This is a daily watchlist for short-term trading: I might trade all/none of the stocks listed, and even stocks not listed!
I am targeting potentially good candidates for short-term trading; I have no opinion on them as investments.
The potential of the stock moving today is what makes it interesting, everything else is secondary.
Most interesting news today is the hope that the meeting between Russian/US officials may end the three-year war in Ukraine, in addition to release of the Grok-3 model from xAI (Elon Musk's AI startup.)
News: [Musk S Xai Debuts Grok 3 Ai Bot Touting Benchmark Superiority](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-02-18/musk-s-xai-debuts-grok-3-ai-bot-touting-benchmark-superiority)
**Ticker:** [**NVDA (NVIDIA)**](https://finviz.com/quote.ashx?t=NVDA&p=d)/[**SMH**](https://finviz.com/quote.ashx?t=SMH&p=d)/every semis and AI facing stock
**Catalyst:** Elon Musk's AI startup, xAI, has unveiled its latest model, Grok-3, claiming it surpasses competitors like GPT-4o, Google Gemini, DeepSeek V3, and Claude.
These assertions have not been independently verified by the open sourcen community but it wouldn't be surprising if it could surpass 4o (the model is close to a year old now)
**Technicals:** No real level I've been watching in NVDA, SMH, already positioned long. Note that xAI uses NVDA GPU's specifically in their super computer.
**Catalyst/Sector Context:** We've seen a very strong recovery since the Deepseek fears caused a selloff. Personally I don't think xAI will cause the same effect that Deepseek did, but I think that the semis are a winner of this again.
**Risks:** Unverified performance claims may lead to skepticism among investors and potential customers, impacting adoption rates and market trust. XAI has a “Colossus supercomputer,” for training AI, which it said last year was utilizing a cluster of 100,000 advanced Nvidia GPUs for AI training.
Today, the company revealed that it doubled the size of its GPU cluster for the training of Grok 3.
**Related Tickers:** ARM, AMD, INTC
**Offhand Comments:** May see reversal of news if performance doesn't match claims.
**Ticker:** [**HEES (Herc Holdings Inc.)**](https://finviz.com/quote.ashx?t=HEES&p=d)
**Catalyst:** HEES has confirmed a $105 per share acquisition offer from Herc Rentals, surpassing the previous $92 per share bid from United Rentals.
**Technicals:** Watching $100 level. They've accepted the bid so we might see trading closer to that bid price in the near future.
**Catalyst/Sector Context:** Equipment rental industry is witnessing consolidation due to decelerating growth since 2023 (other than that nothing explosive)
**Risks:** The bidding war may escalate acquisition costs, potentially leading to overvaluation and financial strain for the acquiring company.
**Related Tickers:** URI, HRI
**Ticker:** [**NKE (Nike Inc)**](https://finviz.com/quote.ashx?t=NKE&p=d)
**Catalyst:** Nike has announced a new brand collaboration with SKIMS, launching a line called NikeSKIMS.
**Technicals:** Watching $75 level.
**Catalyst/Sector Context:** SKIMS is pretty popular- mainly does underwear/loungewear/shapewear but this might be more focused on athleisure. This could potentially make a difference in NKE sales- SKIMS also collaborated with The North Face in the past, so worth keeping track of this for future catalysts in case they work with other brands.
**Related Tickers:** LULU, UAA
**Tickers:** [**LMT (Lockheed Martin )**](https://finviz.com/quote.ashx?t=LMT&p=d)**/**[**GD (General Dynamics )**](https://finviz.com/quote.ashx?t=GD&p=d)**/**[**RTX (Raytheon)**](https://finviz.com/quote.ashx?t=RTN&p=d)
**Catalyst:** Unconfirmed reports suggest that President Trump plans to demand $500 billion from Ukraine and seek U.S. control over the country's mineral resources.
These claims have not been reported by major U.S. news outlets but have appeared in international media (from India, Canada, UK)
**Technicals:** This catalyst has been "semi-leaked" for the past week but not "fully confirmed", but we would likely see a selloff in defense stocks if true.
**Catalyst/Sector Context:** These companies would go to the downside from an end to the Ukraine war, and spike if talks aren't successful.
**Risks:** Pretty much a "wait for the news announcement" kind of trade, pretty straightforward.
**Related Tickers:** BA, NOC, HAL
**Ticker:** [**BIDU (Baidu)**](https://finviz.com/quote.ashx?t=BIDU&p=d)
**Catalyst:** BIDU earnings with an EPS of ¥19.18 vs ¥14.13. Revenue of ¥34.1 billion vs ¥33.4 billion.
The company noted a 178% quarter-over-quarter increase in external API calls for its ERNIE AI bot and expects its AI investments to deliver more significant results in 2025.
Additionally, Apollo Go has commenced 100% fully driverless operations across China since February.
**Catalyst/Sector Context:** The technology sector is rapidly advancing in AI and autonomous driving technologies. Something interesting over the weekend was Xi meeting with private sector business leaders, signaling that China would be more friendly to business leaders (like Jack Ma)
**Risks:** It's China.
**Related Tickers:** BABA, JD
