Emerging from inflation cycles - isn't easy; and the Fed is about to abruptly move to assist consumers and business by cutting rates and easing QT even as prices are not coming down; and barely slowing the pace of increase.

So that's why even if the Fed 'stands pat' again (they can argue resilience of inflation and be correct about that), the perception is of the next move eases their tightness, which the trend of Industrial Production (not just Sentiment) is suggesting. They post an increase and then revise down a month later..

But for now our focus remains AI and the upcoming Nvidia gathering. It's the first-ever of this type, and reminiscent of the "WorldWide Developers" meets that Apple has hosted for years. But we don't know who announces what 'till they do; and that may contribute to some 'chop & speculation' in-advance. It sure is no surprise that I'm primarily focused on SouthHound participation.

The migration away from standard 'network computing' is this year's story; as it goes beyond the concentration on hardware, like our AMD for years or now Nvidia, which is all the rage at the moment. Look for AMD to possibly move to an ecosystem approach too; though for just now it's clearly Nvidia time.

At the heart of this may very well be 'Application Software', which I wrote, and talked about consistently, as where the gains would be (not every one for sure, but some); given that 'Hardware and Data-Center' stocks are so pricey.

Leading the pack for us is SoundHound.ai which may or may not see new announcements beyond simply 'presenting' at Nvidia's conference early in the new week. SOUN has been a wild beast during Quadruple Expiration, primarily because it got on the Regulation Sho. list due to delivery failures by a lot of Call option 'writers'. They will have to either 'buy-in' on Monday (or not if they already did and that's part of the volume Friday) or such options as do remain get 'executed', in which case they find themselves with a short-sale .. ah ha.. which they still will have to cover if SOUN still finds favorable action.

Market X-ray: this was Expiration; next comes the Nvidia 'eco-system'; a concept that more resembles a software complexity of offerings that's quite advanced versus what everyone's accustomed to from Apple or Google.

Weekend is here; so I'm going to just share what I posted on 'X' moments ago. We're not going to complain if the whole world embraces stocks we've been optimistic on.. and yes it's tough because 'how high is high' is sort of an age-old question. AMD and NVDA pulled back along the way many times.

Of course it's easy to say 'scale out' into strength; we did some of that with AMD around 120; but as it dropped to 80 got back in if you were inclined

S&P obviously pending FOMC (but extended); while $NVDA likely breaks out from the ascending wedge formation (note its lower trendline held and now can break the upper coincident with it's 'AI conference') (no chart shown).

As to $SOUN, its price depends on the extent of their 'software' relationship, as $NVDA expands into embracing 'Application Software' within hardware. SOUN doesn't have to be a 'sell the news' story on the conference; and if so no matter; as even NVDA and $AMD had pullbacks along the long road.

$SOUN provides services every American uses almost daily (food ordering and automotive and TV; even $NFLX uses SoundHound voice); hence such a demo gives a good idea of what they can do 'together'. SO, 'if' Nvidia goes that route next week (demo of the interaction such as fast-food ordering, not just a SoundHound presentation) you could be looking at an eventual 10x or more stock; although likely $SOUN would be bought out before such a goal.

Remember this is where $NVDA was before... and remember we bought $AMD at 16 on a pullback from 32 and (aside minor trading) we only sold part nearer 220 just recently. Maybe $AMD needs to start an ecosystem too. Is $BBAI going to be up next? $BBAI is now low-risk as a speculation before it gets #Delta Airlines, #TSA, or further military contracts. Enjoying SOUN while building more of a quiet position in BBAI sounds like a plan for now.

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