Four Weeks Later, The Ghost Is Back — Scarier.

Last week we asked for more popcorn. It looks like it got delivered in containers — they ran out of buckets.

After all that recent effort to climb to the peak, we could not enjoy the views from up high for very long. A very busy week where economic data and corporate earnings made it to the horror movies category, delivered in style in back-to-back episodes. Broadcom's AI coating got peeled off by unforgiving investors, and Friday's employment data blew a gigantic hole in the market. One thing is for sure: investors' memory tends to be much less effective than the DRAM in all our tech devices.

Learned a New Word (and New Dynamics)
Taipei was the genesis of a very solid semi performance in the first two sessions of the week, which spread to different corners of the tech universe. On Monday, at an annual conference named COMPUTEX — yes, this is the new word — Jensen Huang announced NVIDIA's foray into the AI in-house segment, with new ammunition. On Tuesday, the same actor propelled Marvell to a staggering 32% daily pop — what I coined a vertigo candle.

ARM was up on increased royalties from incremental NVIDIA sales in the PC market segment. And it was very interesting to watch the opposite reaction from AMD, Intel and Qualcomm — big competitors and legacy players in this space.

Stairs Up, Elevator Down
Price action from the majors proved resilient in the first half of the week, trying to dismiss increased geopolitical uncertainty and hotter ISM reads — services and manufacturing alike. But after Broadcom's earnings, the tech space started to question whether the rarified air they had all been climbing through was actually breathable — and it turns out, arguably, it was not.

Good News Are Bad (Horrible) News. Again.
I was encouraged to see the Nasdaq and the S&P fight back a pretty adversarial tape on Thursday, anchored mainly in Broadcom indigestion. But Friday brought the ghost back from the closet like it had never been hiding. A Black Friday to remember for a while — Nasdaq 100 down 4.8%.

Market Memory Will Be Tested
A new batch of inflation numbers this coming Wednesday is where I will spend all my popcorn. Bears might already be salivating over a possible — likely? — further heating of prices, which could prove catastrophic to sustain after this unreal two-month run. Hard to call it an inflection point when the economy keeps churning jobs. But investors sitting on comfortable profit cushions will have little hesitation to press the red key.

Position Update
I exited my position in SOXL on Thursday after the market close.

Despite being very impressed by the way the Nasdaq fought back a pretty damaging post-Broadcom opening, what made me exit was not only the way the Nasdaq and the S&P threw in their towels at the end of the session — but that fatigue started to show immediately in the first minutes of after hours.

Knowing now the avalanche that came down the day after my exit — SOXL dropped 30% — I feel very fortunate to spend this weekend gaining a fresh market perspective.

↗ Rule — Wait for the end of the session.