Next Day Prep #218: Relief Rally or Real Move? Broadcom Is the Deciding Vote – Wednesday 3/4/2026

Welcome to Next Day Prep. Review today, prepare tomorrow. Let's dive in. The market finally exhaled today. S&P up, NASDAQ up, Bitcoin above 73K. Bulls got their first clean win of the week. But here's the thing. One earnings report tonight could erase all of it in the first five minutes of Thursday's session. Yeah, and that's exactly the tension we're sitting in right now. Right. Okay, so walk me through the scorecard. All three indices up, sectors rotating back to risk on, but you're not fully convinced this is the all clear, are you? I mean, the numbers look great on the surface. S&P up eight-tenths, NASDAQ up 1.3, Russell up 1.1. Clean sweep higher for the first time this week. Yeah. So what led? Discretionary by a mile, plus 2.2%. Amazon up almost four. Tesla up three and a half. Wow. And Coinbase? Exploded 14.5% on the Bitcoin move. Oh, man. And that Bitcoin move was insane. Though, I mean, how much of that is sustainable versus short squeeze fuel? Fuel. That's the real question, right? And semis recovered, too. PHLX semi-indrex up almost 2%. SanDisk up 6%. Micron up 5.5%. Memory names were on fire. Right, right. Okay, so flip side, what dragged? Energy down 7 tenths. Consumer staples down half a percent. And here's the thing about staples. Their ATR is at percentile rank zero right now. Wait, zero? Zero. Multi-week low. Mm-hmm. And I'd pump the brakes on reading that as purely good for risk on. Staples sitting still isn't the same as money rotating into risk. It's more like nobody's moving. Defensive money isn't rushing back in. It's just parked. So fragile, not committed. Exactly. Exactly. And here's the reality check. only 44.3% of stocks are above their 40-day moving average. Even after today's rally? Even after today's rally. 67% above the 20-day looks fine, but the intermediate trend Still broken Sure So like green on the surface yellow underneath Yellow underneath Exactly That what we taking into tonight Look think of it like a patient whose fever broke overnight. They feel better, but the doctor still wants to see the blood work before sending them home. Yeah, that's a good analogy. Tape is healing, but not healed. Let's look at the specific setups that drove today's moves, because understanding why they worked is how we find tomorrow's winners. Right. And this is where the lessons are. Raw stores was up over 8%. What made that a textbook setup? Beat and raise in this macro environment. That's rare. Revenue up 12.2% to $6.64 billion. Comp sales up 9%. Guided Q1 comps up 7% to 8%. That's like a sprinter who won the race and told you they'll run faster next quarter. Oh man, in this environment? You can't ask for more than that. Right. But like GitLab had 24% revenue growth and still dropped. Like, what does that even mean? Growth is supposed to be rewarded right now. I mean, guidance miss, sentiment score of negative two, margin concerns. When you're already sitting 58% off your 52-week highs? You have no cushion. Zero. None. Revenue growth doesn't matter if a guy disappoints. The market doesn't care what you did last quarter. It cares what you're promising next quarter. Brutal lesson. COIN and app both showed up in the continuation scans. Why treat them differently? Mm-hmm. COIN had the fuel. Bitcoin above 73K, R vol of 1.7, institutional volume backing the move. Continuation trigger above 205, confirmed. And app? Apps up 10% but extended. ATR%m of negative 1.3 tells you it's overextended. You don't pull a stretched rubber band further. So you wait for the snapback. Yeah. Exactly. Wait for it to pull back to 465, 470. Then you load up with a stop below 455. I love that discipline. What's the broader scan telling us? Reversal bullish signal count came in at 104. That's a high number, and it tells you the character of this tape. The market is hunting oversold bounces not breaking out to new highs That a different and more fragile type of rally Right Okay so and this is the part that gets me everything we do tomorrow morning hinges on one thing that happened after the close tonight. It's Broadcom. Walk me through why this one print matters so much for Thursday. It's like, you know that feeling when the final exam is the only thing that matters for your grade? Everything else this week was basically homework. This is the grade. So it's not just AVGO, it's the whole company. The entire semiconductor complex. AVGO closed at 317.53, up 1.18% heading into the print. Beaten rates? Every semi-name follows. And it's not just AVGO tonight. Thursday brings initial jobless claims at 830. ADP came in at 63K versus 42K consensus, so labor markets showing resilience. Mm-hmm. But the real macro binary is Friday's February jobs report, which means Thursday is a positioning day, not a full commitment day. Yeah. And oil? 7470 with Iran conflict headlines. A breakup of 7576 reignites inflation fears. If that happens on the same day AVGO disappoints. Tech weakness plus inflation anxiety. Double hit. That's why we're not pressing size on Thursday. Got it. So we've got a binary tonight and a macro event Friday that shapes everything. Walk me through both sides of the play. Bullish. Broadcom beats and raises. Semis extend gains. S&P challenges 40-day SMA resistance. But confirmation requires NASDAQ holding above Wednesday's close with broad participation. Not just mega cap. Not just mega cap. And here's the thing. Tech sector ATR is at the 21st percentile. That's a compressed spring. If AVGO is the catalyst, that volatility uncoils hard to the upside. Oh, wow. And the bearish scenario? Bearish AVGO disappoints or guides cautiously, semi-gains reverse. Watch for staples and utilities outperformance as the defensive rotation signal. What utilities ATR telling us right now 84th percentile When institutional money is actively buying volatility in defensive sectors that a tell They not waiting to see how this plays out They already hedging It's not a fire yet, but the smoke detector is going off in the next room. You don't ignore that. Right. OK. Top names on the watch list. Walk me through them. Coin. Continuation above 205, target 220 plus, stop 198. Bitcoin momentum is intact. Yep. ASTS, currently 104.89, but we want entry at 100 round number support. That aligns with the prior consolidation zone. Stop below 97, Rvol 1.5. We want the market to come to us here, not chase it $5 higher. Right. Let it come to you. And ESLT, this is the one that doesn't get talked about enough. Rvol 2.3, that's real institutional footprint. Hold above 870 and this thing has room. ATR% M 7.7. Okay, and how do you size all this with Friday looming? Thursday is like playing poker when you know there's a huge hand coming on Friday. You don't go all in on the small pot. Size conservatively. Respect the Broadcom gap direction as your first filter for the day's bias and keep room to survive a Friday volatility event. So what's the one thing traders need to carry into tomorrow? Be selectively bullish, not broadly bullish. Today was real, but it was a relief rally driven by mega cap stabilization and a Bitcoin surge, not a fundamental shift. Breadth is still structurally mixed. Pick the setups that are already working, size for survival, and let the market prove itself before you press. That's the line right there. Before you close this out, pull up coin, ASTS, and ESLT. Set your alerts at the levels we gave you. Coin above 205, ASTS at 100, ESLT above 870. Then check AVGO pre-market first thing. That gap direction is your first filter for the entire day. Relief rally confirmed, but the work isn't done. Know your levels, respect the binary, and we'll see you back here tomorrow night. Trade smart. That's all for today's episode of Next Day Prep. Review today, prepare tomorrow. See you next time.