March 14, 2024

Markets:

Stock futures remained in the green on Thursday despite a hotter-than-expected wholesale inflation reading.

Investors were buying major technology shares like Apple and Microsoft early Thursday. Trading platform Robinhood popped 12% after the company reported a 16% increase in assets under custody in February from the prior month.

February’s producer price index, a measure of wholesale inflation, advanced 0.6% last month. Excluding food and energy prices, core PPI climbed 0.3% in February, compared to an estimate from economists polled by Dow Jones that forecast headline PPI increased by 0.3% in February, or 0.2% for the core reading.

The PPI report is the last major piece of economic data to be released prior to the Federal Reserve’s upcoming policy meeting, set for March 19-20.

Meanwhile, the U.S. House of Representatives’ recently passed bill — which could lead to a TikTok ban — may have larger ramifications both within the broader tech sector and in Chinese-linked equities, the strategist added.

Portfolio:

We enter today's session holding set-ups in NVDL, IBIT, IOT, PLTR, HIM, and PATH – which is running nicely in premarket. Watching today's price action response as we head into tomorrow's monster option expiration date. I'm curious to see the final numbers for tomorrow's expiration but this will cause swings. Anticipate the swings both ways and we absolutely love to see the activity of monster lots going off to position traders / funds ahead of next week's NVDA AI event and also the Fed. Technically, market is sitting on a launch pad. Just need to now get through the Fed next week. Stay patient and let's continue to pinpoint opportunity in specific sectors. Be on high alert today.