Ground Game

THE SEMIS ARE STILL A RALLY INSIDE A DOWNTREND AND I AM NOT BUYING THE CLUSTER. C08 tops the sector sheet on three-month return, but look at what those "leaders" actually are today: ALNT -22.5% off its 63-day high and 4.5% under its twenty-day, VSH -24.8% and -1.9%, ACLS -24.2% and -3.3%, SANM -27.1% and -8.9%, CRDO -41.5% with only 8 of 20 closes over its twenty after a +10.8% Tuesday bounce. That is not leadership, that is a group recovering from a wreck, and the cluster's headline return is stale. So I am not touching the bounce. I am selling the weakest of that complex, not buying it. WHAT I DO OWN IS THE GRIND. CRVL is still the cleanest trend on the sheet — 20 of 20 closes over its twenty, 30 of 30 over its fifty, +32.8% in three months, -2.9% off its high, and Tuesday's 82.67 pullback came on 0.86x. Buy 85.20 over the 85.15 ceiling, kill 79.00. EXPO printed 78.43 Monday and holds 19 of 20 closes over its twenty with up-volume/down-volume 3.43 and volume drying to 0.46x — buy 77.80, add 75.50-76.20, kill 73.40. GCT has 30 of 30 closes over its fifty, up/down volume 4.33, +43.3% over three months, and volume dried to 0.48x while it coils under 60.96 — buy 60.60, kill 55.50. ADMA is the biotech version: 20 of 20 over its twenty, -1.4% off its high, +28.2% over three months — buy 11.35, kill 10.45. THE FRESH BREAKOUTS ARE WHERE I WANT NEW MONEY. AEO is the one I like most: new 63-day high at 19.70 Tuesday, closed 19.42 on 1.54x after 1.45x Monday, two straight up days, and only +8.7% over its twenty — that is the freshest breakout in the consumer cyclicals cluster and it carries better risk than KSS, which is +30.8% in a month and 10% over its own twenty. Buy AEO 19.75, add 19.00-19.30, kill 18.30. APLE and PEB both closed at new 63-day highs Tuesday in lodging — APLE -0.2% off its high with up/down volume 2.31 and a 2.0% ATR, PEB 20 of 20 closes over its twenty with up/down volume 2.74. Buy APLE 18.70, kill 17.85; buy PEB 21.45, kill 20.30. THE BANKS ARE ONE TRADE, NOT TWO. GBCI came back +10.2% in a week, closed 49.06 after tagging 49.31, and sits 8.3% over its twenty and 7.4% over its fifty. FIBK is +6.4% on the week at 37.83, back above a fifty-day at 36.39. C01 has the tightest within-dispersion on the whole sector sheet at 2.54%, which means these two move together — so I bid the pair and size them as one position, never chased: GBCI 47.80-48.60 kill 45.00, FIBK 37.30-37.80 kill 35.90. HWKN is the other new name: record Q2 with revenue +12% to $314M and EPS +23%, gapped +13.6% Tuesday on 2.77x, and it had already run 20 of 20 closes over its twenty BEFORE the gap — that is accumulation, not a one-candle spike. But at 153.85 it is 15.7% over its twenty, so I bid the retest, 146.00-148.50, and 148.50 is my hard cap; kill 141.50. IDT is still coiled — 20 of 20 over its twenty, 30 of 30 over its fifty, volume dried to 0.49x, -4.6% on the week and holding. Buy a reclaim of 83.50 or the 79.80-80.40 shelf, kill 79.20. THE PUT BOOK IS SOLD INTO STRENGTH OR NOT AT ALL. All three bounced Monday-Tuesday on shrinking volume, which is exactly what I want to sell: ACMR 55.00-56.50, kill a close over 61.00 (-14.4% under its twenty, 3 of 20 closes over it, -31.6% in a month); IESC 244-250, kill a close over 264 (-13.8% under its twenty, 4 of 20 over it and only 4 of 30 over its fifty, -29.4% in a month); DY 245-252, kill a close over 255 (1 of 20 closes over its twenty, 0 of 30 over its fifty, -38.2% in three months, -47.1% off its high). Never at the market on these — they are already 10-14% under trend and a bounce can run. BENCHED: HRI gapped +22.9% on 2.84x but it is 4 of 20 closes over its twenty and 1 of 30 over its fifty — a one-candle spike out of a downtrend, not a leader, and no bid. BMI faded its gap from 158.40 to a 151.75 close on 1.80x; pullback bid only, 147-150, kill 143. CRDO, POWL, ALNT, VSH, ACLS and SANM are all broken and bouncing; I do not short a knife that just bounced and I do not buy it either. MUR is out: 20 of 20 over its twenty but the energy cluster is the worst on the sheet (-9.2% in a month) and it just lost 4.2% off its high — I do not need that fight. RULES UNCHANGED: weekly calls and puts only, nothing at the market, no add more than 12% above the twenty-day EMA (binding on HWKN at 148.50), and every ticket carries a kill level that flattens me on a close. Small caps reward the leaders. I buy strength, three yards at a time.