Trading Observations

• Happy Veterans Day, Thank You for all that have served!

• The rally continues.  Bonds closed.  Quiet day newswire. 

• Ukraine attacked Moscow on Sunday with at least 34 drones, the biggest drone strike on the Russian capital since the start of the war in 2022, forcing flights to be diverted from three of the city's major airports and injuring at least five people. – Reuters

• CPI Wed, PPI Thurs, Retail sales Fri

• Some notable earnings as the week goes on with HD premkt tomorrow

• Fri nice, but despite S&P up 40bps, upside vol barely over 50%

• For the bulls

  • Momentum strong TrendSpider [x.com]

  • With everything in sync granthawkridge [x.com] 

  • Earnings remain very strong charliebilello [x.com]

  • Market rising despite semis lagging hmeisler [x.com]

  • Microcaps breaking out stockmarkettv [stockmarkettv.com]

• For the bears

  • Sentiment too frothy? sentixsurvey [x.com] 

  • Russell earnings estimates not in sync with rise MichaelMOTTCM [x.com] 

  • Cash/stock gap at 2000 levels TicTocTick [x.com]

  • Hedge funds buying oil Barchart [x.com]

Upgrades – WGO, SKT, OUST, OEC, EPAM, MRCY, NTST, CSCO (valuation), AKAM, CBOE, PINS, QLYS, VLY, WBD

Downgrades – BLMN, NOV, ALTM, ARDX, TDW, CBT, CE (sees too many risks), IMCR, AGL, MKR, NRDY, SMAR, WHF

Markets YTD

DOW +16.64%

S&P +26.41%

Nasdaq +30.62%

Consumer/Financial Healthcare

Risk On Financials – Bitcoin names like MARA, RIOT, BTBT, COIN, BTDR, and HOOD are up 10-20% on Bitcoin above $80k. XLF up a less exciting 1%.

BMY, ABBV – BMY up 10% and ABBV down 13% after the ABBV Schizophrenia drug failed.

MA – MasterCard is holding its investment community meeting Wednesday this week. JPM is positive into the announcements on growth above peers.

VLY – Upgraded to overweight at JPM on CRE progress making the P/TB discount for the stock too wide.

SQ – Where to from here after a tougher quarter? Baird is still positive. Growth rates are still strong, but 14% gross profit growth vs 16% street had it give back some recent gains. Conclusion – Payments is a crowded business right now with market share stealing rampant but SQ is handling it ok.

Technology

Cryptocurrency-exposed stocks gain as Bitcoin rallies past $81,000 for the first time, boosted by President-elect Donald Trump’s embrace of digital assets.

• Coinbase (COIN) +13%, Mara Holdings (MARA) +15%, Riot Platforms (RIOT) +9%

MSTR - MicroStrategy says it acquired about 27,200 bitcoin for ~$2.03 billion in cash, at an average price of approximately $74,463 per bitcoin.

MPWR – Tumbles as NVDA Blackwell allocation at Risk says Edgewater

CRM – Reiterate Top Pick at Baird - announced on Friday that it was hiring 1000 people to feed the demand for its new Agentforce offering. against muted expectations for CRM, we see a catalyst path through 2025 that includes: 1) Agentforce traction, 2) improvements to top line, 3) potentially new financial targets at Dreamforce 2025.

CRM will hire 1K people to help sell its new AI agent product – Bloomey 

NVDA top large cap pick at Piper on Blackwell

NVDA’s Jensen Huang will conduct a 90-minute chat with Softbank’s Masayoshi Son on Wed about the future of AI – Nikkei 

TSM lower… ordered by the US gov’t to stop all 7nm (or smaller) AI-focused chip shipments to China - Reuters

CSCO higher on a JPM upgrade.

TSLA +7% pre mkt extending its gains… A lot of talk about mkt cap being back over $1T on Friday. Wedbush took their PT up to $400 from $300 this am.

FTNT – Raised to Buy at HSBC

ABNB – Cut to hold at CFRA

Industrials 

ENPH announced plans to cut its headcount by 17%, or 500 people.

Arcadium Lithium (ALTM) Cut to Sector Perform at Scotiabank; PT $5.85

Atmus Filtration (ATMU) Cut to Equal-Weight at Wells Fargo; PT $45

Cabot Corp (CBT) Cut to Underweight at JPMorgan; PT $105

Celanese (CE) Cut to Underperform at BMO; PT $76 Downgraded to neutral from buy at UBS

NuScale Power (SMR) files for up to $200M common stock sales agreement with TD Cowen, UBS, B. Riley, and Canaccord.

Orion SA (OEC) Raised to Overweight at JPMorgan; PT $21