That was a week. I think. It was just one week, right? '

The week ended on elevated options expirations-inspired trading volume. Equity markets opened up decently enough, and then sold off about an hour into the regular session. After that, it was a chop-fest within a defined range for the remainder of the day... albeit at that lower level.

Technology was again the best part of our marketplace, though all 11 S&P Sector SPDR ETFs did close in the red. For the day, the S&P 500 gave up 1.1%, while the Nasdaq Composite surrendered 0.7%.

There were five winners among the Dow 30, led by Microsoft (MSFT) . That stock was up 1.05% on Friday, as Travelers (TRV) , Goldman Sachs (GS) , JPMorgan Chase (JPM) , and Merck (MRK) all lost 3% or more over the six and a half hours that it takes two bells to ring. Spreading out the S&P 500, FedEx (FDX) was the day's clear winner, up 7.81%. while First Republic Bank (FRC)  had another awful day, down 33.15%. Five other S&P 500 stocks gave up at least 7%.

Taking a look at other financial markets, the U.S. 10-Year Note went out at a yield of 3.41%, while the 2-Year Note paid 3.85% by day's end as "recessionary" pricing has certainly hit the bond market. The U.S. Dollar Index gave up some ground on the day, but that did not help crude oil much. With recession lurking, WTI and Brent both sold off, as did gasoline and natural gas. As one might expect, gold, silver, and Bitcoin were all strong.

Until Next Time...

I would like to add that it has been a pleasure sitting in Doug's seat on his Diary today. I thank you for your always warm welcome and for the fun participation. For those who celebrate, again, I bid you a Happy St. Patrick's Day. For those who do not... At least it's the weekend!! We can pretend that we are just normal people through Saturday evening. After that, if you're like me, it's all prep work for the week ahead.

Ahh, the week ahead. The macro will be kind of thin (New Home Sales, Durable Goods Orders, Flash PMIs). Earnings will be sparse. We'll hear from McCormick (MKC) , Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) , Lululemon Athletica (LULU) , Micron (MU) , and RH (RH) , but that's about it.

Next week does, however, bring about an FOMC policy decision and this one will come with almost certainly inaccurate economic projections and a lot of media attention. What could go wrong?

God bless.

The top five active MLB leaders in wins are:

1) Justin Verlander (DET, HOU, NYM): 244

2) Zack Greinke (KC, MIL, LAA, LAD, ARI, HOU, KC): 223

3) Max Scherzer (ARI, DET, WSN, LAD, NYM): 201

4) Clayton Kershaw (LAD): 197

5) Adam Wainwright (STL): 195

FYI: Number 6 is Cole Hamels at 163 wins.

A brief rundown of two weeks full of some ugly macro. 

Monday, March 6

Factory Orders - really, really awful

Tuesday, March 7

Wholesale Inventories - awful

Powell testifies 

Wednesday, March 8

Powell Testifies 

Friday, March 10

Unemployment Rate - up

Underemployment Rate - up

Participation - up

Average hourly earnings - up less than expected

Average weekly hours - down 

Tuesday, March 14

CPI - slowing, but still hot 

Wednesday, March 15

Retail Sales - awful

Business Inventories - negative

Empire State - awful

PPI - ice cold 

Thursday, March 16

Philly Fed - awful

Housing Starts - actually grew 

Friday, March 17

Industrial Production - flat

Capacity Utilization - awful

CB Leading Indicators - awful

Consumer Sentiment - awful

Two weeks ago I wrote to Real Money readers about Salesforce (CRM) and made the case for a target price of $206, based on a $179 pivot coming out of a cup with handle pattern.

Readers will see that since then CRM has gone for quite the ride. The stock gapped higher in response to earnings and an apparent evolution of the way the firm will go about its business thanks to a number of activist investors.

The stock soared through our pivot on the breakout, but that breakout stalled at $194. The stock came in and found support at its 21 day EMA (Exponential Moving Average). Relative Strength has been rebuilt in the aftermath of that sell-off and the daily MACD (Moving Average Convergence Divergence) is in better shape too.

I am not going to change my target price just yet, but if this stock can make a successful run at $194, then in the back of my head I see $223 as a possibility... after a $206 sale of course, because we are disciplined traders.

Justin Verlander of the New York Mets is the active leader across the Major Leagues in wins with 244.

There are two other active pitchers who have already reached 200 wins and two more who should reach that milestone this year.

Name these four pitchers. Hint.. Jacob deGrom of the Texas Rangers has only won 82 games in his entire career to this point... so he's not one of them.

... Usually sell-off going into a recession. Correct?

I am not in this name, and have not been for a while. Nor am I in its key competitors such as Lam Research (LRCX) or KLA Corp (KLAC) , neither of whom has as interesting a chart.

Check out what happened as the stock tried to break out from a $116 pivot created by that blue cup with handle pattern. The breakout flamed out at $125, well below where I would have placed my target price had I been in the name at the time.

What has developed since is starting to look like an ascending triangle with that $125 top as a new pivot. In fact, the stock has run into resistance at that level today. Should Applied Materials (AMAT) take and hold $125, I have $144 as a potential target. Just an idea.

By now we all know that 11 US banks, including the largest banks in the country, joined in depositing a torrent of cash totaling $30B in First Republic Bank (FRC) in an apparently coordinated effort to stop a panic from spreading beyond the failures of Silicon Valley Bank (SIVB) and Signature Bank (SBNY) last week into this past weekend.

The large money center banks... JP Morgan (JPM) , Bank of America (BAC) , Wells Fargo (WFC) , and Citigroup (C) all deposited $5B in uninsured deposits a piece in FRC, while Morgan Stanley (MS) and Goldman Sachs (GS) both ponied up $2.5B.

Five other banks deposited $1B in cash each. Those five banks were US Bancorp (USB) , PNC Financial (PNC) , Truist Financial (TFC) , Bank of New York Mellon (BK) , and State Street Corp (STT) .

These are ordinary deposits, the idea being to shore up the immediate issue of depositors fleeing First Republic in fright. Obviously, First Republic will still have to deal with a tougher economic environment and the higher interest rate regime that put the regionals in this position in the first place. Not to mention that net interest margin will be a tougher game from here on out as the competition for consumer and business savings only gets fiercer.

Now, billionaire and alarmist (my opinion) investor Bill Ackman has flagged risks of contagion due to this $30B deposit. Ackman referred to the deposit as a "fictional" vote of confidence that only spreads the apparent default risk from First Republic to banks that had no apparent risk of that kind.

I think this time he may have a point. What says you?

I will be filling in for Chris Versace for a short Action Alerts PLUS video-taped interview close to the opening bell.

Hence, there will be a small hole in my attention to the timeline.

I expect the interview to take 20 minutes or so. Max.

This morning, five star rated (by TipRanks) analyst Joseph Moore of Morgan Stanley upgraded his rating for Nvidia (NVDA) from "equal-weight" to "overweight" while taking his target price up to $304 from $255.

Moore made note that he felt that the weaknesses in gaming and the data center had for the most part played out, and that the development of generative or generational artificial intelligence will overshadow these other or former trends.

Earlier this week, I wrote a piece for Real Money, upping my target price for NVDA from $270 to $280. Readers really have to see what this stock is doing on a daily chart.

While still respecting the upward sloping Pitchfork model that we had placed upon these shares, the stock has broken out of that month-long base with the $244 pivot. I would not be surprised to see a retest of this pivot from above.

I am bringing my "add level" up to $231 to $226, while my "panic point" remains $222. The $280 target price must stand until it is at least challenged for me to consider adjusting it again so soon.

As I was writing this, I noticed that Citigroup's Ronald Josey (also rated at five stars by TipRanks) just reiterated his "buy" rating on NVDA along with his $305 target.

This morning, as something like $2.8 trillion of options contracts expire, some markets are probably showing less volatility than one might have expected ahead of the event.

S&P Futures: -1 vs Fair Value

Nasdaq futures: +21 vs. fair Value

10-Year Note: Yields 3.51%

2-Year Note: Yields 4.12%

30-Day T-Bill: Yields 4.66%

WTI Crude: $69.36 last, +1.48%

Gold: $19,34.90 last, +0.63%

Copper: $3.945 last, +2.08%

Bitcoin: $26,696 last, +8.07%

US Dollar Index: 104.18 last, -0.22%.

It's Friday. Happy St. Patrick's Day! La Fheile Padraig sona duit! (Gaelic).

Time to rise and shine. It's been a wild week for sure, and what happens when the environment provides change? We adapt. We overcome. When the environment becomes wild, so do we. We hunt. We catch. We eat. So, it has been written. So, it is the way.

Enough with the niceties. Let's get ready to grab this day by the throat, kick it in the pants and drag it home. From my perspective, this has been a pretty decent trading week despite the obvious weakness in both the banking sector as well as the economy here at home. Of course, this is all on top of the usual. The usual being the fight against inflation, the lingering remnants of global pandemic, and the impacts of everything from heightened geopolitical tension to outright conventional kinetic warfare.

What will the Fed do? What has the Fed done? Have they done enough? Oh, have they. Go get yourself another cup of joe. Pound your face (push-ups) for 50. Walk around the block twice, and then we rock.

It is I, Sarge, and I will be filling in for Doug today. To victory.