Hey trader friends-
I want to kick off the post by sharing some thoughts on current high probability levels/set ups as well as some stocks which I think can benefit if we continue to see signs of strength in this market.
I am using June emini levels for the post. If anyone is using SPX, please subtract about 50 dollars from these levels. The last traded print on Emini June is 5680, and on SPX it is 5628.
Let us first begin with the emini current market structure.
So unless you have been living under a rock, you know all about the current elevated volatility in these markets. There are a lot of reasons being given for the sell off from tariffs and forex flows to weakening Econ data but I think the primary driver of this is the Trump admin perhaps wanting the stock market to be lower so they can pump it later.
In this backdrop, some of our levels shared last week at the lows, in S&P500 and stocks like PLTR, SMCI, TSLA, NVDA etc did exceedingly well in capping the downside and we saw robust rallies. NVDA for instance rallied over 15% from the lows.
While these bounces were impressive, some of the more common conventional signs of a market bottom are missing in the moment, but there are few hints to go by.
In auction theory, both the volume as well as price action are closely related. Generally for trend traders, you need to see a price expansion that is followed by stronger and stronger orderflow. Now while the markets remain in downtrend, there are a few things which show up on the tape (Level 2) which indicate presence of buyers.
To keep things simple for our chart based readers, when you see a smaller range bar on higher volume, this indicates counter forces. So pay attention when the market forms a smaller range bar on uptrends with higher volume and pay attention when a market forms a smaller range bar in downtrends on high volume. Both of these are counter trend indicators and their respective highs and lows potentially can be used as resistance and support respectively for the next auction.
Now while things do appear very grim in terms of uncertainty around tariffs and increasingly bearish data flow, note my view that the maximum benefit from Trump admin when it comes to economic growth is yet to hit. This market will see better days, it is just not apparent right now.
In the prior Trump admin, it paid to buy any dips from 10% to 30% range. We always retested the prior highs. Now, in this particular sell off in 2025, we are 10% off the highs. I cannot predict if we will see another 10% or another 20% sell off from here but I am going to leverage the auctions from day to day basis and week to week basis to come up with high probability setups for myself and would love to share them with our folks here.
Anyone who claims to know what these markets will do next is simply not being upfront with you. Now, there will be opportunities in this. This will be a good market for any active trader who has good grasp of technicals and orderflow. For instance, we made some calls in NVDA, TSLA, SMCI, PLTR, HOOD, which despite this sell off, showed us profitable trading in last week or two.
I do not see this change. We will have buy trades in downtrends, we will have buy trades in uptrends and we will have sell trades in downtrends. This is not going to change. What may change is the size of the stop losses when we are wrong which happens.
In decent bull markets, we can expect to pay 3-4% on any trade to see if this is going to work out. When VIX is so high above 20, this stop loss could be anywhere from 10 to 20% below the last traded prices. Again, if your stop is too tight when volatility is so high, it will only end in frustration as the market stops you out, only to continue in your direction later.
Folks, on an admin side note, I have decided to execute another price change from $49 shortly. This will not impact any of our existing subs and they will be grandfathered in. I am sharing not only futures levels which are the best, we also share options and stocks. The prices have to reflect the value being offered. Similar publications charge $300 a month and they are right about once a blue moon.
Now going back to my earlier point, a 30% or so sell off takes us to 4200-4300 levels which is the Mother of all supports (MOAS). I have my hesitation to think we will test 4300 in this particular sell off.
I think we may be lucky if we get to 5200-5470s. The reason being the mega caps are still expected to grow their earnings and sales quite decently. There is still a lot of money on the sidelines and Trump admin actions can increase Global liquidity.
I do not think we will break below 5200/5470s without a fight here. This thought process is obviously geared towards me wearing an investor hat. This is irrelevant if we are trading the futures or SPY 0.00%↑ day to day. It is pointless when we are buying NVDA Monthly calls like the one I gave last week which went from 3 dollars to 10 in a week!
With this out of the way, let us talk about some key markets and emini levels for next week
Starting with TSLA
I want to talk about TSLA as a case study of how the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) is a bunch of Malarkey. Now don’t think of this as a critique of Tesla but simply an observation of how the collective market consciousness works.
TSLA stock is a classic and timeless example of futility of any sort of fundamental and technical analysis on stocks. Rather it shows the reality is in perception and momentum.
With TSLA, when it was trading 480s, one of my major concerns was the impact of Q1 earnings on the stock, which I believed would have come in extremely poor.
Due to Musk’s actions, he has successfully managed to alienate thousands of potential buyers. So ironically, a lot of the earnings risk has been neutralized in last few weeks as this stock has been hammered down to a point of no return.
When you critique this company due to high multiples at 500 and your argument is that the cars will not sell, it is a very legit criticism.
Now if you are using the same story that the cars won’t sell at 200, your argument loses some of its edge. I agree that the cars will not sell and I think the sales and profits will have to come from somewhere and this somewhere could be services add on as well as the energy business.
Back when the stock was trading $480, the company still made half a billion in bottomline every month. Now at $220, the company still makes half a billion in profits a month.
So what changed?
Momentum.
Don’t get me wrong, I still think Musk remains extremely distracted and some of his actions are simply going to go a long way killing this brand for years to come for many potential buyers.
So it is in dynamics like this that market can potentially create opportunity for someone willing to wait things out to turn.
Now the way I envision this TSLA market sell off is its interplay within the EV industry as a whole. At Friday’s close at 250, this company still sells at a 70 PE. Its closest viable rival Rivian has never made a cent in profit but at the same time it sells at a valuation which is basically a rounding error compared to TSLA market cap.
On top of that I think autonomous driving will be a commodity. All AI products will be a commodity like the internet today is.
So let us assume TSLA bottoms in next few days to weeks. This bottom could be due to oversold conditions may be the earnings surprise to the upside. Who knows. But this could translate to the whole EV industry as a whole and I would argue that RIVN could be better positioned for a 2X move here rather than a TSLA.
Take a look at RIVN. I think it remains a potentially 2X winner so close here to 10 dollars. Now as far as risk goes, I think 8 can be a decent line in sand. If you are going to begin to close below 8 on RIVN that would void this argument and I will want RIVIAN to reclaim the $10 handles before being bullish on it again.
Now doing this sort of analysis, you want to be cognizant of all the risks. RIVN currently has a book value of $6 billion. So this naturally gives it some sort of fundamental floor (the company itself sells at $12 billion valuation). Compare this to TSLA at 70 billion in book value and a $800 billion in valuation.
In the intermediate term, the $12 CALLS going out to June of this year are like 80 cents. Longer term, January 2027 $20 calls are like a dollar and change on RIVN. I do think if think if this market finds a bottom here, the IV on these calls can increase and when you are long CALLS that could be a good thing for the underlying calls. RIVN potentially also remains a good candidate for PUT credits and PUT credit spreads. On paper the max loss on this is a 1000 bucks per contract in the worst case scenario.
Levels for this week
If you wanna give the bulls a benefit of the doubt here and assume we have seen some sort of swing lows last week then they need to hold the lows near 5559 from last week. On the upside, I am interested in 5743-5744 coming in as potential resistance that needs to be overcome. We last traded 5680 at time of this post. As far as planned risk goes, Monday we have the core retail sales and then on Wednesday we have the FOMC so pretty action packed week.
I personally feel if we close next week here above 5559, we have seen the lows in this swing cycle and we could rally upward into 5850s in next couple of weeks but need to see a confirmation auction this week.
Scenario 1: Unless overcome, I think 5744 may be weekly time frame resistance for a move down into 5620-5630.
Scenario 2: If tested, 5559 could provide support for a move back above 5620s.
The edge case for me on the week will be 5744 on the upside and 5559 on the downside.
HOOD
With HOOD, all this crypto volatility I think is great for Robinhood. I remain bullish on HOOD.
May be it dips into 30 dollar area. I think if 30 dollars area remains supported on HOOD, we may test 45 and a couple of closes above 45 may take us back to the 50 dollar range.
RGTI
This is an older orderflow stock I shared first when it was around 5-6 dollars. It pumped hard into 20+ dollars and then gave up most of its gains pretty easily.
Since then it has been wedged here going nowhere really.
I do think this is potentially a big long term winner with Line in Sand around 5 dollars. It is 11 at the moment.
In the short term trade, I am interested in these April 17th $11 CALLS which are offered right now around $1.8.
If we get a swoon in the general market next week and we see a pullback in RGTI into 9-10 dollar range, if these calls are had a dollar or less, I think it makes them quite attractive from risk to reward.
MP
I am liking this technical set up in the MP stock.
Look at this chart below.
If we hold this swing low, around may be 22 bucks, I think we could head higher into 38-40 dollars on this stock.
BABA
With BABA if you recall a couple of weeks ago, I called for it to dip into 130 and see it push back above 140 from there.
This is kind of how this played out with very few takers below 130 last week.
I think the technicals continue to look good on BABA for an eventual push higher above 150 which could set its sights on 200 dollar area. I will say 115-122 remains a key Line in Sand on BABA where is will invalidate my thesis but so far it looks great.
SOUN
This has also been a good orderflow play with both calls and puts on the short term side. NVDA cut it off from their portfolio which has made this range bound in last few weeks.
If the general market remains soft and unable to take out 5740 resistance in next week or so, look at the April 17th $10 PUTS. They are around a dollar or so but I think if they were to offer into 70-80 cents or lower, I like these PUTS as lottos.
SMCI
This is yet another tremendous orderflow stock which has risen about 20% from the recent support level at 35.
Longer term, I still like this action in SMCI albeit my longer term Line in Sand on this will be around 30-35 bucks.
It is 42 at the moment, I will like to see this supported on any dips lower. SOX stocks in general are the leading indicators and if we manage to carve out a low this week and hold 5559s on the emini index, I think this could fuel SMCI on dips and we could see it push past 50 and an open above 50 could set its sights on 60 dollar area.
Now remember what I said earlier about the general market volatility. If we begin to see any prints under 5559s next week, any of these bullish thesis that I shared above, though they dont die, it just means we can probably expect some more short term downside in these names.
So once and if we do bottom, these names will bounce harder but they do need general market tailwinds as they are extremely high beta stocks.
~ tic
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