It Will Just Take Longer

The “Buy the Dip” strategy in tech stocks hasn’t failed — it will just take longer than it used to.

Much of this Nasdaq rally has been represented by the resiliency of large cap tech stocks — every mini dip was bought with a vengeance.

This go-to playbook drove tech shares higher after the March 2020 meltdown.

These past 30 days have really tested that thesis and signals that we, as market participants, have arrived at a crossroads because if the dip isn’t bought soon, we could either fall off a ledge and barrel into a harrowing correction or we could initiate a sideways correction and trade in a fixed range.

It’s hard to ignore the near-term weakness in many of the household names like Apple (AAPL), Amazon (AMZN), and Facebook (FB).

The upper echelon of tech leadership is signaling imminent decelerating growth and tightening financial conditions.

I do believe much of it is in the price, yet it’s cognizant to know there could be meaningful spillover from the Evergrande debt implosion in China into other asset classes.

External events are shaping the narrative around the Nasdaq dip buyers.

It also doesn’t help that a Facebook whistleblower came forward to tell the press about its malpractices and less than ideal tendencies to put profit over safety, but everyone already knew that about Facebook.

What I am surprised about is that investors usually look through the bad Facebook press and prioritize the metrics which hasn’t been happening the past month.

Facebook shares are still waiting to be bought after the dip.

The lack of Facebook shoppers on the pullback is definitely one area of concern because the U.S. government still has done very little to stop Facebook in its stubborn practices.

The U.S. government will not crack down through legislation on social media companies in the short term.

Much of the negative Nasdaq price action in the short term can be attributed to the worries about China taking a machete to its susceptible tech sector and crushing it even more.

Many don’t think the cudgeling is over.

In this scenario, a flight to safety could be in the cards, which would suppress interest rates offering an olive branch for the dip-buyers.

Ultimately, I do believe it’s a matter of time before we get some recovery price action in the leadership tech stocks; but yes, it could take 1-3 weeks.

Much of this second half of the year was consolidating tech shares that overshot themselves last year.

That’s why tech firms like Tesla (TSLA) had almost a zero percent chance of repeating last year’s performance.

Take ad tech stock Roku (ROKU) for instance, shares are down 23% YTD and that doesn’t mean it’s a bad stock.

Hardly so.

When one considers that Roku shares ended 2020 up 300%, then giving back 23% or 50% in 2021 is worth the annoyances.

These stocks can’t go up in a straight line even if they almost feel like they can sometimes.

This all sets up for a brilliant 2022, as many of these high-quality names will finally have gotten through the consolidation phase and will be buttered up to initiate their next leg up in early 2022.

In the broad scheme of things, tech won the pandemic over any other sector, and 2021 is turning into a rest year.

Sometimes one needs to go backwards one step to take the next three forward.