This Week in Episodic Pivots: May 21, 2023

No new trades this week. IONQ rockets 40%+ on the week

No new recommendations this week.

No point in burying the lede. So now that that’s out of the way we can get on with talking about our portfolio.

Last week the market finished higher and so did most of our stocks. And we didn’t get stopped out of anything, so we are still tracking 12 open positions. That’s plenty for us right now.

I don’t expect anything major to happen this week. Just some standard run of the mill economic reports and a few Fed governor speeches.

As far as I’m concerned, we are still in the trading channel between 4,000 and 4,200 in the S&P 500. But the bulls are trying to break higher.

And there’s one event I think that could tip the scales in favor of the bulls. And that would be if the debt ceiling debate goes away.

We could see a quick rally higher if that happens. And history tells us that both sides of the aisle are likely to come to an agreement soon.

So we’ll continue holding our positions.

The one outstanding performer in our portfolio last week was IonQ ( IONQ 0.00%↑ ). The company got its quantum computing product listed on the Amazon Web Services store. And now anyone can access IonQ’s quantum computing capabilities if the want to pay the small fee to use it.

Adoption will likely come quick as quantum computing has some advantages of traditional computing.

Traders agree as they sent the stock up higher. And some option traders are betting on significantly higher prices by mid-June. The $10 strike June calls were very active last week. And that implies a future move greater than 12%.

The rest of our positions are still above our stop losses. So continue holding. But if I spot any weakness in the market I may have us trim some positions mid-week. So pay attention in case I have to send a special alert in the middle of the week.

And that’s all for this week.

Happy Investing!