📈 Chasing Alpha Weekly
$SPY and $NDX just broke out to all-time highs. Semis are at all-time highs. And everyone thinks the move is over. They’re wrong.
Chasing Alpha Weekly drops every Sunday. I break down the macro signals, sector rotations, and specific trade setups I’m watching for the week ahead. If you’re new here — subscribe below so you don’t miss it.
The S&P and Nasdaq just broke out to all-time highs. Semiconductors are at all-time highs. And the most common thing I’m hearing right now is “I missed it.”
You didn’t miss it. You’re just looking at the wrong things.
This week I want to walk you through why analysts have been catastrophically wrong on semiconductors, what the earnings actually said, and where the money is moving next. There’s also one sector I think is setting up to get absolutely smoked — and the insiders are already telling you everything you need to know.
Let’s get into it.
What Happened Last Week
↑ Winners
$SPY & $NDX break out to all-time highs
$SMH at all-time highs — and the move is not over
$BTC posts a 4-week streak of higher highs
→ Watch
$VIX closes below 20 — fear has left the building
Breadth quietly rotating — 65% of names already under their 5-day moving average
↓ Laggards
$IGV still struggling to hold key levels
Space names rolling over on insider selling and competitive headwinds
The index looks great. Under the surface, a significant rotation is underway.
Why Everyone Is Wrong on Semiconductors
Before we get into setups, I want to spend time on the most important thing happening in this market right now — because I think most people are completely misreading it.
Eight major semiconductor companies reported earnings over the past two weeks.
Here is what actually happened:
$INTC beat EPS estimates by 2,800%
$STM beat by 225%
$TXN beat by 21%
$TSM beat by 17%
$LRCX beat by 7%
Not even the high end of analyst estimates was close to these numbers. Not even close.
And on guidance — Intel guided significantly higher, Texas Instruments raised, Lam Research raised, Taiwan Semi raised. SK Hynix said demand is so strong they offered ASML 15% above machine price just to get equipment delivered sooner. Read that again. They are paying a premium above the cost of the machine just to get it faster.
This is not a cyclical story. This is a structural demand story. And the gap between what analysts expected and what actually happened is the widest I have seen in this sector in years.
The wider the gap between expectations and outcome, the more money there is to make. Right now that gap is widest in semis — and most people are on the wrong side of it.
When does this turn? When earnings growth slows. Has it slowed? No. It is still accelerating into levels most people aren’t even aware of. Until that changes, the thesis doesn’t change.
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The 5 Setups I’m Watching This Week
📌 $MU / $SNDK — Memory Is Still the Trade
Demand for HBM and DRAM accelerating — Micron responsible for roughly 50% of S&P earnings growth on a percentage basis
$SNDK flagging cleanly after its breakout bar — holding the move
Supply cannot keep up with demand at any price point right now
People keep waiting for this trade to be over. The earnings say otherwise. I’m still long and have no reason to change that.
📌 $TXN / $ADI — Analog Semis Breaking Out After a 5-Year Base
$TXN just hit all-time highs on massive volume after basing for four to five years
Analog chips go into everything — data centers, industrial, EVs, defense
Equal-weight semis outperforming AI-weighted semis — this rally is broadening out
Nobody is talking about these names. That’s exactly the point. This is the setup I think most people are going to kick themselves for missing.
📌 $STX / $WDC — Storage Is the Next Move
Analysts upgrading $STX and $WDC ahead of earnings — not by 10 or 20 points, by hundreds
Semiconductors go into things. Storage is one of those things.
Same demand tailwind as memory, earlier in the recognition cycle
If you understand why $MU ran, you understand why storage is next. The street is just now catching up to what the supply-demand picture has been saying for months.
📌 $EQIX / $DLR / $DTCR — Go Global on Data Centers
US data center buildout hitting energy and regulatory walls
Capital moving to Malaysia, Singapore, Australia — anywhere energy is cheap and permitting is fast
$DTCR grinding higher every single week without anyone noticing
This theme is not slowing down. It’s relocating. I own $EQIX and $DLR and I see no reason to change that position.
📌 $ASTS — This Space Trade Is Setting Up to Get Smoked
This is the one people are going to push back on — so let me be direct about what I’m seeing.
The CTO sold 90% of his stake across multiple transactions in March and April
A major founder has been liquidating millions of shares into every bounce
The stock broke its 55-day, is rolling over, and the negative divergences are getting bigger
When a chief technology officer cuts his position by 90%, that is not noise. That is information. And when you overlay it with $GSAT getting bought by Amazon — which changes the competitive landscape significantly — and a legal brief suggesting SpaceX stock may go to creditors rather than the company, the thesis for owning this has materially weakened.
I’m not long this. I’m watching it closely for a short setup below $48.
What I’m Watching This Week
$AMZN Earnings
Does AWS get rerated based on semi demand? How they characterize Anthropic usage will matter.
Long $SMH / Short $IGV
Still the cleanest pair trade in the market. Still working. Still not done.
$ASTS
Needs to hold $48. If it loses that level, the next meaningful support is significantly lower.
Space Sector Broadly
$GSAT buyout changes the competitive landscape more than people realize. Watch how the other names respond.
The Bottom Line
Everyone is asking whether they missed the semiconductor move. That is the wrong question.
The right question is: where are you relative to what the earnings are actually saying versus what the consensus expects? Right now that gap is enormous — in favor of the bulls. Analog semis are breaking out of multi-year bases. Storage is next. Data centers are going global. And the demand for the equipment that builds all of it is so intense that customers are paying above list price just to get it sooner.
That is not a market that is running out of steam. That is a market that is broadening.
Be on the right side of it.
The full breakdown — including the reflexivity framework, the $CARR short squeeze trade walkthrough, and the full semiconductor earnings analysis — is on YouTube now.
For educational purposes only. Not financial advice. Do your own research.
Worried about RKLB if this will be a short pullback or a lasting one