To The Moon

$Palantir Technologies Inc.(PLTR)$ $NVIDIA(NVDA)$ $Apple(AAPL)$ I’ve traded through enough froth to recognise when the air starts thinning, and right now I can feel that familiar snap in the tape as futures open gutted. Premarket’s a slaughterhouse with the S&P down 75 points or 1.09%, Nasdaq collapsing 385 points or 1.47%, and the CNN Fear & Greed Index plunging to 25, its lowest in 18 months and screaming Extreme Fear. Just a week ago it sat at 44; a month ago 53; a year prior 42. This isn’t a slow fade, it’s a forced capitulation amplified by the U.S. government shutdown freezing data flow and shaking nerves. Liquidity hasn’t vanished, it’s moving fast into havens, testing who has the discipline to hold their ground.

📊 Macro Pulse: Shutdown Stasis and Yield Whispers

The S&P 500 sits at 6,780, off 1.05%; Nasdaq 23,494, down 1.43%; Dow 46,955, sliding 0.81%; Russell 2000 losing 1.67%. Yields are steady with the 2-year at 3.58% and the 10-year at 4.10%, while the USD nudges up 0.10%. Gold is down 0.61%, crude off 1.51%, BTC futures down 2.34%. The shutdown is the silent saboteur; no Trade Balance, Factory Orders, or JOLTS data are available. The CBO estimates a 0.2% GDP drag if it stretches past mid-month, stalling $14 billion in output and sidelining 800,000 workers. The VIX is hovering near 18; that’s not crisis panic, but it’s an unmistakable stress signal. Past shutdowns averaged flat S&P returns since 1976, but this one lands as the economy softens, probing for cracks. The Fed’s December cut odds hover near 70%, providing a safety net for bonds and risk rotation.

💼 Mega-Cap Core: Innovation Under Fire

Apple (AAPL) is up 0.1%, the lone green light among the Magnificent Seven. DZ Bank raised its rating to Buy with a $300 target, projecting Q4 revenue around $140 billion and AI-driven services up 25% YoY. I’m holding above $272; that’s the line where leadership revives.

Tesla (TSLA) is down 3.8% after China EV sales fell 9.9% to 76,500 units. $460 remains the make-or-break pivot, where robotaxi traction and FSD v13 could flip the trend. Musk’s Saudi Blackwell chip deal for 18,000 units hints that Tesla’s $6 billion 2025 AI spend is no vanity project; it’s strategy.

Nvidia (NVDA) slides 2.1% even after unveiling a €1 billion Industrial AI Cloud with Deutsche Telekom and SAP. Munich’s hub, powered by 10,000 Blackwell GPUs and 1,000 DGX B200 systems, launches Q1 2026 to anchor Germany’s AI sovereignty. Pair that with Nokia’s 6G ARC project and you have a firm expanding its moat, not chasing hype. I’m watching $210; that’s the trend line that matters.

Alphabet (GOOGL) loses 1.47% after an $18 billion bond sale and Polestar’s AI navigation debut. Ad revenue is set to rise 12% in Q4 to $85 billion, but EU scrutiny lingers.

Palantir (PLTR) collapses 7% to $200 in premarket chaos despite a record print: revenue $1.181 billion up 63% YoY, crushing $1.09 billion estimates, adjusted EPS $0.21 vs $0.17, U.S. commercial +77%, government +52%, rule-of-40 at 114. FY25 guidance raised to $4.4 billion, Q4 at $1.33 billion, RPO $2.6 billion. Valuation is the villain; forward P/E 85, highest in S&P. Burry’s $912 million in five-million-share puts now make up 66% of Scion’s book. Karp’s response: “Shorts like Burry are bat-crazy; we build for warfighters, not speculators, and every attack motivates us to bury them poorer.” That’s not bravado, it’s conviction. I’m accumulating above $195.

$PLTR daily ~ This is a bullish setup. After an aggressive post-earnings gap down, price reacted strongly off the rising 20-day SMA, confirming a higher low inside an intact uptrend. Both the upper and lower Bollinger Bands are expanding, indicating volatility expansion rather than exhaustion. The rejection wick off the mid-band shows demand returning where it should, reinforcing that the pullback was technical, not fundamental.

As long as $PLTR holds above the 20-day SMA near 185, the structure favours a sequence of higher highs and higher lows on its path toward what I call the Overvalued Valhalla, a zone where valuation stretches but momentum refuses to break.

Amazon (AMZN) is down 0.6% after AWS’s Fastnet cable linking the U.S. and Ireland; it underpins $40 billion in OpenAI pacts. Uber (UBER) steady on NVIDIA DRIVE Hyperion robotaxi systems; Netflix (NFLX) up 1% exploring iHeart video podcasts to lift engagement 22%.

📈 Earnings Autopsy: Micro Muscle vs Macro Murk

Blackstone (BX) EPS beat, FY25 raised. Diamondback (FANG) topped revenue and EPS. Ferrari (RACE) beat, guidance steady. H World (HTHT) missed EPS and guided lower. Shopify (SHOP) in line. Starbucks (SBUX) +$0.22 EPS, guidance up. Urban Outfitters (URBN) +$0.09 EPS, raised view. Norwegian (NCLH) −$0.04 EPS, soft Q4. Marriott (MAR) +$0.09 EPS, in line. Q3 S&P 500 earnings rose 4.8% on 4.7% revenue; Q4 is murkier under shutdown haze.

🧮 Analyst Shifts and Pre-Market Sparks

Upgrades: AAPL Buy $300 (DZ), QRVO Neutral $105 (JPM), ORLY Buy $450 (Texas Capital), TEX Equal $47 (MS), INSP Overweight $90 (Wells Fargo), DKNG Buy $35 (BofA).

Downgrades: CHTR Perform (Oppenheimer), KMB In Line $120 (Evercore), ABBV Hold $237 (DZ).

Pre-market movers: TCMD +22%, INTU +17%, DLAY +11%, PYPL +11%, NVTS +14%, ULTI +11%, PLTR −7%. These are the bright sparks in a dim tape, the early tell that panic is never absolute.

💀 Burry’s AI Armageddon: Puts as Prophet or Premature?

Scion’s Q3 13F reveals $912 million in five-million-share PLTR puts and $186 million in NVDA puts, together forming 80% of its short exposure. On the long side: six-million-share PFE calls, 2.5-million-share HAL calls, and equity in MOH, LULU, SLM, Bruker. Burry has launched 30 bearish calls since 2008; few landed. This one coincides with NVDA’s 54% YTD rally and PLTR’s 400% surge. His timing may earn headlines, but it hedges more than it prophesies. Karp’s response, as defiant as ever, reframes it: “They’re in the business of being wrong; we’re in the business of giving America an edge.” History sides with builders, not shorters!

🧠 Sentiment Forge and My Playbook

Fear & Greed at 25 is a contrarian magnet. Since 2016, sub-30 readings have preceded average S&P gains of 4.8% over the next month. Retail is capitulating, institutions are quietly adding. VIX contango points to 22 by mid-2026, a classic setup for volatility compression. My levels are simple: TSLA above $460 signals recovery, NVDA above $210 confirms trend resumption, AAPL above $272 restores leadership. I’m layering dips; defensive hedges in PFE and HAL, tactical calls on NVDA. Shutdown or not, liquidity always finds conviction.

🩸 Closing Thrust: Puts Don’t Pop the Paradigm

This pullback isn’t collapse, it’s recalibration under shutdown strain and overextended optimism. Valuations are compressing, not crumbling. The AI super-cycle remains powered by $350 billion of 2026 capex across Meta, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. Sovereign hubs like Munich’s and Saudi’s are embedding this decade’s next growth engines. Burry may have buried his bets in paper pessimism, but innovation doesn’t stay underground for long. Fear’s the foe, conviction’s the weapon, and this market is the forge where both get tested.

$PLTR has barely above a 2% short interest according to Finviz/Yahoo Finance.

👉❓Given Palantir’s gap-down reaction to stellar earnings yet immediate support at the rising 20-day SMA, do traders interpret this as efficient price discovery within an overheated valuation cycle, or as the market underestimating future contract compounding from its AI platform expansion into sovereign and defence verticals?

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