• Howie Town
  • Posts
  • Momentum Monday - Strong Software, Semiconductors Under Pressure.

Momentum Monday - Strong Software, Semiconductors Under Pressure.

A September to Remember as Treasuries Rise and Semiconductors Struggle?

Author

Howard Lindzon
September 01, 2026

As a reminder, MarketSurge (by Investor’s Business Daily) is a sponsor of the weekly show. All the charts you have been seeing in the videos and will continue to see are from MarketSurge. They are offering my readers 2 months for $59.95 - save $239. That's 80% off the most powerful stock research platform for individual investors.

Good morning…

I wrote the below last week and the only thing that has changed is the general public is starting to worry about rising rates….

As for the markets themselves…

The US Treasury Markets and the White House are concerned about the bond market as rates continue to rise. They are calling for emergency pressers which I prefer they would not do, but nobody asks me. Mr. Trump believes yelling at it and threatening to bomb it and other nations that don’t help us lower rates is a solution. It is not.

Scott Bessent’s old trading buddy Stanley Druckenmiller took out an Op-Ed in the WSJ to text him out loud with how pathetic and dangerous this could get. In the meantime, the worry about interest rates and the $40 trillion in government debt has lit a new fire to Gold prices and Bitcoin.

The market also seems full up of ‘AI stocks’ whether it is memory or data centers or the ‘circular’ central bank type deals that $NVDA ( ▲ 1.49% ) is cutting with ‘customers’. Nvidia is an incredible company led by an incredible CEO, but the law of large numbers is a reality when it comes to great customers with the cash to back up the orders if all hell were to break loose. Jim Chanos is a legendary short seller and is doing the media circuit right now saying the accounting irregularities of the AI companies (including the data centers) is worse than the 1999 internet bubble. I think Jim is onto something, but timing when the market cares is something I don’t do well. What I have been doing if you follow me here has been selling semiconductor stocks (June) and adding small caps.

Today on Stocktwits for example, the S&P and Nasdaq 100 are ‘trending’ - which they rarely do - and it is because of treasury concerns.

No matter the macro, degeneracy and speculation continue to rage. Hyperliquid, the blockchain that is powering much of this new excitement and which I have been talking about here for months, continues to trend higher.

Biotech stocks are also the ecnter oif much spoeculation as people want to own the next ‘cancer’ stock post Moderna’s ( $MRNA ( ▼ 0.64% ) )announcement and stock spike.

Also - select software stocks that were considered ‘dinosaurs’ because of AI are roraring back being led by a whole group of cyber security stocks. The cyber stocks might be humanities last protection against AGI. At least that is the narrative. We discuss all this in today’s show below. I hope you enjoy.

Welcome back to Momentum Monday!

In today’s episode of Momentum Monday, Ivanhoff and I discuss the following:  

  • Speculation has lost its mind ($SLS and the mRNA moment) (0:00)

  • Software is back and leading — cybersecurity out front ($PANW, $OKTA) (1:36)

  • Figma and GitLab — left for dead, now entrenched (3:18)

  • The year's two great trades — and waiting for the third (4:53)

  • Semiconductors under pressure — how much is already priced in? (7:22)

  • Nvidia's open-source pivot — the central bank of compute (8:34)

  • Ivanhoff's swing setups: $OKTA, $RBRK, $FROG, $CRSR (10:31)

  • The short side — distribution in AI-adjacent names (11:21)

  • Why Jim Chanos' warnings deserve a listen (12:58)

  • Hyperliquid and the pipes of degeneracy (13:46)

  • Healthcare via ETFs ($XBI, $XLV) and Hinge Health (14:36)

  • Crypto-adjacent strength: $HOOD, $COIN, $CRCL (15:22)

Here are Ivanhoff’s Thoughts

No one wanted to touch software stocks earlier in the year. The narrative was that AI would squeeze their margins as much cheaper competitors would be vibecoded. Fast-forward to today. Software is one of the strongest groups in the market. Many software stocks had two back-to-back bullish reactions to their earnings. Last week brought more of the same. CRM, OKTA, and CRWD sparked another rally in the group, lifting MSFT, NOW, FROG, among many others.

In the meantime, the bounces in AI stocks keep getting faded. Even a solid earnings report from NVDA, which this time rallied on it, was not enough to stop the selling. It seems the whole world is overleveraged on AI-related stocks, and every bounce is viewed as an opportunity to lighten up. The semiconductors ETF, SMH, is already 17% below its all-time highs. It made an attempt to retake its 50-day moving average two weeks ago, which failed spectacularly. SMH is looking vulnerable to lower prices.

Gold and crypto pulled back on Friday on the Fed Chair’s inflation comments. The belief is that now the odds for a September hike are higher. We all know that they are not likely to hike ahead of the Mid-term elections, but algos are programmed to react quickly to any short-term comment.

Either way, September is seasonally weak during mid-term election years, so it pays to remain cautious.

And here are the charts discussed:

NVDA price chart

Reply

or to participate.