Most investors prefer to bottom-fish stocks that have already plunged. Price action, however, often tells a clearer story: it reveals both the prevailing momentum and the behavior of the whales who help set the trend. Every sector has leaders and laggards. A lesson I learned a decade ago—and do not intend to relearn—is to stay with the leaders rather than chase the laggards. Institutions and large holders tend to accumulate strong stocks for many reasons, while they sell weaker ones for a simpler one: the fundamentals are deteriorating. Fighting that trend, or defaulting to the retail instinct to buy what has fallen the most, is rarely a reliable way to make money or outperform. The semiconductor sector is a clear example. $NVDA and $AMD have acted as leaders and reached all-time highs, while $SMCI has struggled to reclaim $50, well below its prior high of $122.9. The difference is not subtle, and neither is the lesson.

$SMCI (September 29, 2026-Daily Chart) Another clean example of Volatility hole +Descending blue ribbon nailing the recent bottom: https://t.co/jGxVxp9CCz

$SMCI (September 24, 2026-Daily Chart) How to Use My Indicators to Buy and Accumulate a Stock? $SMCI continues to confirm the setup. Buy signals so far: 1. Volatility hole + descending blue ribbon — timed and marked the bottom 2. Momentum bar at $29 3. Momentum bar at $30 4. Momentum bar at $37 Since signal 1, price has been choppy but in an uptrend, shown by the bullish red ribbon unfolding and steady whale accumulation in panel 3. Even if you missed the first signal, each of these momentum bars once surpassed has been a reliable add. Near-term resistance is $45.2, highlighted in panel 1. Watch how price behaves there — that level decides whether the uptrend continues to expand.

$SMCI (September 14, 2026-Daily Chart) The last two volatility holes, together with the different ribbons, have been spot-on and have acted as reliable buy and sell signals. The most recent volatility hole appeared on July 20 while $SMCI traded between $23.7 and $24.5, marking the recent bottom. After a stretch of choppy consolidation, the uptrend resumed once the bullish red ribbon formed in panel 1. For the latest bullish red candle to fully play out, two conditions still need to hold: 1. $SMCI must close above $40.1, while a close below the momentum bar at $37.67 would invalidate the setup. 2. Whale accumulation also needs to stay strong and steady; it currently sits at 83.45%.

Macro has clearly cut high beta AI valuations over the past few months. But I try to stay focused on fundamentals. If you're curious about my take though: We're seeing record visibility with - memory (2031), photonics (2029-2030), etc LTAs - $NBIS, solana:5aQcoaSyy7fnhvpRHasBUAMH2nL5tTjVrmFw6BeGmoon, etc. massive demand imbalance for compute despite capex spend. - combined with record projections ( $NVDA 70% growth 2027, $SMCI $60B+ new server orders, etc). vs. uncomfortable macro where: - Warsh said the Fed has "more work to do" if underlying inflation isn't clearly returning to 2%. - July PCE came in at 3.7% Y/Y - July jobs report payrolls fell by 23k with unemployment at 4.1% -10Y Treasury high/ 30Y highest since 2007 - Iran tensions continuing - Japan Yen weakened to 160/ 2 rate hikes in Korea And with rate 40/60 in favor of 25BPS near-term hikes. There's definitely implications on financing + too many third/fourth order effects for me to personally map. I'm not a macro expert but my take is: The AI buildout will continue w/ $1.3T+ capex poured upstream expected next year, flowing through many bottlenecks and chokepoints. While markets chopped off forward valuations and rotated toward currently profitable/defensive companies. I don't know what's going to happen, especially since rate hike odds are almost a coinflip, and Trump posts can change sentiment overnight. As long as I don't see indicators of hyperscalers cutting capex or demand wavering. I'm staying long despite macro volatility, since I want ownership of the names controlling the future of the AI buildout. And if there's any indicators of better macro climates, high beta are typically the fastest to recover.

In another world, $SMCI would look more like $DELL? If they didn't try smuggling $NVDA GPUs using hairdryers... Regardless, SMCI guiding $65-72B FY 2027 revenue off a ~$25B MC is pretty crazy the more I look at it. https://t.co/FUZIojiMcc

Bro Charles the $SMCI CEO needs to become a politician. I’ve never seen a guy dodge so many questions on a Q&A earnings transcript before. - “what’s your 2027 gross margins” A: “we look forward to growing them - “do you anticipate margins to improve September?” A: September. Which is September?

Insane earnings today for the AI theme with $CRWV, $SMCI, and $LITE. Coreweave: Absurd ~$104B+ backlog, which doesn't include $25B+ of new customer agreements added in early Q3. Compute demand read through for Neoclouds is enormous (For Nebius, Iren and others) Supermicro: Absurd $65-72B in revenue guidance, adding $60B+ in new orders... AI DC buildout read through is just enormous. Lumentum: $808M -> $1.01B -> $1.25B revenue ramp, with operating margins growing quarter after quarter. Photonics players just keeps printing. TLDR: Every layer of the AI buildout goes brrrrr, and it's showing up in earnings.

$SMCI 2027 guidance was actually unholy: $65-$72 billion FY 2027 revenue guidance... vs. ~$52.4B expected, a casual +$16.1B above consensus. SMCI logged a massive $60B+ in news order from this earnings. That timeline is also interesting when they announced a plan to co-build $SPCX + xAI DCs "within a year" back in June.. But if SMCI sustain 10-15% gross margins off that ~$70B revenue guidance... I think there's a lot of room for rerating given MC is ~$20B (NFA, I have short term positions in SMCI now from this ER). Most important thing is learning about 2027 margins from call today.

$SMCI (July 21, 2026-monthly chart) In every sector, there are clear leaders and laggards. My strategy is simple: focus on the leaders and avoid the laggards. $SMCI has never been an easy stock to hold or trade. Its monthly chart flashed a major topping signal with the last volatility hole when the stock was around $100. That was followed by a yellow candle in the $75–$96 range in July 2024.

$SMCI (June 17, 2026-daily chart update) The open gap between $36.50 and $38.03 is likely to serve as near-term resistance. The key momentum bar lies at $31.90. A consistent close above this level is required for SMCI to regain momentum, while a close below it would signal further loss of momentum. In the semiconductor industry, it is generally wiser to pick leaders than laggards.

$SMCI (June 8, 2026-daily chart update) For viewing only. https://t.co/q4ID9bL7nq

I'm 100% sure if I met all you "photonic memory" experts in real life. 498 out of 500 of you couldn't explain CXL memory pooling or KV cache infrastructure and what $PENG actually does to derive revenue off that. This is why I'm seeing all these random $RKLB, $HIMS, or non technical AI experts on my timeline now. Backseat commenting completely wrong things about M7U MOCVD capex and $TSEM that aren't related. Or conflating every single term like an $SMCI integrator with photonics IP. Then just pitching buzzwords every under every one of my posts.

Very nuanced. People buying $PENG for $MRVL "photonic memory" are likely to be disappointed. They're on the $SMCI integrator level with potential software add. The high margin, foundational IP belongs to companies like Celestial or others like Lightmatter. What they do is build a 2U box, inside the rack, around Celestial/Marvell's the photonic memory IP. It's also in the development collaboration stage. Retail just misunderstand the different layers and conflate them all as this company building core photonic memory IP. Not commenting on the potential price, but it's a legitimate idea for its base business. And upside would be material if they go past sampling. Just annoying when I get comments about "PHOTONIC MEMORY". Then they're building the chassis that the actual photonic memory IP sits inside and not even in qualification stage.

RT @dannycheng2022: Semiconductor Forward P/E (as of May 10, 2026): $NVDA: 26.0x $AMD: 53.0x $TSM: 26.3x $AVGO: 38.0x $SMCI: 11.3x $ON: 33.2x $ASML: 39.0x $SMH (semis ETF) ~33-38x weighted avg. $SOXL is leveraged — no standard P/E. I own the first three — $NVDA, $AMD, and $TSM — and they make up the largest portion of my portfolios. I’ll continue holding and adding more if whales offer bigger discounts. How about you?

Semiconductor Forward P/E (as of May 10, 2026): $NVDA: 26.0x $AMD: 53.0x $TSM: 26.3x $AVGO: 38.0x $SMCI: 11.3x $ON: 33.2x $ASML: 39.0x $SMH (semis ETF) ~33-38x weighted avg. $SOXL is leveraged — no standard P/E. I own the first three — $NVDA, $AMD, and $TSM — and they make up the largest portion of my portfolios. I’ll continue holding and adding more if whales offer bigger discounts. How about you?

$SMCI (April 22, 2026-daily chart update) I know some of you have been bagholding $SMCI. As I’ve consistently shared with my community on Patreon and X, I prefer to focus on the leaders in each sector. Laggards often trail behind for reasons we don’t always understand. https://t.co/cPzuvbAzr1