u/JWcommander217

Oooooooof

Welp I didn't think I expected to hear Jensen say that they have "largely conceded the China market to Huawei." I mean obviously I can see the tea leaves and understand the politics around it but oooof man it just really really sucks for them for sure. It was like 20% of their total sales and probably like another 10% of the black market sales. So yea just there seemed to be enough "there" there for Jensen to never stop but I guess at the same time, why try to get into a pricing game when you have people here in the US who are willing to pay your crazy margins???

Anyone see Jensens $20Bil in CPU sales he's pitching??? I need to actually do some research on it and perhaps someone here can turn me onto a source? It is my understanding that their "CPU" is pretty much a switch that handles light workloads and just pushes any other tasks to be run on the GPU. Which is NOT the power efficient solution that big DC are looking for. Did NVDA make a new breakthrough that I wasn't aware of???

Got a relief rally yesterday on AMD and I think that is pretty interesting after we got that dip and indecision. Looks like some bullish movement could be in store for the stock in the short term even though we are down today. We need more data as we've only been outside of earnings for 2 weeks now and it materially has changed the valuation for sure. Still looking to buy dips into the gap.

wild ride

Okay so yesterday was a WILD ass ride and AMD crashed hard with the broader market into that gap below that $400 level. But it recovered as well and we got this indecision candle with very little movement. I mean ooooof just look at that spread. The market is trying to value where AMD should be and to me there are just as many buyers and sellers at this area. A lot of people were on the lookout for that $400 gap bounce and we got it.

Little concerned that AMD didn't form up support sooner and had a low of $393. That still screams to me that this thing wants a gap fill at some point but I guess we will see what NVDA does. I am one of the few, NVDA is going to deliver a great earnings by all metrics but is it enough to support the insane valuation??? But then again everytime I say that, Jensen finds some amazing way to sell people on some new future opportunity. I do think it is interesting that he left China without a deal and I wonder if he was waiting to keep that announcement for earnings bc he needs the boost.

I sold 2 weekly puts when AMD broke the $400 level for $377.5 so I might end up closing that out today and just pocketing the premium but at the end of the day I do think that AMD does want to head lower into this gap which is going to be a MONSTER buying opportunity if yesterdays price action is any indication. Might not get the whole gap fill which is just bc people want to own this thing so be prepared.

Ooooof

Okay look out below the chips selloff continues. The big catalyst is NVDA tomorrow which honestly my thoughts are, they are going to have a lack luster earnings. So looking at that, I think personally Chips are headed lower overall.

Retracement on Fib closing the gap is pretty interesting and I don't think it is crazy to ignore that. This might be that buying opportunity for everyone who missed the runup to get into it. I am going to be looking at trying to add to my position as my shares got called away with my $400 calls which seems like the right call bc if I can rebuy again then I might be just fine.

Considering selling some puts with assignment to trigger at $360-375 bc I want to own this thing. Soooo hmmmm just have to figure out the timing.

Ooooooof

Welp I hit my max loss on Friday with my spreads which was not ideal but alas it was a wild ride of the day and we were up and down all over. So yea China trip ended with a whimper and no deal major agreements which isn't great and the AMD selloff continues as we see profit taking which was known that was gonna happen after such a monster move.

MACD and RSI are breaking off of the highs which isn't a bad thing. The question really is what is going to happen at that $400 level. That is the next major area that we need to keep an eye on. I'm hoping that key level becomes the new area of support and if we dip below that might be a decent place to pick up some shares.

NVDA is on deck now and I'm kinda hoping that if they have any sort of stumbles it will benefit us and we will swing upwards as well. Jensen always does a great job of selling the broader AI market so I'm expecting us to get some lift from that as well.

Ooooooooof

So 10 yr is cracking 5.1% which is a nut punch for the mortgage world and should be hitting tech stocks pretty hard. China summit is over and some mixed bag stuff:

-China only responds to strength. We needed Trump to unequivocally say that the US will defend its interests and honor its alliance with Taiwan which we didn't get. It would have been probably a good thing to get that but Trump thinks he is pulling his "wild man with finger on the button card." which doesn't really work when you consider the TACO data.

-I think this is important bc Iran is showing the world over and over again how for all of our might and technology, an access and denial strategy with relatively cheap missiles and drones works incredibly well for controlling a tight area. Which has literally been China's strategy for Taiwan for years. A2/AD missiles to keep our ships far away and limit what our military can do. Iran is sort of a proxy war for that strategy to play out in real time and looks like the US doesn't have a good real winning strategy here. Which is not great at all. Also we have a lot of military in the region focused on Iran now so if China was going to get frisky I'm not sure we could respond in a meaningful way.

-Jensen got full approval to sell H200 in China which to me signals a thaw in chip sales which is great news. But I do wonder if the China hawks in congress will say no. Their legislation gave the office of the President the control to regulate the program but I think some people could smell blood in the water and try to limit those sales. Ehhhhh again this is where it comes back to the missed opportunity that Lisa isn't able to join the boys club trip to China.

The market is just blahhhhh today and the VIX is far above that 19 level and rising which has been bad for us lately in the past couple days. I'm trying to exit my spreads trades and considering rolling some out or just taking the L on some of the other ones. AMD has started down the past couple of days and recovered nicely during the day activity which to me shows that there is some buying still going on but the volume has been dropping very very hard which makes me concerned that retail is gone and the market is going to sit on this one for a bit.

hmmmmmmmm

Okay so AMD looks like its in the early stages of rolling over. And you know how I feel about gaps always filling. AMD is one of the only stocks that is down today along with INTC and I think that is more about investors selling some of their gains and diversifying into NVDA on the backs of the China trip. So my thought there is that they might just be just trying to de-risk and take some of their gains off the table.

Here is my concern: I feel like in AMD's case there has been a fundamental change to the game with our earnings. I feel like the guidance has given us a clear new level to really own and I'm not sure that we drop below that $400 level which was my pivot point and why I sold my calls at that level. And when you look at that level there is some support around that $400 level as well on the chart. Its not firm and we haven't spend a lot of time up here but ya gotta think that its still there in a bit.

So looking at the volume crashing and the MACD which is giving rolling over vibes after a massive run, the question for me is:

Should I roll out my calls and collect more premium or let them go here and buy back in at a future dip???? I'm making a bet both ways that we might see sub $400 prices. But hmmmmmmmm what to do?

China and Inflation

So inflation continues to run hot and honestly without Iran we were already running hot on inflation. Its like...........here's a crazy thought...........tariffs are inflationary?????? Did someone say that???? Oh every economist out there forever??? Oh okay cool cool cool cool. It seems like Powell's decision to NOT cut rates for as long as he did was the right call and history will judge him well. He waited for the lagging inflation that all data said was going to come no matter what. Iran just pushed it over the edge but hey we were already running warm.

I think it is a GREAT thing that Jensen got the China invite. I'm happy someone is in the room representing AI chip sales. I gotta say that I am a little taken a back that the market has seen the light on CPU workloads and GPU's might be falling out of favor but Trump doesn't have anyone really representing the CPU space. Gotta look at this two ways:

-Trump admin still looks at Jensen as the golden goose and the genius boy when the market has clearly shifted. They are late but they still like Jensen bc of the personal relationships hes created which is going to make it difficult for AMD/INTC to gain traction with some groups in the WH.

-Trump admin doesn't have the bandwidth to understand market shift to CPUs and I wonder if that means that our Chip exports on high end GPU's will extend to other components. AMD has always done rather decent business in China and I think some of the China restrictions hurt us a bit. I wonder if we might be able to move some units of Helios with a scaled down GPU but strong rest of the system that would be very attractive to Chinese markets and the administration wouldn't know the difference???? +++++ for Helios sales????

Just add it to the data point of what we think Helios Demand is going to be. We know now that Lisa is pricing SIGNIFICANT demand for Helios and I'm just trying to add the mental data points for surprises to the upside.

AMD clearly looks exhausted after this run and Volume has started to drop below that ALL important 40 million level. Which again is totally understandable considering the move we have had. I think we are going to stop leading this rally for a bit and its going to be about the broader market here. Keep an eye on China as big concessions out there on anything AI chip related could have big big consequences for us as well and Trump might be looking for a concrete trade win out of all of this considering whats going on with Iran.

I'm late and in a meeting will update when I can

Working hard

Sorry about that I've been hitting the pavement and working hard since early this morning. Already we've had a wild ride of the day today with the market all over the place. AMD is trying to find its footing after a monster move and I would say honestly that a lot of this is more about some profit taking and macro conditions than anything else.

What I'm watching:

-RSI was moving slightly positive but since yesterdays spinning top it looks like it is weakening from here. I was honestly expecting AMD to continue the rally higher but yesterday gave us a BIIIIIG indecision day which is rough for where we want to be.

-VIX is rising and I've seen the correlation of VIX below 17 AMD has a green day. VIX approaching 20 we retreat. Earnings is over so we don't have a major catalyst on the horizon that is going to power us higher.

-Cerberus or whatever you say is IPO-ing tomorrow and that could literally suck a lot of oxygen out of the room. So we want to be careful about that. It could power all of the chips higher as one more data point that proves the AI boom is still going strong. But it could also gobble up a lot of dollars that sort of slows down our rally potential.

oooooooooooof

Wellllllp I have been caught finally with my hands in the cookie jar folks. Usually My whole sell options at earnings works out very very well for me and this week is expiration for my $400 call options that I had. Seemed like a great idea when my avg cost basis was $200 for the shares and I was picking up $5.00 premiums for what I thought would be 1 day's worth of work. Welllllllllllllllllllllp Fuccccccccck Meeeeeeeeeeeee. Those shares are GONNNNNE.

Now look. I can whine. Talk about lost opportunity cost and all that jazz or I can try to figure out how to get back into some of this run. But hey this is what it is and I've lost this one. I'm going to be waiting for the next dip to find a way back into this but good problems to have for sure.

Shiiiiiiiit

Running late

Sorry everyone yesterday's selloff was rough for sure but honestly it was expected after such a major move. We all knew that there would be profit taking. So seing the pause and stop of the rally wasn't want you wanted to see but I would argue that was more Macro market tied to oil than anything else.

I've been eyeballing the VIX a lot these days and outside of Earnings, AMD is kinda running higher when the VIX breaks below 17. I kinda need to back test it a bit but anyone else seeing this as well? If we can get the VIX below 17 we have a green day and VIX above is mixed. VIX higher than 19 is a red day for sure.

Wooooo

Okay so people have said this OVER AND OVER AND OVER again on here and I'm going to repeat their line bc they are right: the market is forward looking!!!!!

Hard Stop

You can literally see the effect of guidance in this chart. Lisa has always sandbagged and given tepid forward guidance and we didn't get that this time. She gave exceptionally detailed and specific very good guidance. The interesting question we all have to start asking----is Lisa still sandbagging which means that this guidance probably still is the low end of what we can expect??? Or has a public relations team met with Lisa and explained to her how the market now runs on vibes and cool leather jackets????

It's really interesting to ask yourself-----what if her guidance really is the 'worst case scenario for what we can expect" Like GOOOD GOD. If it is the worst case scenario in classis Lisa fashion then saying this is a $600 stock to trigger those warrants really isn't that far of a stretch. Soooooo yea just something to think about.

Chart is sort of broken at the moment but in a good way. yesterdays movement did break us out of our RSI handle we've been at for a little bit so we sort of have broken that down trend which could signal further running. But you have gotta expect that people are going to want to take profits. So we could see some profit taking, lag and then marching higher. Just throwing it out there.

I was wrong

Sooooooo I did my thing that I always do. I wrote calls at $400 yesterday to sell for the May monthly level and picked up premiums of $5.00 for the last of my trading position. My avg purchase price for that tranche of shares was sub $200 and it was about 600 shares left after having some triggers fill during this last run up. A lesson in risk management gone bad when the unexpected happens for sure lol.

I said yesterday that I was honestly okay with having my shares called away at that $400 level and I was fine with that. And I was yesterday. Expecting just another AMD earnings call and a dump with the potential for to just jump back in. But I gotta say yesterday's call was the closest thing to a Lisa victory lap that I've heard.

-I LOVE LOVE LOVE that Lisa is taking the Victory Lap with EPYC. I have long believed and you've all heard me bitch and moan about it that we have a massive winner with our Epyc line however it was all INSTINCT INSTINCT INSTINCT . And I just am not a fan. But that changed with Open AI stated that they think CPU's could lead the way of inference loads. Now Epyc is the belle of the ball that we always knew it was

-We got first mention of Venice in the wild on an earnings call which is exciting (more below)

-I loved that Lisa went there with clients. None of this "seeing strong appetite from customers" bullshit! she called out actual new wins with specific industries that the common listener wouldn't have thought AMD was finding footing. I personally love the idea that AMD is making gains with healthcare customers bc I honestly would not have thought some of our applications make sense. But I get it now. This is why they are smarter than me.

-Shot across the bow with this line for Venice???: "more than 2x throughput per socket versus leading ARM-based AI solutions" If that isn't Lisa throwing down the gauntlet I don't know what is. Address the $4 Trillion elephant in the room. She has been very very difficult to get her to really aggressively throw out comparisons to ARM solutions bc I think we were sticking with our model while also pursuing our own ARM solutions. So this statement makes me feel like she could be hinting that ARM performance gains over x86 might not be as great as some think.

-I love that she said customer demand for Venice is higher than any other EPYC generations. So that gives us a real point of reference that we can throw out there. While we don't have like a specific breakdown of exactly how much Turin product was sold, we can make an inference that we do think that DC revenue is probably going to accelerate exponentially from here and not just steady double digit growth.

-Remember how I kept saying I wanted her to get specific with forward guidance and she was always vague using terms like "double digit" instead of throwing out some real numbers? I said double digit could mean 10% or it could also mean 99% and everything in between but both of those numbers are very very different. Lisa said CPU revs are going to grow 70% YoY in Q2. THAT is the kind of forward looking statement I have been looking for!!!!!!!!!!

So yea I trade AMD bc I make money doing it as a swing trader. I still have my core holdings which is well over 4k shares now with an avg cost below $20 and that alone is my baby that I wont touch. But ooooof finally Lisa is acting like someone that makes me want to buy and hold. Which is crazy for me to say. Bc now all of you holder for life are probably thinking of selling and taking some profits and I'm thinking of less trading and more owning lol. Sooooooooo yea I just was kinda expecting more of Lisa being Lisa but I thought mama got her groove back all of a sudden and seeing her push finally validates the plan. I dunno I was fine with my shares getting called away at $400 and today not so much. I'm not going to chase this and just let it happen but yea damnnnnn great earnings.

Welp

Fucccccccccccck me yesterday was brutal. Did not sell any calls bc welllllll I kept waiting for the price to firm up and yeaaaaaaaaaa never did. So that kinda sucks for me. AMD 100% perfect track record of delivering earnings into perfectly timed shit shows of global and macro market events continues!!!! At least today also isn't a FED day am I right???? I feel like I could honestly trade SPY just around AMD earning dates bc I know that its going to be a shit show.

Question for everyone bc I'm not paying attention------Are we not getting a conf call this quarter or is my ThinkorSwim just bugged???

So AMD is showing exhaustion here on the move upwards and RSI has weakened significantly and our MACD is signaling the early signs that the move might be ending or at least pausing here. So those that have ridden the rally should beware. This was part of my strategy with selling calls yesterday. Just looking at overall weakness and thinking hmmmm okay so if it starts to weaken here then I should be ready to pull the plug just to be save and sell calls to take some profits off the table at these levels. But if there ever was anything to push AMD for that last handle higher this earnings is it.

If we get some actual data on Helios demand beyond "we are seeing it is strong," but we actually get some real color that points to the scale of the demand then this thing is $400 EOW which is where I was looking to sell calls yesterday. Still I think a pullback is incoming just bc this has been an absolute MONSTER move that we are seeing here and so much of this is on the back of OpenAI saying that a lot of AI work is going to be done on CPU's not just GPU's. That is why INTC and AMD are taking off.

Also just throwing this out there as a little nugget from my conf last week. Someone turned me onto Helion Energy which supposedly has sustained fusion experiments that they are now trying to scale. This CEO I spoke to who is very very dialed in said he believes they are probably 2-3 years away from a scalable solution. So just an interesting idea to think about the future of power generation. Power will legit be free and exceed demand in a big big way bc Fusion is the holy grail really of energy production. He also seems to be convinced we will see data centers in space soon which I think is a stupid proposition but I do understand the power of just Billionaires being bored and wanting to spend their money on something.

Rocket Ship

Okay I'm back and goooooooooood lord. Trying to get a handle on this market. Oil is going nuts. Earnings call on deck. So much happening for AMD that we are going to need to sort of sort through the noise. I am selling calls today just to be safe bc we want to capture this move for AMD but also really take some cash off the table here.

Need to really get a handle on this market

Rocketman

Talk about a new freaking chart ehhhhh??? Yea its been a crazy ride so far. This is my last post of the week. I'm at my AI conference in Chicago for the rest of the week so if Tex or someone else wants to volunteer to get the daily post going I would greatly be in your debt.

Honestly today just seems like one of those days that you don't trade AT ALL at the moment. Frankly who knows what you are going to get at the open. It's been a crazy week with progress on an Iranian ceasefire seeming further out of reach in addition to oil pushing back over the $100 mark. Oh lets throw in a good little presidential assassination attempt for good measure and jeeeeeeze.

Like either this market is going to say: IDGAF about any of this or this might be the final shot across the bow and derail our rally. I have no idea but I'm not trading this open. I'm going to let the market settle and see how it all shakes out.