 sectors and could continue as uncertainty about the Delta virus rises. Now to discuss what this means for markets and semiconductors, I'd like to welcome in Melissa Armo. She's founder, owner of the stock Swoosh LLC. Melissa, welcome to your market overtime to help us close out the week and the week that was. But why don't we start off with what areas the market are being hit by this chip shortage that we've just been hearing more and more in the financial headlines? Well, it's really depending on your picks. Some of the stocks in this sector have been doing very well. For example, Nvidia today had a gap up. It made brand new all-time highs. That stock, since it split, has been kind of basing out. It finally is getting a lift again. So that's something that looks like a good long. But then there's other stocks, something like new. That doesn't look very good. That looks lower. TSM looks lower too. So it really depends on the individual company which one you pick. I wouldn't necessarily just across the board be going along all of these things and holding them. Some of these may drop off and sell off before they lift again. Got it. All right. So within this space, the semiconductor space, what's your general outlook going here into the second half of 2021? I think it's going to be difficult, mainly because of what you were stating earlier, reference to the Delta variant and COVID. And really just what's happening right now is ports. Supplies are coming into ports. And this is across the board. Not just in this is everything that's happening right now. And then we don't have enough ships. We don't have enough dock workers. We don't have enough drivers. There's not enough truck drivers. There is actually a shortage in supply chain across the United States. And this is one of the reasons we've been seeing inflation in certain products and services as well is because we don't have enough drivers. Some of the drivers are on unemployment because they make more unemployment because the extra stimulus. Some of the drivers are failing the drug test right now. In order to get a CDO license, you have to pass the drug test. I think they do it like every six to eight weeks. And because marijuana now is legal in many states, some of these, but you can't drive. If you don't pass the test, they're not passing the test. Then they got to be off until they pass the test again. There are so many issues right now with truck drivers. It's one of the reasons you're seeing a higher cost. This continued inflation, you're going to continue to see this. The shortage is due to the lack of people that are working in many of these different industries, whether it's the ports, whether it's the drivers, and it's a problem. And until we get back to normal, which means not necessarily full employment, but a lot, a lot lower numbers in unemployment than we've been seeing. I don't think we're going to see really better prices and things. Well, you're absolutely right about this chip shortage becoming a bigger and bigger issue. We were just talking today about, I think was it Ford had something like 60,000 trucks ready to go outside the manufacturing plant, but they can't move them without the chips, the semi-chips. So this is really starting to have some trickle down effect throughout the entire economy. Can I just ask you, are there any companies that have been able to successfully navigate this lack of chip supply? Well, nothing really comes to mind. Again, I look at the technicals. I'm really not finding the fundamentals of what these companies are doing per se. We're at the end of earnings season. The next earnings season doesn't start until the fall. So I would really be very careful of any new positions you take between now and then for two reasons. One, we still have the Delta variant. And two, we have this conflict going on right now overseas. I heard you talking about the previous guests about the market rallying today and trying to recover from yesterday. But the fact is the market gap down yesterday and rally, that isn't really necessarily a great setup. We were also down this morning in the pre-market before we recovered. That's not exactly what you want to see for a long position. I know we're not close to the highs. But the fact is what's happening right now overseas could collapse this market. And so whether you look at a company, whether you think it's strong, whether you think it's good, whether you think everything looks fabulous, even if it's not an earnings season right now, I will be extremely careful about taking new positions long, going into this conflict that we're having right now in the Middle East. This could collapse the market. I really was thinking the possibility of another shutdown could happen. And Nicole and I were talking about this a couple of weeks ago. I said 50-50 because if the cases keep rising, then the administration may be concerned and do another partial or temporary shutdown. Now we have the Middle East conflict. Anything can happen with this. There's thousands of people that are Americans that are stuck over there. If we had some type of war conflict, this market is not going to hang on. We've had a beautiful run up. You can look at the fundamentals of these companies, study them if that's what you do. I look at the technicals. Like I said, Nvidia is my top pick to go long. But even still, it was a good long today for a day trade. It was a good long today if you did a call on it. But to hold something long right now overnight is like the tip. It's almost like we feel like we're teetering, teetering, even though we rallied in the market, even though we're rallying in some of these things. When you look at the banks, the banks don't look good. When you look at Amazon, it's hanging on by a cliff since the earnings. Some of these things that majorly, majorly move the market are not really at the highs. They're not really acting like they should. And part of this, again, is the fear factor of what's happening right now with some of these conflicts overseas. Okay. Well, some interesting things for our long-term investors to keep in mind and watch as things play out here over the next couple of weeks. Thanks again. That was Melissa Armell, founder, owner of the Stock Swoosh LLC.