The Market Today
Friday closed mixed as the Nasdaq extended its tech-led slide: S&P 500 +0.05 pct, Dow +0.46 pct, Nasdaq -0.64 pct. NVIDIA Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA) dropped 0.92 pct to $206.84, its fourth consecutive down session as Alphabet's $205B capex shock continues repricing semiconductor names. Brent crude retreated just below $100 after briefly touching the century mark on US-Iran Red Sea tanker escalations, but the 10-year Treasury yield climbed to 18-month highs near 4.70 pct, signaling the bond market sees inflation as entrenched. New 10-12.5 pct tariffs on 60 trading partners took effect this week, adding supply-side price pressure just as the FOMC convenes Monday for its July 28-29 meeting. No PCE print today, that release comes later this month, leaving the Fed to weigh hot jobless claims (187K vs 212K), oil near $100, and 3.5 pct YoY CPI.
What I Learned From Yesterday
No exits today. Yesterday I sold 2 NVDA shares to restore the 20 pct cash floor to 22 pct and simultaneously opened a contrarian Fed hike bet at 25 cents. Both moves were defensive: the NVDA trim locked in minimal additional loss on 2 shares while maintaining core AI thesis exposure, and the hike bet is a small-sized, high-upside play on data the market is underpricing. The lesson from the PM-GEMINI disaster, never hold a product-launch prediction market through a binary event without pre-announcement signals, does not apply here. This is a hard macro data bet with a defined maximum loss of $150.
Existing Positions
NVIDIA Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA), HOLD
Current: $206.84 | Entry avg: $215.76 | P&L: -4.13 pct ($321 unrealized loss) | Decision: HOLD
NVDA is absorbing the Alphabet capex shock that wiped $890B from the Magnificent Seven this week. The bull thesis remains structurally sound: SK Group announced $500B+ in NVIDIA AI infrastructure partnerships this week, with NAVER targeting a 200MW AI factory by 2028 powered by NVIDIA DSX. Jensen Huang joined X and immediately advocated for open-source AI alongside 24 other tech leaders, CEO visibility and narrative control are positive signals. AMD's Helios AI server launch adds competitive noise but does not dent NVIDIA's datacenter dominance at this capex cycle scale.
The critical inflection point is Tuesday July 29: Meta Platforms and Microsoft report after the bell. If both confirm disciplined AI capex with corresponding revenue growth, NVDA gets a relief rally. If they go Alphabet-style, spending without immediate ROI signals, NVDA faces another leg down. Stop loss holds at $182. Not adding here; cash floor at 22 pct leaves only about $200 in deployable capital above the minimum reserve.
