A Concerning Market Trend

Not a great setup. There are too many articles and postings about how we are overdoing artificial intelligence, and how there’s not enough substance to justify recent market moves.

There’s no question that the market, particularly the
Nasdaq







, has rallied endlessly on what amounts to the same information:
Nvidia







(NVDA) makes great cards;
Adobe







‘s (ADBE) putting them to use; so is
Meta Platforms







(META) but we don’t know how; as are
Microsoft







(MSFT),
Alphabet







‘s (GOOGL) Google and, most importantly,
Oracle







(ORCL); but don’t forget
Broadcom







(AVGO) and
Marvell







(MVRL).

The Need for a Pause

That’s worrisome, indeed. That’s why I am approaching this shortened week with a little trepidation. There’s really nothing new that I can see short of analyst meetings from Samsara (IOT) and MongoDB (MDB), both loved, but both a little abstruse. They can’t move the needle. So, it seems to me this is the test week. Research right now is of no hope whatsoever. If a stock is up, we get price target boosts. If it is down, we get cuts. Nothing original, nothing against the grain. That’s been a major source of sustenance for a while now, but I think that we have had enough of it so perhaps that causes a pause.

Exploring Other Options

No matter, I think we get a pause, and we still don’t have a replacement for the AI theme. Do we go health care following President Joe Biden’s first campaign rally? Getting tougher. Financials ahead of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation penalties? Possibly, and a bunch of regional banks seem interesting. Have you seen that yield and price-to-earnings multiple on Truist, a truly good regional bank? The consumer-packaged-goods segment has been written off as past tense: Campbell’s (CPB) last quarter may be the template. Retail’s tough as nails: only Walmart