Anyone watching the market last week felt a tremor…
Chip stocks buckled and indexes bled red. But one name climbed while the market cracked.
We can still find strength during a fearful market.
All it takes is a glimpse at the Invesco QQQ Trust’s (NASDAQ: QQQ) lower highs to see the fading bullish momentum…
We’re seeing this market weakness from different, and more specific, angles as well.
For example, the SKEW index is flashing an extreme selloff warning:
The market is under a lot of pressure.
And yet… Some stocks are still pushing higher.
Here’s where to look when the market wants to spill lower…
The Panic Behind the Red Screens
The trigger for the recent market fear came from China.
On July 16, Moonshot AI unveiled Kimi K3 at a conference in Shanghai, a 2.8 trillion parameter model and the largest open-weight system built to date.
It matched top American models on key benchmarks at a sliver of the cost. Wall Street reached for the 2025 DeepSeek playbook (a similar AI China scare) and sold chip stocks.
The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index dropped nearly 10% on the week, its worst stretch since April 2025, and slid into bear market territory.
The story sounded convincing. If capable AI turns cheap, the hundreds of billions that hyperscalers pour into buildouts might never pay off. Margins will shrink and the whole trade unwinds.
Demand for Kimi K3 climbed so fast that Moonshot paused new signups. They ran their own chips to the limit and needed more compute power.
China could be sucking the wind out of U.S. sails, and it seems like everyone’s ready for the market to drop below support.
The Name That Climbed Anyway
CVS Health Corporation (NYSE: CVS) runs drugstores and a health insurer in the U.S., it’s a household name in a lot of states.
Middle East flare-up or not, cheap AI or not, people still fill prescriptions and pay their copays.
The steadiness of that business is the strategy. When the market hunts for shelter, capital flows toward names the headlines can’t rattle.
This week, while semiconductors cracked, CVS punched to fresh highs near $110. It’s up 32.64% over the last six months.
CVS is climbing while the market struggles to hold support. That’s relative strength in its purest form, and it’s the signal I hunt for when fear takes the wheel.
The round number at $110 now stands as the breakout level in play. A pullback to the $100 level, the old breakout zone, would offer a lower-risk entry with a defined line in the sand.
Lose that support on heavy selling, and I’ll step aside.
Find the Names That Don’t Flinch
You can run this play during every selloff.
When the headlines scream and screens turn red, resist the urge to react out of fear.
Zoom out and scan for strength. Pull up your watchlist and ask one question of each name: did it fall with the market, or did it shrug and climb?
The stocks that refuse to drop while everything else sinks are showing their hand.
Mark your levels next. Find your support, the spot where buyers keep stepping in, and set your alert there. Let the trade come to you.
A stock isn’t a trade setup until the chart confirms it, with a hold at support or a clean break higher on strong volume.
CVS showed us its hand while the crowd fixated on chip stocks, but the price is still trading near the highs…
Remember, patient people take money from impatient people. Wait for it to come to you.
Be good (and be good to others),
Ben Sturgill
*Past performance does not indicate future results. Not typical.
