The major indices are heading for their worst month and weakest quarter since the bear market in 2022. This will be the second straight March with a dismal performance for the stock market, and the indices look vulnerable to further damage as prices are in a large "no man's land" region with little chart resistance. In addition to many weak individual charts, we now have to deal with the breakdown in once-leading semiconductor stocks. The semis make up about 14% of the S&P 500 (SPX) and over 24% of the Nasdaq 100 (QQQ). The two largest semis in the SPX and the QQQ are the $4 trillion NVDA (7.5% of the SPX and 8.6% of the QQQ) and the $1.4 trillion AVGO (2.6% of the SPX and 3% of the QQQ). The VanEck Semiconductor (SMH, $362.50) is the largest semi ETF. After a massive 138% advance from April 8 until February 25, price broke its bullish channel and lost its 21-week exponential average for the first time since last February. Over the past six months, downside volume has been heavy, a clear sign institutional distribution. There is minor chart support in the $325-$355 region. Meanwhile, an initial 38.2% retracement of the rally from last April comes in at $329, the rising 50-week average is at $325, and a 50% giveback is near $300. The last breakout area is down between $260 and $280. NVDA is breaking down from an eight-month head-and-shoulders (H&S) top and has lost its 200-day and 50-week averages for the first time since last March. AVGO already has broken down from a seven-month complex H&S and also has lost its 200-day and 50-week. (Mark Arbeter, CMT)

CrowdStrike is a cloud-native cybersecurity company specializing in security verticals such as endpoint, cloud workload, identity, and security operations. CrowdStrike's primary offering is its Falcon platform, which provides enterprises with a unified view to detect and respond to security threats across their IT infrastructure. The Austin, Texas-based firm was founded in 2011 and went public in 2019.

The Vickers Top Buyers & Sellers is a daily report that identifies the five companies the largest insider purchase transactions based on the dollar value of the transactions as well as the five companies the largest insider sales transactions based on the dollar value of the transactions.

During the final three days of last week, WTI exploded 19%, finishing at $99.30/barrel. Over the past 10 days, crude has skyrocketed 48%. Excluding the pandemic, that was the largest move since our data set began in 1983 and hit levels last seen in 2022. The last few oil peaks were $115 (June 2022), $126 (March 2022), and the all-time high of $147 in 2008. We won't guess where this ends, but the longer prices go parabolic, the sooner we reach a peak (likely followed by a crash). The S&P 500 (SPX) appears to be tracing out a bearish rounding top. An end to the war and subsequent crash in oil should make the pattern null and void. On Thursday, the SPX fell below the December 17 closing low of 6,721 and also took out the key 61.8% retracement of the rally from November 21 to January 28. The next key supports are the 200-day average at 6,604, an 88.2% retracement at 6,579, and then the November 2025 intraday and closing lows in the 6,520-6,540 range. It's hard to find much that is bullish on the daily charts, except that the SPX continues to show resilience after all the negative headlines. Or maybe there is just too much complacency. More concerning is that the index has lost its 21-week exponential moving average, a consistent support during an intermediate- to long-term uptrend. The SPX fell below this average in early 2022, mid-September 2023 (not much downside), and early March 2025. Some 50% of SPX issues are now above their 200-day moving average, with the danger zone being a persistent drop under 45%. The reading for the S&P 100 (OEX) is down to 51% and for the Nasdaq 100 (QQQ) it has declined to a weak 44%. (Mark Arbeter, CMT)