Here’s the red flag that says a tech stock selloff could arrive soon, according to Citi

One lingering question as summer shapes up is just how long the dominance and shoring up of markets by a few big tech names will carry on. Apple
AAPL,
-0.21%
may have offered an early sign of how Big Tech is not invincible with shares softer again in premarket after disappointing some investors with a pricey virtual-reality headset. (Shares were downgraded, see Buzz).

Our call of the day, also from Citigroup, offers insight on when unraveling of the tech trade could really begin. A team led by Citi’s global head of quantitative research, Chris Montagu, pointed out that investors have been strongly overweight U.S. stocks versus all other regions, even cutting some bullish momentum for Japan equities
NIK,
+0.90%,
up 24% so far this year.

“Positioning is the most extreme in Nasdaq futures where investors also are sitting on very extended profits. This could lead to rounds of profit-taking in the near term,” Montagu told clients in a note on Monday.

As Montagu explains, investors extended net long positions, or bets that prices will rise, in both S&P and Nasdaq futures in the latter half of May. “This bullishness was driven by large-cap growth and caused the Nasdaq to become more extended than the S&P,” they said.

Pushing into June, the strategists point out that investors have now moderated those net long S&P positions and continue adding longs to Nasdaq futures.

“Not only is Nasdaq positioning the most extended ever seen by the model (going back more than 12 years), but profit on these long positions average 7.6%, which is a level where the probability of rounds of profit-taking increases significantly. The average profit for S&P long positions is small by comparison at just 2.7%.” said the Citi team.

From another angle, Brent Donnelly, president of Spectra Markets and author of “Alpha Trader,” said in a tweet that bitcoin weakness seen on Monday (more below in Chart of the Day) could be a “possible canary in the NASDAQ coal mine at this point,” as he suggested a related play on AI superstar Nvidia
NVDA,
-1.32%.

Donnelly said investors could “do worse than taking a shot at short NVDA here with equity seasonality turning negative,” as well as other headwinds such as the post-debt-ceiling treasury general account refill, and continuing quantitative tightness “likely to matter at some point soonish” for markets, he writes.

“Remember, NVDA and bitcoin used to be joined at the hip before the AI bubble and bitcoin used to often move before NVDA. They decoupled as crypto mania turned to AI mania but are still both part of the same broad ecosystem of supertech disruptor etc,” said Donnelly, who offers up the below charts.

Read the whole post here.

Read: What if the S&P 500 fumbles its bear-market exit? What strategists think of the role of tech in this rally.

The markets

Stocks
DJIA,
+0.03%

SPX,
+0.24%

COMP,
+0.36%
have opened lower. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note
TMUBMUSD10Y,
3.674%
is up 3 basis points at 3.716%. The dollar
DXY,
+0.14%
is up, though lower against its Aussie rival
AUDUSD,
+0.03%
after a surprise 25 basis point hike from the Reserve Bank of Australia.

Oil
CL.1,
-0.98%

BRN00,
-0.41%
is hovering above $70 a barrel as prices continue to fall, erasing gains seen after Saudi Arabia’s pledge to cut production.

Read: Saudi Arabia’s planned oil cut could lead to ‘cracks’ within OPEC+ — but not a spike in gasoline prices

For more market updates plus actionable trade ideas for stocks, options and crypto, subscribe to MarketDiem by Investor’s Business Daily. Follow all the stock market action with MarketWatch’s Live Blog.

The buzz

A day after the SEC brought charges against Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, Coinbase shares
COIN,
-12.09%
are sliding 15% after the Securities and Exchange Commission alleged it illegally operated an unregistered securities exchange

Apple
AAPL,
-0.21%
is pushing lower following a lukewarm reception to its $3,499 Vision Pro headset. D.A. Davidson downgraded shares to neutral, saying any good new from the mixed-reality headset is priced in.

GitLab
GTLB,
+31.19%
shares are up more than 20% after an earnings report that beat expectations and played up the software company’s AI efforts.

Shares of self-driving technology developer Mobileye Global
MBLY,
-0.12%
 are more than 5% lower after the company said it was launching a secondary offering of its shares, via an Intel
INTC,
+3.68%
 subsidiary.

Ukraine has accused Russia of blowing up a dam near Kherson, with villages being evacuated as water begins to rise in places amid fears of massive flooding that could displace thousands, threaten ecosystems, wildlife and the stability of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.

The data calendar is empty for Tuesday.

Best of the web

This 26-year-old went from trading Air Jordans to starting three moneymaking businesses.

Apparent hack of Russian broadcast outlets results in jarring announcement of Ukrainian invasion and martial law by voice claiming to be Putin’s.

The chart

Bitcoin
BTCUSD,
+0.14%
has dropped 1.1%, following SEC troubles for Binance then Coinbase.

Brian Lund, publisher of the Lund Loop Newsletter, offers this chart showing how crucial that $25K level is for the cryptocurrency.

The tickers

These were the top-searched tickers on MarketWatch as of 6 a.m.:

Random reads

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