All Flowers Are Freely Blooming. The Slow Bull’s Simple Rule.
The market as of June 1 can be described in four words from this edition: all flowers freely blooming. Space stocks, AI, semiconductors, cloud data platforms, Korean chipmakers, healthcare biotech. Every sector is rising. Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket exploded overnight, damaging both Jeff Bezos’s company and NASA’s Moon Base timeline. US GDP was revised down to 1.6%. Bitcoin sits at $74,043, down 28.62% year-on-year. None of it interrupted the bull.
This is the defining characteristic of a slow bull market: it breaks record highs incessantly, on good news and bad news alike. It takes patience to watch it rise before it eventually turns. The mistake retail investors make in this environment is also two-fold: chasing stocks that have already gapped up (SNOW, DELL, EWY), or standing aside entirely and watching others earn. The correct approach is narrower. Identify which stocks are above the 250-SMA and wait for gap refills. Identify which are below the 250-SMA and buy them now.
GDP Slows, Rate Hike Looms, NFP Coming Friday
The US Q1 GDP was revised down from 2.0% to 1.6% on May 28. The final official figure will be announced June 25, and only that number goes into the permanent record. Q1 included just 32 days of the Iran war period, from February 28 to March 31. Q2 has already absorbed two full months of war impact and will reflect that more heavily when the data arrives.
This Friday’s Non-Farm Payroll is expected to fall from April’s 116K to 96K, with unemployment held at 4.3%. The more important signal is the CME target rate. Before the Iranian war, investors were counting how many rate cuts would occur in 2026 and 2027. Now they are counting rate hike probabilities. The CME is not a forecast: it is a futures market where real money is being committed to interest rate expectations. That shift from counting cuts to counting hikes is a fundamental change in the macro backdrop, even if equities have not yet priced it in.
The reason US markets remain insulated is structural. US shale oil, introduced in 2012, made America the world’s largest oil producer by 2015, surpassing Saudi Arabia. The Hormuz blockade does not significantly affect domestic US energy supply. India, China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan bear the primary impact. Yet even their stock markets are at record highs, following the US lead. TSM is the sixth largest market cap in the world. Samsung is eleventh, SK Hynix twelfth. They move with the US, and in turn they move the US.
Two Categories: Wait for the Gap, or Buy Under the 250-SMA
This edition draws a clean line through every stock in the market. Above the 250-SMA and recently gapped up: SNOW ($255.55, SMA250 at $205), DELL ($420.91, SMA250 at $148), EWY ($205.83, SMA250 at $105), RKLB ($143.48), MU, SMCI. Cathy Wood’s ARK sold $27 to $36 million of NVDA in late March 2026, rotating out of mature AI chip plays and into cloud data platforms, AI infrastructure beyond chips, and healthcare biotech. SNOW fits the cloud data theme via a multi-year AWS deal with Amazon. DELL fits the AI infrastructure theme as a server and enterprise hardware play. Despite ARK’s conviction, all of these are too extended to chase now. Wait for the jumping gap to refill.
Below the 250-SMA and eligible to buy now: META ($632.51, SMA250 at $676.74), MSFT ($450.24, SMA250 at $464.64), PLTR ($156.54, SMA250 at $158.83), TEM (Tempus AI). These are top-10 market cap names with deep recovery capacity after drawdowns. PLTR is at the start of another bull trend and should be bought before it penetrates the 250-SMA from below: once it crosses, the entry price rises. TEM represents the longevity and healthcare AI theme. The first generation of people projected to live beyond 150 years of age has been born in 2026. That trend builds gradually over decades, giving investors time to accumulate at discounted levels.
Korean investors who cannot directly access Samsung and SK Hynix can use EWY (iShares MSCI South Korea ETF, last $205.83) or the newer DRAM ETF. Both Samsung and SK Hynix rejected factory funding offers from Alphabet, Microsoft, and Meta totaling tens of trillions of Korean won, preferring to demand five-year contracts with upfront payments and minimum price guarantees instead. The Korean KOSPI is at record highs. Wait for the EWY gap to refill before entering.
Blue Origin Explodes, Oil Waits for Hormuz, BTC at $74K
Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket exploded overnight. The company held a $188M+ CLPS contract for lunar landers and was a core partner in NASA’s Moon Base Phase 1 plan. This sets back the lunar timeline for both Blue Origin and NASA and removes one of the primary competitive pressures on SpaceX’s SPCX IPO advantage. ARKX and UFO should be monitored for any near-term reaction, though the long-term Moon Base infrastructure thesis remains intact through SpaceX and Lockheed Martin.
WTI oil is now under the Ichimoku Cloud but within the Bollinger Bands. Over 1,000 commercial tankers remain blocked inside the Persian Gulf. When the Hormuz Strait reopens, accumulated supply will flood the market and oil prices will drop sharply. Avoid energy stocks entirely. The question is not whether oil will fall when Hormuz reopens. The only question is how far.
What Investors Should Do Now
- META at $632 and MSFT at $450, both below the 250-SMA: buy now without waiting for gap refills; top-10 market cap names, strong recovery power, discounted by their own standards
- PLTR at $156.54, just below the 250-SMA of $158.83: buy before it penetrates upward; a new bull trend is forming and the entry window is narrow
- SNOW and DELL: Cathy Wood’s conviction buys, but both are far above their 250-SMAs; wait patiently for jumping gap refills, which may take weeks
- EWY (South Korea ETF): Samsung and SK Hynix together are 52% of KOSPI; Korean market at record highs; wait for gap refill, or consider the DRAM ETF as an AI memory proxy
- Avoid energy stocks entirely: over 1,000 tankers trapped in the Persian Gulf mean a cliff-fall in oil prices the day Hormuz reopens; do not be positioned in energy on that day
Key Takeaway: GDP at 1.6%, Blue Origin’s rocket just exploded, and a rate hike is being priced into CME futures, yet the market is freely blooming. Buy what is under the 250-SMA and wait patiently for gap refills on everything above it.
Related reading: Wave Theory and Average Lines · Interest Rate · Candlestick Patterns · US Stock Express Archive
Read previous US Stock Express editions here.
About the Author
Daniel Yue has been an active investor since 1980, with experience spanning stocks, currencies, futures, metals, and bonds. A scholar of the Chicago School of Economics, he holds a Certificate with Distinction from Cambridge University and a degree in International Trading from National Taiwan University. He served as Chief Analyst for over 30 years and Chief Mentor at Sincere Finance. In 2017, he received an award from the University of Arizona for financial internship leadership.
The analysis and opinions expressed in this article are for educational purposes only and do not constitute financial advice. Investing involves risk. Please consult a qualified financial advisor before making investment decisions.
About the Author
Daniel Yue has been an active investor since 1980, with experience spanning stocks, currencies, futures, metals, and bonds. A scholar of the Chicago School of Economics, he holds a Certificate with Distinction from Cambridge University and a degree in International Trading from National Taiwan University. He served as Chief Analyst for over 30 years and Chief Mentor at Sincere Finance. In 2017, he received an award from the University of Arizona for financial internship leadership.
The analysis and opinions expressed in this article are for educational purposes only and do not constitute financial advice. Investing involves risk. Please consult a qualified financial advisor before making investment decisions.