The Big 3: META, CAT, DDOG

Added: 2026-05-19

[00:00:00]And it's time for the big three. We've got three stocks, three charts for you today. Ben Watson will be taking us through the charts. Here to take us through the trades, Joe Tay, portfolio manager of the Rational Equity Armor Fund. Great to have you both with us.

[00:00:11]Joe, would love to get your thoughts on this market setup that we currently have. I was just talking to my last guest about the 10-year being at 467. I think the 30-year touched its highest levels in 19 years earlier this morning.

[00:00:26]I What are your thoughts here?

[00:00:28]Hi Marley, thanks for having me. And you said it, we're getting these yields going higher and that makes people second guessess especially some of the high-risk stocks. So they look at these equities and they say, "Hey, I can without taking any risk at all earn almost 5% here and just uh call that a win." So uh it makes people rethink what's going on in their portfolio.

[00:00:49]Also, obviously the higher these yields go, the higher the debt cost to resurface on these companies. So, they really are uh uh are going to be facing a tougher road to profitability uh if we continue to see these high yields. And that's essentially what people are worried about. They're worried about inflation being high, rates being high, the economy is going to slow down, and that's where you see the rotation out of the highest growth names uh going on.

[00:01:13]So, we've seen this before though throughout this AI rally. We've seen higher volatil we've seen uh these uh uh rates going higher and then they ultimately pull back and the rally goes back on. Is that going to happen again?

[00:01:24]We'll have to wait and see. Uh um one thing that's interesting to me though, I mentioned volatility is that we do have stocks lower and not not really a meaningful rise in the VIX so far. The VIX is up very small. Of course, as a VIX trade, I'm watching the VIX futures.

[00:01:38]That's that's actually lower today in spite of the uh the decrease in some of these uh semiconductor names. So, that's surprising to me.

[00:01:46]>> All right. And so, let's take a look at at your first pick here. You've got a big name here with Meta as your first choice here. I mean, underperforming the market. We're down 8% this year. It's been pretty rangebound for the entire month of May. So, why is this in your big three here, Joe?

[00:02:02]>> Yeah, it's a company I've been watching here. It has not really uh had a lot of the growth a lot of some of the other AI names have had, obviously. And we're down the lower end of its range. I've seen uh, you know, it dip below 600 very briefly after earnings, but it, you know, it quickly rallied back up close to 700. Now, we're back down close to the 600 spot. Just kind of picking a spot here saying, "Hey, if we are rangebound, we're on the lower end of this range. Maybe I can get a play back up close to 700. Uh, and that'd be a really fantastic win." Just something I'm just watching here. Uh, eyeing here very closely. If we do see some momentum, uh, pulling back in the stock market, this could be a name that could recover in a hurry.

[00:02:40]>> All right, Ben, good morning to you.

[00:02:42]Welcome to the big three. We're happy to have you this morning. As we take a look at the technicals here on Meta, are you seeing the chance that momentum could be on Meta's side going forward?

[00:02:52]>> Good morning, Marley. Yeah, you know, this is one with this rangebound nature over the last little while. It perhaps has building a little bit of possible oomph, maybe some potential energy and momentum to the upside. That being said, it's tested this level of resistance up around that 622 mark once, twice, three times as a level of resistance since the earnings announcement and has not had a lot of success breaking through. You've got the 50 period moving average that's kind of coming down on top of this range as well. So, it's got a couple of hurdles to overcome, but if it does, I'll tell you what, there is that big gap vacuum, if you will, from a from a volume standpoint and a trading standpoint, between that 622 resistance and up around that 675 mark where it gapped down on the earnings announcement that it could move very quickly. To Joe's point, on the other side of that coin though, you do see the RSI, one indication of momentum kind of trending down, and it's been following that trend line to the downside.

[00:03:56]perhaps a little bit of a bearish divergence against this rise in the stock price since that April low. So there's kind of some opposing forces. So not uh not at all uncharacteristic of a rangebound stock. You've got forces in opposition creating some equilibrium. So news may be the driver here, but a small break above that 622 could lead to a short retest and then that quick move into that uh vacuum from the gap to the upside there, Marley.

[00:04:26]>> All right, but as we look at Meta today, trading lower with the broader market.

[00:04:30]We're down about 810 of a percent at 60621 right now. Uh your next name in your big three, you've got Caterpillar here. I mean, has fallen off of these highs it hit earlier in May. you know, still performing really well year to date, up almost 50%. But Joe, why did we pick Caterpillar for the big three today?

[00:04:49]>> You know, I think it's something as traders we should just kind of be watching here. If you put that chart up against a lot of the other semiconductor stocks, you'll see this pattern look very similar. So, it's just kind of a sign to me, hey, there's a lot of this AI trade and of course, Caterpillar again is getting lumped into that because of the big buildup that's happening in the data centers. Uh the trade is just happening all together.

[00:05:09]And that's a sign to me that maybe things are getting a little bit more uh a little too risky here. When you're cons when you're pricing when Caterpillar is moving like Nvidia, uh it's just kind of a sign that hey, something seems a little bit strange going on in the market. Everything is buy all the time at one day. Everything is sell all the time at one day. The correlations are getting higher. That's when things get a little riskier. To me, volatility should be going higher when you see this happening. So, it's just something I'm kind of noticing. It's a name that of course I like and I love and I own. Uh but it's just something I'm I'm watching here as I'm start starting to scratch my head and saying, "Hey, uh something happening here with the market structurally."

[00:05:45]>> All right. And Ben, as you look at the technicals for Caterpillar, are you also happening seeing something happening here in the structure?

[00:05:53]>> Well, yeah, I think this is something that's maybe a little bit different than the moves that we've seen recently in Caterpillar. you look at the length of time on this particular chart and this has gone from being a fairly sedate stock moving higher along that 50 period moving average to really starting to see a lot more volatility and I think that suggests maybe a little bit more of that as Joe points out speculation tying Caterpillar to that AI trade and the data center buildout and the construction buildout but from a trend standpoint and from a short-term movement standpoint if you were to take that story out of the equation and maybe cover up the symbol. You've got a stock that's sitting at a level of support at 850 that's got a level of support which is created by a couple of gaps down to that 775. And you've got a momentum indicator that is trending down and breaking out of a range suggesting that if the price of the stock now starts to bleed below that 850 level, it could be back down on that 775 symmetrical support level pretty quickly. Now, on the other side, if it bounces to 8 off of that 850 mark and gain some traction because of news and rotation back into the space, it could come back up into the top of that range, which is going to put it just a little bit north of the $900 mark almost as quickly. So, volatility certainly something plays into this that could mean that that downside move, which would still keep it in line with the overall trend, could happen down to that 775 mark. Marley.

[00:07:22]All right, Caterpillar down about a percent today at 8555 right now. Your next pick though, bucking the trend of the down day we're having trading up a percent higher.

[00:07:31]We're talking about Data Dog here. Data Dog having a lot of momentum on its side particularly over the last month as it had some really strong first quarter earnings up more than 60%.

[00:07:43]>> Up more than 60%. Uh I think we need to be looking beyond the hyperscalers here, beyond the semiconductor names, beyond the data center names. just looking at the companies that are going to be using that data or profiting off of that data if it goes to work. I think if if you are a believer like I am that we're in the early uh stages of this AI buildout, this AI um AI narrative, this is a type of company that we should be watching for that's going to be continuing to grow as the AI continues to grow. So bottom line is they mine the data, they look at the data, they make the data more secure, they make it easier for people to use the data uh on these big servers and more and more data that's going to be used uh the more and more business they're going to have. So if you think that AI is here to stay, if you think that uh these uh all of this capital expenditures and more and more computing is going to happen the way that it's planned to happen, companies like Data Dog will do quite well. Now they are priced very aggressively of course uh but and they've had a very big runup very recently of course so it's just a company I'm watching very closely uh looking for opportunities on pullbacks and and etc. >> Yeah I mean Ben as we look at the technicals for Data Dog. It was caught up in this SAS occur but seems to be one of these names that has found its way out of these potential victims and has been flying high ever since the street decided it may be a winner here >> for sure. No downward dog here with data dog from that perspective. But Marley, as we look at this chart, you know, I think uh there is really kind of a cool pattern developing here, which is neat because you see that earnings announcement gap to the upside, the break above the 150 mark up to that 177 and it rallies to 200. And that really comes as a fulfillment of the symmetrical price or measuring target from this kind of basing pattern that it was creating from November into this May time frame.

[00:09:39]But if you take it to the logical extreme, you take it out to that 200 resistance, which started to act again as a resistance level on that gap to the upside. Now, you take that as a larger hole in a larger rounded bottom. That puts the the symmetrical or measurement target out to around the $400 mark. Now, obviously, that's going to take some time if it does make that move. And it's typically the same length of time that it took to be created. So, 6, seven months possibly in the outside to to get out to that area. But this is also a stock that's capable of moving very quickly. But you've got a support level down around 177. And if it comes back and retests, you've got the 50 period moving average moving up and momentum is on a run into that upper portion of its range here. Marley, >> yeah, and certainly trading above that support level, heavily above. We're at 21027 today. Again, bucking the broader market trend. We're up about 7/10en of a percent. Want to thank you both for being with us for big three today. Joe Tay from the Rational Equity Armor Fund and of course Ben Watson for breaking down the technicals. Thanks again, guys.