Veterans Day Salute, Hammer (Doji) Time, AMD's Big Day, SoftBank Bails on Nvidia

We salute all U.S. veterans. Today is a federal holiday. The stock market is open and will operate normally. However, the bond market is closed in observance of Veterans Day as are most banks. Government offices, even if re-opened, are closed as is your local post office. I would like to salute my late grandfather (U.S. Navy), my father (U.S. Army) and my son (U.S. Army) who have all taken the oath and served under the flag we all love. 

Yes, it is the flag that puts that lump in your throat and that inextinguishable yearning to do something for someone else in your gut. It is the flag that grabs your attention each and every time you see its beauty. It is not "just" the flag, though. It's all of you. We sign our names, raise our right hands and take that oath because we love you. Some folks may do it for opportunity, some to pay for college, some to learn a trade. There may be other reasons. 

Most of us, though? We do it because we can't imagine not protecting those we love. We can't imagine not protecting the innocent. We can't imagine taking without giving. 

I'll let you in on a little secret. I can't sing the national anthem. I'll choke up. I can stand silently at attention and salute, but if I try to sing that song, I will weep. I'm close to crying right now as I think about those words and as, in my mind's eye, I see "Old Glory" waving back at me on a sunny day. God bless America and God bless all of you.

"And the rocket's red glare, bombs bursting in air, 

Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there"

Our flag is still there.

Took All Day 

Late Monday evening, the U.S. Senate passed a spending package by a 60 to 40 vote. Eight Democrat party senators crossed the aisle to get this done. To their credit, under fairly intense pressure to do away with the filibuster, which really is something that works for the long-term public good, Republican party senators remained disciplined and did not take the easy route just to pass legislation. 

The spending bill, which had been amended to get through the Senate, will move back to the House of Representatives, where it started, and will likely be up for a vote by late Wednesday. Maybe Thursday. Once passed by the House, the president can sign the bill into law, and the federal government can re-open. 

The package extends full funding to the federal government only out to January 30, though it does include full-year funding for the Department of Agriculture, military on-base housing and oddly enough, the legislative branch of government. Federal layoffs initiated by the president during the shutdown, will be reversed. The Republican caucus in the Senate has promised the Democratic caucus a vote on extending emergency level, pandemic-era ACA subsidies by mid-December.

Marketplace 

Equity markets absolutely ripped higher on the news of the Senate moving towards reopening the government. Interestingly, healthcare insurance stocks sold off as President Trump spoke about the possibility of sending funding directly to households, which would bypass those companies. The AI/high-tech trade, though, was back on, at least for the day. 

The S&P 500 gained 1.54% for the session, while the Nasdaq Composite added 2.27%. The Nasdaq Composite was supported by the Dow Jones U.S. Semiconductor Index and Dow Jones U.S. Software Index. Those two indexes were up 4.38% and 2.1%, respectively. Big tech winners across the S&P 500 included Palantir Technologies  (PLTR)  at +8.81%, followed by Western Digital  (WDC) , Micron Technology  (MU) , Nvidia  (NVDA)  and Advanced Micro Devices  (AMD) . Those four stocks gained 6.91%, 6.46%, 5.79% and 4.47%, in that order.

Breadth 

Eight of the 11 S&P sector SPDR ETFs closed out the Monday session in the green, obviously led by Tech  (XLK) . The Discretionaries  (XLY)  and Communication Services  (XLC)  followed along as growth stocks led, and cyclical stocks did well. Defensive sectors were left behind. The Staples  (XLP)  led the losers as the bottom three slots on the daily performance tables were all occupied by the defensives. 

Winners beat losers by better than two to one at both the NYSE and the Nasdaq on Monday. Advancing volume took a 62.9% share of composite Nasdaq-listed trade for the day and a 61.9% share of composite NYSE-listed activity. Is there a problem? Well, it's not necessarily a problem, but it did feel like the algorithms that control price discovery in this perverted era did what they could to juice upside momentum on Monday. 

What I am saying is that the final two hours on Monday felt a little awkward. Backing that up, aggregate trading volume was down 9.5% on day-over-day basis across NYSE-listed securities and down 8.3% across Nasdaq listings. Trade was noticeably lighter across the membership of the S&P 500 as well. S&P 500 only trading volume failed to reach its 50-day simple trading volume moving average on Monday for the first time since October 24. 

What that means is that we can't call Monday some kind of Day One Bullish reversal or even a reconfirmation of the upward trend. Oh, we're glad to have Monday do what it did, especially if we're "net" long, which I overwhelmingly am. Monday was great. It was just less technically significant than I or the bulls at large, would have liked.

The Chart

The moral of ​the story is: Don't screw around with a hammer doji. Wow! We gave readers that bullish signal and did it ever work like a charm. Rock and roll. The index tested its 50-day simple moving average (SMA) from above on Friday and took back its 21-day exponential moving average (EMA) on Monday with the help of the swing crowd that took advantage of the algorithmic largess.

Relative Strength showed marked improvement on Monday. That said, while there was progress made within the daily moving average convergence divergence (MACD) for the S&P 500 on Monday, the indicator is still posture rather bearishly. I still think equity markets have a nice holiday season coming up, but readers need to know that the daily MACD for the major indices is not yet in agreement.

Heads Up!

Advanced Micro Devices  (AMD)  will host its analyst day today. Wall Street is looking to hear anything from CEO Lisa Su in regard to the latest features regarding the MI400 data center accelerators, which will be released in early 2026. We'll also be listening for anything interesting that might be said about the MI500 series, which is still on the drawing board.

Most importantly, we need Lisa Su or CFO Jean Hu to tell us where they see forward-looking gross margin in regard to the firm's AI-focused hardware. We also want to learn something about the firm's PC and AI PC servers and if these enhancements are likely to trigger a refresh cycle. 

There will be a lot going in New York City today. The event will be broadcast on AMD's website under the "Investor Relations" tab. I currently have $302 price target on the stock

Key News

-- SoftBank announced on Tuesday morning that it had exited its entire stake in Nvidia  (NVDA) , selling 32.1 million shares in October for roughly $5.83 billion. SoftBank maintains its holdings in Arm Holdings  (ARM)  and Taiwan Semiconductor  (TSM) .

-- Intel's  (INTC)  top AI executive Sachin Katti has left the firm to join OpenAI. At OpenAI, he will work on building out its compute infrastructure for generative intelligence.

-- Key Sarge-folio holding Rocket Lab  (RKLB)  is trading up more than 9% overnight after reporting on Monday evening, I will be back shortly with something for the "Stocks Under $10" crowd. Though down roughly 20% over a month, the stock is up about 282% over a year.

Economics (All Times Eastern)

06:00 - NFIB Small Biz Optimism Index (Oct): Expecting 98.3, Last 98.8.

The Fed (All Times Eastern)

10:25 - Speaker: Reserve Board Gov. Michael Barr.

Today's Earnings Highlights (Consensus EPS Expectations)

After the Close: DOX (1.82),  (OKLO)  (-.13)

At the time of publication, Guilfoyle was long PLTR, MU, NVDA, AMD, INTC and RKLB equity.