a little bit of progress here. And Ed, in terms of also the importance of that 50-day, so in sort of setting the scene for NVIDIA earnings reaction tomorrow, because it does have such a big weighting in the major indexes, say we do get a move above that 50-day line, that also, like you said, it could be a resistance level.

3:56Ken Shreve:So I do think tomorrow's session has the potential to be an important one from a portfolio management position if you are a trader who does really like using those index level cues to adjust your portfolio exposure accordingly.

4:15Alissa Coram:Yeah, I agree. It's going to be really important. And it's not just NVIDIA, which is huge, obviously, but Taiwan Semi and Broadcom, just those two stocks are like another three and a half trillion dollars in market cap. And then you think about everything in the AI universe, probably, you know, 15, 20 trillion dollars worth of market cap is going to have some fairly clear relevance to what NVIDIA has to say.

4:40Ken Shreve:Yeah.

4:42Alissa Coram:Just a lot going on.

4:43Ken Shreve:Yes, absolutely. All right. Any other index thoughts, Ed, before we move on?

4:50Alissa Coram:RSP is one thing. Just, you know, that one, again, sort of, you know, it's sort of flat, which is fine. It's holding up. Not every day has to be up there. It's been doing great. It would be nice to see everything moving together. It doesn't all have to move at the same speed. And but this is still holding up. And it used to be nice to see us get out of a divided market for a while.

5:12Ken Shreve:Totally agree.

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5:30Ken Shreve:Let's go over to Apple working on a cup with handle. Not the prettiest base we ever did see, but it is forming the right side of a base. And in terms of the weekly percent gain, it's up about 3.7 % so far for the week. Back above the 10-week line, above that round number at 260. That's marked on the chart here, but even above 270 because it's at 274. What do you make of the chart here for Apple?

6:01Alissa Coram:Yeah, I had some trouble a couple of weeks ago because there was some concerns about delays about their AI stuff. And to some extent, that's been almost a virtue because now Apple hasn't spent hundreds of billions of dollars on AI. I mean, that's actually something that's pretty helpful that they're not spending it all. So they can spend it on buybacks. They can and, you know, it's just not things like that. But yeah, it's a smaller base after a big, deep base. I mean, it was hard to get into that prior base because it's like, oh, it's just above the Tunity line. The RS line wasn't that strong.

6:35Alissa Coram:And then by the time it got to the highs, it was like, it's getting a little extended. It hasn't gone a big run. So there's that. The fundamentals have improved. We're seeing a little bit of growth. Now, that probably won't last, but a few quarters of a little bit of acceleration. You know, that was something that was a problem with Apple is that it was just two, you know, just single digit growth or barely over. So nice to see that. You know, so I think if it got above that trend line, got above this handle, it would be actionable. I don't think this would be the dominant thing in somebody's portfolio, but this is a way it's giant.

7:09Alissa Coram:It's tech, but it's not that AI focused, honestly. So there's definitely things that you could have. this is part of your portfolio because a lot of the other mega caps aren't looking so good.

7:21Ken Shreve:Yeah, exactly. They aren't. So what do you think? Is there a potential broader market or AI move that this stock could make? To your point, it sort of was a negative at one point. Well, Apple's behind the AI game. Now it's a little insulated from that. Maybe it's a positive instead. Could this have that NVIDIA-fueled move tomorrow? Maybe not directly, maybe if anything in an indirect way, it seems like.

7:59Alissa Coram:Yeah, probably more indirect because it is more of that, because it's not so tied to it. I mean, later on in the year, if they do finally get some tools, probably working with Google's Gemini, you know, then that might be a catalyst as well. But it seems like sales have been pretty, pretty strong. I mean, there was a, that last quarter was really strong. I think there was real concerns about the iPhone. Hey, they don't have an AI. AI, how is that going to be? But it isn't hurting their business right now. And maybe it's cheaper to buy somebody else's AI tools rather than plugging in all that money.

8:30Alissa Coram:So, yeah, I do think just in general, you know, if we get positive eyes, we saw that with, you know, with the market rallying, Bitcoin rallied. I don't know why Bitcoin rallied. It just feels like it was more risk on. So if you just, you know, it's if everybody starts feeling happy, it's amazing how everything could start looking good. And so I think Apple would benefit from that.

8:53Ken Shreve:Yeah, that whole rising tide, lifting all boats, right? Absolutely. Okay, great. Thank you so much. And just one quick thing to point out here is the relative strength line. While it is improving from the lows of the base, we'd love to see even more improvement if this were to break out. So we'll keep an eye out for that. Moving on, let's go to G-Med. This is Globus Medical. Our stock of the day today, an outside day, upside reversal, shares up 4.8 % in above average volume on the earnings reported.

9:30Alissa Coram:Yeah, the earnings were strong. You see several quarters now of acceleration on the EPS and sales front. Nothing wrong with that. And so that's nice because it's like, but, and this is a closing high. It's sort of an odd base here because it tried to break out. I think there was some kind of, you know, drug news or product news and obviously things didn't. So in some ways, it feels like a breakout, you know, and that kind of thing. It's sort of like that temporary, like almost everybody's happy. There's a few people who bought it 101 or still aren't happy, but most people are. And it's still close to the 50-day line.

10:04Alissa Coram:So it's above the, you know, sometimes we talk about getting above the meat of the base. This is clearly above the meat of the base. So I think on a weekly chart, this might have an RS line at new high. I'm not sure, but it's certainly close to that. Yeah, so it's at a 52-week high is what I mean. And so it had this big, big, ugly base. There are some big down, big ups. And so in that first breakout, it didn't quite work. And for whatever reason, it quickly failed. But now maybe it's setting up again. So you could almost see this as a high handles of this huge base or whatnot. And so, yeah, I just think, again, here's another way that we're going to get to an AI type related stock, but it's nice to have still, you still want to be looking for things that are not necessarily AI.

10:43Alissa Coram:It's great when you can find really strong growth along with that.

10:49Ken Shreve:Yes, nice acceleration there to your point and above average volume accompanying the price gains this week so far. And I also like the earnings line. It's sloping upward ever so slightly, Ed, here. So a little bit of a pickup there. Another way to visualize the improving fundamentals. Absolutely. Okay, and then let's go to NVT and get your take on this power equipment stock. This group is ranked number 12 out of the 197 groups that we track. Shares are working on another up week here. We've had four weeks up in a row or so headed into this week, but it's picking up the pace so far up over 4 % here, Ed.

11:36Ken Shreve:and a little bit of daylight now between the buy zone from that double bottom and where shares are trading now. But if you take a closer look at the daily chart, think I spy an alternate entry.

11:48Alissa Coram:There is an alternate entry and it's there and it's also on a weekly because that's a three weeks tight, I believe. There's so much blue on that other chart that on the weekly that it doesn't really show up that the blue thing, but it's in there. So, you know, that also, but either way, it's 12085. So I think, again, there was some messiness around there. It would have been hard to buy, or if you did buy, you might've gotten shaken out on earnings. And there's a few stocks like that. There was definitely some days where some stocks really got hit hard around that time period. And a lot of them shook it off.

12:21Alissa Coram:I can think about Fabronet and some others, not all of them shake it off. You can't just say, oh, everything's going to be fine. But, you know, Very similar time period and then turned around. NVT, so, okay, might have gotten shaken out or whatnot, and there wasn't a thing, but this one looks a little cleaner after some messy action. So this is an opportunity by now. I didn't take advantage of this in part because I'm looking at NVIDIA. If NVIDIA falls 5%, well, guess what? I don't think this one will do very well because a lot of its business is getting things on data centers. because data center and AI stuff has been rallying into NVIDIA earnings, whether it's because they expect good results or there's just an optimism.

12:59Alissa Coram:But look, the growth is really strong, you know, several quarters of accelerating growth. I mean, it's nice where, you know, well into a rally kind of thing. But these were three companies from different sectors, and they're all showing accelerating growth at different levels. So there's something that, you know, ultimately that's just so important to a stock. and I think this was, yeah, the alternate entry seems a little bit cleaner than what investors have had an opportunity with. Yeah.

13:26Ken Shreve:All right. Well, it's about 20 after the close as of the time that we record this, although we do have a lot of folks who watch this on demand as well as listen to it on Spotify. So we have a great live audience, but we don't have all live viewers. But just adding a little color to the timing of our commentary here because I would love for you to discuss any interesting earnings movers that you're seeing as of now. It looks like we have Salesforce out. What are you seeing out there?

13:59Alissa Coram:Yeah, Salesforce, I believe, I think they, 50 billion in new buybacks, but their revenue guidance was weak. And so, again, this is important about the whole AI disruption. You want to get some sense, are we bouncing back? And, again, I don't think you're going to hear anything about that because even if AI disruption is real, It's too soon to know. It's not like they've come and taken people's business, you know, kind of thing, you know, right now. But not a great reaction. Also, Snowflake, another name. I don't know what happened with this one, but Snow, that one is down a little bit so far. A name I haven't seen the results again on is FTI Aviation.

14:34Alissa Coram:This is a jet engine repair company that's getting into AI by turning turbines for AI data centers. Well, this one is tumbling right now. So we'll have to see how that goes because it was basically at a buy point or intraday, got right at that 310 level and backed off. Exactly. Yeah, so maybe it falls back.

14:51Ken Shreve:I was going to say, whereas the other two were pretty beaten down and disappointing reactions, this was actually looking good. And now, at least as of now, down 8%. What else said?

15:05Alissa Coram:Sterling, STRL, this is a heavy construction firm. A lot of those have been doing well with power plants or just things are related to it. That's acting well. probably around a high handle, but you didn't want to do anything necessarily at earnings.

15:18Ken Shreve:Yeah, shares up about 7.6 % right now for our audio listeners.

15:22Alissa Coram:Yeah, it looks like about that, 8%. Heiko, which is an HEI, which is an aerospace defense firm, that's not doing well. That one is down about 9%. That had been setting up, so not great. Pure Storage, PSTG. This had sort of been beaten down, but you could see maybe, maybe, you know, you could look and see something. Maybe turning around, yeah. jumping up 7%. So, you know, there's some levels there. Array Technologies. This one's really getting hit hard. A-R-R-Y. That's also going to be important for like next track. No, it's, yeah. So it's like, it's really down hard. I don't know what happened, but dark days for the solar firm, it looks like.

15:58Alissa Coram:Yeah. Arcutis ARQT, which is a biotech. That one's sort of been bouncing around. That one was up modestly. So maybe there'd be an early entry, you know, like, you know, something in there. So those are some of the things. Oh, one more NPKI. This is one that David Ryan has brought up. It's a small oil field service from NPKI, NPK International. And that's up 8%. So, you know, he spots these things. He knows, you know, these small little companies sometimes he just, he has his eye on the ball. So there's so much going on, but those are just some of them that are out there. And obviously everybody's going to be excited about NVIDIA, but that hasn't come out yet right now.