Market Snapshot

River1 Asset Management
March 04, 2025

Morning Note

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Calendar

This Week – A smattering of mostly retail earnings with the two biggest driver’s Friday, NFP and Powell.

Tuesday – TGT, AZO, BBY, CRWD, ROST earnings

Wednesday – Durable Goods, ISM Services, Beige Book

Thursday – Jobless Claims, COST, ABGO, HPE earnings

Friday – Non-Farm Payrolls. Powell Speaks Mid-Day

Trading Observations

Closed right at 5850 support zone, my guess is we break and see our first test of 200-day (5723) in two years, but we will see
Hard to see a catalyst, yet oversold so bounce could come at anytime
6010 first notable level of resistance vs. 5775 support
Jobs Friday looms given softness worries popping up
Total put/call over 0.9 for 5th day in 6, but still no readings over 1 to show more 'panic'

Futures

DOW -98

S&P -34

Nasdaq -129

Charts/Sentiment

CNN Fear/Greed Index

U.S. 10 Year Treasury

ICE Brent Crude

Bitcoin

Financials / Retail / Healthcare

Elon calls social security the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time https://finance.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-calls-social-security-175337312.html [finance.yahoo.com]

CART: -4% on light volume .... Got ?s on underperformance early / not a ton of volume going thru but assume 3P data related?

Consumer Read: TGT +3% beats for Q4 and the full-year 2025 guide could have been worse, but FQ1 outlook/commentary is cautious. Inventories also +7% YoY. Says Fed sales impacted by falling consumer confidence + weather. Warned that its profit would come under pressure in the current quarter -- and its sales could be flat this year -- because of consumer uncertainty and escalating tariffs. WARNS OF PRICE HIKES COMING .... Bar lowered significantly into print post WMT update

ONON Q4 beat with release highlighting brand momentum. Stock +9% pre mkt

WBA up on report company near $10Bdeal with Sycamore Partners to go private.

Technology

CRYPTO: Bitcoin et al fully reversing the weekend's surge, XBT back below $84k and retesting the 200dma watch level - do not ignore this risk/liquidity/momentum proxy messaging

Xi prepares to unveil China stimulus plan https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3300471/two-sessions-set-unveil-chinas-top-economic-priorities-year [scmp.com]

AAPL: Apple to launch M4 MacBook Air this week, Tim Cook’s cryptic post suggests

AMZN Reportedly building own AI model with reasoning capabilities to compete with Anthropic and OpenAI – Insider

AVGO weakness: -6% yest some ppl pointing to Edgewater saying Mediatek is now expected to supply TPU7e in 2026 for select functionality with AVGO still the TPU7p provider in 2026

BL to lay off 7% of global staff

NVDA: px action here remains terrible - rallies cont to be sold versus dips bought + that has been the case for a while; near-term catalyst path should limit nt downside - GTC 2 weeks out + speaking @ MS Wed

NVDA (Jefferies CoWos downward revision): "Based on our latest checks, we believe NVDA has lowered its CoWoS demand in 2025, and think it is mainly due to both demand and production issues.

OKTA: +15% strong upside in FQ4 on all the main KPIs, incl earnings (78c in EPS vs St 74c), sales ($682M vs St $670M), op. margins (25% vs St 23.2%), and RPOs (total RPO spiked 25% to $4.215B vs St $3.83B), and the F26 guide is ahead of plan (sales of $2.85-2.86B vs St $2.8B)

TSLA: -2% Tesla’s total China shipments dropped 51% m/m in February to 30,688 units, according to Bloomberg calculations based on preliminary data from China’s Passenger Car Association

SMIC: -3.4% on 775k shrs - DOWN 46% from Feb 19th highs ... probe over China raises concerns about tighter scrutiny

Industrials

Ameresco (AMRC) downgraded to sell from buy at UBS

California Resources (CRC) upgraded to buy from neutral at Gerdes Energy Research

ESS Tech (GWH) downgraded to neutral from buy at Roth MKM

Frontier Group (ULCC) downgraded to hold from buy at Deutsche Bank

Honeywell International (HON) confirms prior report, has agreed to acquire Sundyne from private equity firm Warburg Pincus for $2.16B in an all-cash transaction

JetBlue Airways (JBLU) downgraded to hold from buy at Deutsche Bank

Nordson (NDSN) upgraded to overweight from sector weight at KeyBanc

Latest Media

Our NYSE visit!!

Conversation w/ Kenny Polcari

NASDAQ…. Pretty easy to interpret – feels like the world is ending but the NDX is still in its long term upward trend channel – testing the bottom part of it – something that has occurred multiple times in the past two years.

Major support levels = 20200 (200-day mov avg)

Trend channel support @ 19800-20000 area

SELLERS … CTAs are sellers of SPX in every scenario over the coming week. Downside remains the biggest convexity risk

SOX -4% back to levels not seen since unwinds in early Aug / Sept .... $$ rotated further into analogs at expense of AI levered names; saw shorts press smartphone plays + semicaps