Damn it, Jensen! With JC Parets

NVIDIA

Across the shows: 133 speakers in other episodes, 121 bullish and 87 bearish calls, past 30 days

• Michael Batnick · Ritholtz Wealth ManagementBearish

  Singapore revenue surge could be chip diversion to China; that could cut tens of billions of Nvidia sales.

  Michael notes that Singapore rose from about 8.5% to 18% of Nvidia's fiscal 2025 sales, and that a lot of the buying power has come from Southeast Asia. He suggests these chips may have been funneled through the backdoor into China. If there has been a regime change on that front, he argues tens of billions of dollars of revenue are at stake, and that the Singapore revenue will now be under the microscope.

  “a lot of the buying power has come from countries in Southeast Asia. And if they have been funneling through the backdoor into China, and there there was a complete regime change, how many tens of billions of dollars of revenue are we talking about here?”at 17:55

• Josh Brown · Ritholtz Wealth ManagementBullish

  Nvidia is cheap at about 10x forward earnings; the CEO scandal doesn't break the business, so he's holding.

  Josh argues Nvidia's stock is cheap: it trades at about a 10x forward P/E, less than half the market multiple, and still expects roughly 95% earnings growth this year and 70% next year. He says the company always beats and guides higher. He rejects the idea of a 'Jensen premium' being removed, noting the stock has been cheap for three years and getting cheaper each quarter. He concedes the story has changed and growth may not stay at 90%, which is why he sees about $160 rather than $240, but he does not think the business falls apart without its CEO. He bets $200 comes before $100. He expects a new CEO appointment could lift the stock about 12%, and he is holding a position he has owned for almost twelve years at a very low average cost.

  “There is no Jensen premium. The stock has been cheap for three years and getting cheaper every quarter.”at 22:12

• Josh Brown · Ritholtz Wealth ManagementBearish

  Historically, the day-one reaction to a CEO scandal is bad and the stock often gets worse before recovering.

  Josh uses precedents to show scandal-driven selloffs tend to extend. He cites Hewlett Packard in 2010, where the CEO's ouster drop of about 10% was an underreaction; the stock later fell about 70% after a new CEO's Autonomy acquisition was written down. He cites Intel in 2018, where the stock fell to a fifty-year low after a new CEO's fab bet. He notes that McDonald's had a similar episode that turned out fine, so there is no guaranteed path. The chart he shows indicates the first-day reaction is usually negative and the decline worsens over time before any recovery.

  “So what we're looking at here is day one reaction is usually bad post scandal.”at 22:53

• JC Parets · TrendLabsBearish

  Nvidia's peak showed warning signs: autograph incident, Dow inclusion, and Economist 'Sorcerer of Silicon' cover.

  JC argues Nvidia's top was flagged by sentiment markers. He lists the June 2024 incident in which the CEO was signing autographs in a setting where he shouldn't, the November 2024 inclusion in the Dow when the company was about $5 trillion in market value, and the September 2026 Economist cover calling him the 'Sorcerer of Silicon.' He says 'there were signs' looking back, implying these were contrarian top indicators.

  “And then, of course, just a couple of months ago in September, the Sorcerer of Silicon, right on the cover of The Economist magazine.”at 25:59

• JC Parets · TrendLabsBearish

  Investors are rotating out of Nvidia specifically, not out of AI; Broadcom and AMD are gaining.

  JC reads the price action as a rotation within AI. Investors still want AI exposure and data-center exposure, as shown by Apple, Amazon and Microsoft at 52-week highs, and by Broadcom and AMD rising about 5% on the day. The selling is concentrated in Nvidia itself. He concludes that investors want out of Nvidia rather than out of the AI trade.

  “People do not want out of the AI trade. They want out of NVIDIA is what the market is doing now. Broadcom and AMD are both at 5% today.”at 33:41

Advanced Micro Devices

Across the shows: 19 speakers in other episodes, 21 bullish and 1 bearish calls, past 30 days

• Josh Brown · Ritholtz Wealth ManagementBullish

  Investors staying with AI are rotating from Nvidia into AMD, which has outperformed sharply.

  AMD is up 123% over the last twelve months while Nvidia is down about 15%. AMD has added massive market cap this year and become a trillion-dollar stock. Josh reads this as investors who still want AI exposure moving out of Nvidia and into AMD, so the AI trade is rotating within chips rather than breaking.

  “this is what people are doing with dollars. And they're saying, I'm not ready to give up on AI.”at 36:27

Anthropic

Across the shows: 114 speakers in other episodes, 164 bullish and 93 bearish calls, past 30 days

• JC Parets · TrendLabsBullish

  Anthropic's IPO could be a rousing success, helped by the lower pricing.

  JC expected the deal to be mishandled but was impressed. He argues that the lower pricing gives the stock a better chance of a large first-day pop. He says the negative rhetoric around AI continues, but the IPO market is accepting the deal well.

  “I think the Anthropic IPO, I think, could be a rousing success.”at 40:06

Apple

Across the shows: 51 speakers in other episodes, 65 bullish and 42 bearish calls, past 30 days

• Josh Brown · Ritholtz Wealth ManagementBullish

  Apple is the trade of the year as a non-AI megacap refuge from data-center capex worries.

  Apple is the only Magnificent Seven stock up about 30% this year and has added more market cap than most semiconductor stocks have lost. Investors selling Micron or Nvidia buy Apple because it carries no data-center financing worries, no CoreWeave or Oracle exposure and no heavy AI capex. The iPhone cycle and steady execution support it, and buyers keep coming even at a near-40x earnings multiple and while Berkshire was selling.

  “Apple. I buy Apple because now I don't worry about data center financing.”at 42:31

QXO

Across the shows: 1 speaker in other episodes, 1 bullish and 0 bearish calls, past 30 days

• Josh Brown · Ritholtz Wealth ManagementUncertain

  QXO is a building-products roll-up that Josh has started buying despite its weak chart.

  QXO is founded by Brad Jacobs, who built RXO, XPO Logistics, GXO and United Rentals. His model is to buy up fragmented mom-and-pop industries, such as roofing materials and aluminum siding, and technologize them into large companies. QXO is relatively new and the stock looks poor, so Josh says he has started to nibble, not for any strong reason, and does not expect a quick rebound.

  “he comes in with capital and buys up all the mom and pop players in these industries that really shouldn't have 5,000 companies. And he technologizes that.”at 50:54

US stock market outlook

• Michael Batnick · Ritholtz Wealth Management

  Nvidia drawdown with S&P 500 near highs is super bullish for the broader market.

  Michael points out that Nvidia, one of the top three companies in the world for the past five years, is down about 30% from its highs while the S&P 500 is only about 2% below its record. He says this has never happened in that five-year period. He argues this divergence should be read as a sign of broad market strength rather than an AI-led breakdown, calling it super bullish.

  “So we've never been in a position over the last five years with NVIDIA as either the first, second, or third biggest company in the world where it is in a 30% drawdown and the S and P is only 2% from its highs.”at 23:42

• JC Parets · TrendLabs

  Sector rotation out of tech into financials, materials and healthcare is healthy for the bull market.

  Tech and semiconductors are down about 12% over the last six weeks while financials, materials, consumer discretionary and healthcare have ripped. Two months earlier tech led, and in the prior period financials and healthcare led. Q1 showed tech weak and energy up. JC says the market is always rotating, and that a pullback led only by consumer staples would be a problem, but leadership is broad, so the rotation is healthy.

  “sector rotation is the lifeblood of a bull market.”at 40:28

• JC Parets · TrendLabs

  Stock market breadth is very strong; most stocks are up, so the market is not narrow.

  About 85-88% of stocks are up over the last month, which JC says is among the highest readings in about fifty years. Around 70% of stocks are back above their 50-day averages. The average stock rose about 5% and the median about 7.5% in October. Earlier complaints about weak breadth were wrong, and investors were simply concentrated in tech rather than being unable to find gains.

  “85, 88% of stocks are up over the last month.”at 53:57

• JC Parets · TrendLabs

  Stock winners and losers keep flipping, making this a spectacular moment for long and short trades.

  JC dismisses the 'Mag Seven' grouping as a marketing construct that is not a real index. He argues the meaningful pattern is across all stocks: massive winners and massive losers that keep reversing, so this quarter's biggest winners become the biggest losers and then flip again. He sees this rotation as a spectacular environment for finding long and short opportunities, and says investors who are not excited by it are in the wrong business. The view is about market dispersion and rotation, not a call on a particular index level.

  “when you talk about a real thing, which is all the stocks, you have massive winners and massive losers, and then that flips. And then those massive winners are now the biggest losers.”at 1:11:04

Market sentiment, positioning & volatility

• JC Parets · TrendLabs

  Extreme individual-investor bearishness near highs is contrarian bullish; midterm-year fear selling usually reverses.

  JC cites the AAII survey showing about 51% of individual investors expecting stocks to fall over the next six months, while the market is only a couple of percentage points from a record high. He calls this extreme. He argues midterm years repeatedly follow the same pattern over about a century: investors sell their best holdings in October and November, the market then rallies, and investors complain and blame the government. He says the common driver across cycles is human behavior, not the politicians involved.

  “Half the individual investors think stocks fall over the next six months... That's extreme.”at 34:24

• JC Parets · TrendLabs

  Magazine cover stories mark late-cycle extremes and often flag tops and bottoms, so they're contrarian signals.

  JC shows a history of covers he says mark turning points. A 1974 bear cover came near the market low, a 1965 Newsweek chart cover marked a low before a bull run, and a 1979 oil-crunch cover came near the top in oil. A 2021 Bitcoin cover, with Musk, Dorsey and Cuban, marked the top, and a 1958 recession cover came at the bottom. Dollar panic covers also marked lows. His view is that when the media pile in, the cycle is late and often ending.

  “When you see the magazine covers, we've talked about this before, it tends to come late in the cycles.”at 59:08

US housing

• Michael Batnick · Ritholtz Wealth Management

  Homebuilders are in poor shape and their stocks are running ahead of their fundamentals.

  Mortgage rates are too high for builders to buy down, and their latest report showed them getting crushed. Michael says these companies are not in good shape, yet the stocks are doing much better than fundamentals would suggest. He reads this as the market looking forward and already pricing in the bad news.

  “These companies are not in good shape, but the stocks are doing much better than the fundamentals would suggest.”at 49:53

• JC Parets · TrendLabs

  A US housing boom may be starting, with homebuilder stocks at highs and nobody believing it.

  Nobody JC talks to thinks a housing boom has started, but Pulte Homes and Toll Brothers are pushing against multiyear and near-record highs. He notes the stock market discounts the economy six to twelve months ahead. If a boom comes, now is a logical time for it to start, and a breakout in homebuilder stocks like the ITB ETF would confirm it. He hedges by saying he does not know what will happen and that investors should stay open-minded.

  “I'm not saying we're gonna get a housing boom, but if we are gonna get one, now would be a perfectly logical time for it to start, and these home construction stocks breaking out will be confirmation that that's probably what's happening.”at 51:26

AI chips & semiconductors

• JC Parets · TrendLabs

  Semiconductor index false-broke below its July low and reclaimed it; bull market is cancelled if it fails.

  JC uses the semiconductor index chart to argue the July low is a key support level. The index gapped below it, stayed below it Thursday through Tuesday, and then recovered above it the day before, which he calls a false breakdown. He says if the level fails and the index rolls over again, the bull market is over and the AI bubble has popped. He treats the level as the line in the sand the market is giving investors.

  “we got back up above those levels. False breakdown... If this fails up here and starts to roll over again, bull market canceled, AI bubble popped, it's all over.”at 32:44

US Treasuries & yields

• Michael Batnick · Ritholtz Wealth Management

  Consumer staples trade as bond proxies, so their moves track interest-rate swings.

  Staples often act as bond substitutes. Rising rates plus high oil crushed staples in September and October. Rates are now rising again, yet staples are ripping back. Michael says the narrative flipped because the stock price moved, which shows how closely staples track rates.

  “So higher interest rates killed consumer staple stocks six weeks ago, and today, they're not touching them.”at 45:05

Banks

• JC Parets · TrendLabs

  The S&P bank index breaking above GFC-era highs signals bears are wrong.

  The S&P bank index is breaking above its Great Financial Crisis highs for the first time in almost twenty years. The 2007 bank-index high came about nine months before the market peaked, which shows how leading it can be. JC says that if bears think the world is ending, this breakout has to fail, so for him it is a key tell that the bull case holds.

  “and look what it's doing right now. It's breaking out above the great financial crisis highs for the first time since then.”at 52:38

International equities

• JC Parets · TrendLabs

  Global markets are at record highs across Europe, the UK, Canada and Australia, not just in tech.

  London's FTSE 350 has melted up with little tech exposure, and Germany's index just closed at a record. The Euro Stoxx 600, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Spain, Austria and Belgium are at all-time highs, Italy is breaking above its GFC highs, and Greece is at a 15-16 year high. Canada and Australia are also at highs. JC says few people are watching these charts, and the rally is happening largely without big tech.

  “And then Germany's probably the most important stock market index in the world outside The United States. Just closed at a new all time high today.”at 56:44

Gold & precious metals

• JC Parets · TrendLabs

  Precious metals are in a commodity super cycle; the crash is a generational buying opportunity.

  After gold fell almost a third and silver more than halved this year, JC argues the selloff is a setup rather than a signal to avoid. He points to silver's long-term chart: it peaked in 1980 and again in 2011, and it is now retracing a breakout to around $50, which he calls the key level. He frames the move as a possible start of a much larger advance if commodities are in a secular bull market and a multi-decade super cycle. He calls it the opportunity of a generation to buy precious metals. The conviction depends on that secular-bull premise, and JC does not state a timeframe.

  “So $50 is your level. So we're retracing a breakout. That could be the beginning of a much larger move. If this is a secular bull market for commodities, it's a secular super cycle, commodity super cycle, precious metals are going. This is the opportunity of a generation to buy precious metals.”at 1:14:30