It has been a relentless week in the markets. The major mega-cap tech earnings have rolled through, several of the largest software names have reported, and even memory and storage names have delivered notable surprises. SanDisk's morning reaction stood out as a textbook gift for traders watching for dip buys, position entries, or red-to-green reversals. The persistent attempts of short-biased participants to call the top in semiconductor and hardware names continue to fail — reminiscent of the old commercial of the man with the dollar who almost grabs it but never quite does.
Underneath all of this noise, the same themes keep dominating: semiconductors, data center plays, and hardware. Manufacturing of devices like Mac minis is moving back to the United States, reinforcing the case that hardware — alongside artificial intelligence — is one of the defining investment stories of this cycle. The simple truth is that this rally will eventually end, but until it does, the rational approach is to make hay while the sun shines.
With that in mind, three names stand out as compelling expressions of the AI infrastructure thesis: Alphabet (GOOGL), TeraWulf (WULF), and Cisco (CSCO).
Alphabet (GOOGL): Still the Best AI Pure Play Outside the IPO Pipeline
Back in September and October, when nearly every headline screamed about an imminent AI bubble, the contrarian view was that the cycle was just getting started. Alphabet was the favorite idea then, and the stock has rallied more than 20% since. Their latest earnings only reinforced the thesis. They have a stake in Anthropic, they have made a series of disciplined strategic decisions, and the chart confirms what the fundamentals suggest.
There is also an underappreciated structural advantage worth noting: Alphabet's acquisition of YouTube looked like a great deal at the time and generated enormous returns. But in a world where AI models are starved for high-quality training data, the value of millions of hours of video sitting on YouTube becomes nearly impossible to overstate. That is a moat that compounds.
Of course, the rule still applies — never simply hold and hope. That is precisely how investors got destroyed during the dot-com bust. But of all the AI names available outside the unpredictable IPO calendar, Alphabet remains the single best choice.
The Technical Picture
Alphabet is trading inside a steep upward-sloping channel and recently topped out around $386.30. The stock is now sitting only about 0.7% below those highs. Several layered support levels stand out: a gap that began near $356, an old high close near $344, a prior consolidation breakout at $322, and a 5-day EMA around $367.58. Below the channel, the 21-day EMA sits just shy of $340.
The RSI is doing what bulls want to see — pushing well above the 80 threshold, which is a rare and powerful signal. The setup remains constructive as long as price keeps making new highs and RSI continues to print new relative highs alongside it. Bearish divergence or RSI dropping out of overbought would be the first warning. The volume profile shows the heaviest trading concentration between $300 and $322, with $340 marking a notable boundary above which trading thins out considerably. The stock is up roughly 22% year-to-date.
TeraWulf (WULF): A Steadier Data Center Play
TeraWulf has nearly doubled year-to-date and is up more than 3.5% on the day, trading around $22.53. After chopping sideways for months, the stock finally broke out about a week ago. The underlying thesis is straightforward — this is a data center expansion story, and the steady, gradual uptrend reflects exactly that.
The Technical Picture
TeraWulf's chart shows an upward-sloping trend line across the lows paired with a more modestly sloped boundary across the highs, forming what is technically a rising wedge. While rising wedges are sometimes labeled bearish, the directional bias of these patterns is extremely slight. What it really shows is steeper demand meeting more consistent supply.
The stock is currently nosing above the upper boundary, with intraday highs around $22.63. Earlier structural levels include a small double bottom at $19.50, prior support near $18.50, and a longer-running boundary near $17. The 5-day EMA at $21.41 is close, and the 21-day EMA at $19.65 would be the next support if the trend line breaks. RSI shows a slight bearish divergence — but that is simply telling you the pace of gains has slowed, not that a collapse is imminent. The bullish trigger would be a clean break above the trend line combined with a push back into overbought. The volume profile shows a small node between $19.50 and $21, with the next significant node down at $13.75 to $16. Holding above the heavy concentration zone is itself a bullish signal.
Cisco (CSCO): The Plumbing of the Internet, Twenty Years Later
Cisco is the most fascinating story of the three. This was the darling of the dot-com boom, and many investors who refused to respect trading rules effectively lost two decades waiting to break even. It took more than 20 years to reclaim those highs. But here we are, back at those levels — and the parallels are striking.
Cisco is and has always been the plumbing of the internet: the routers, the switches, the blinking-light infrastructure that makes any data center function. There is a strong case that AI will eventually make the dot-com boom look like a blip on the radar, and Cisco's product line is core to the buildout.
There is also an unusual structural tailwind. All those long-term holders who endured 20-plus years underwater are finally back in the green. Many of them are likely adding to their positions rather than ringing the register. Combine that ongoing accumulation with the data center buildout and the explosion of AI demand, and you get a flow dynamic that should keep pushing the stock higher — at least until the broader AI complex finally gets its consolidation or pullback.
The Technical Picture
Cisco hit intraday highs at $92.92 and is trading around $92.53, up more than 1% on the day. The chart shows a fairly consistent upward-sloping channel. The $90 level is a meaningful old high, and $88 is another old high that previously acted as support — both areas worth watching for buying opportunities on any pullback. The 5-day EMA sits at $90.45 and the 21-day EMA at $86.49.
The recurring theme across all three charts is the same: the moving averages are diverging further apart from each other, and price is holding above every one of them. There is no early sign of trend interruption. RSI is re-entering overbought, and although some observers might point to mild bearish divergence, the more likely interpretation is that the prior pullback to the trend line already served as the reset. A new high beyond the previous peak would invalidate any bearish interpretation. Re-entry into overbought is generally a more meaningful signal than minor short-term divergence. The volume profile shows a small node around $82 to $82.50 and a much heavier node at $76 to $78 — the most important near-term trading zone. Current price sits nearly $20 above that range.
The Bigger Picture
What ties these three names together is the conviction that we are still at the front end of the AI cycle, not the late innings. Hardware, semiconductors, and data center infrastructure are the picks-and-shovels layer of this buildout, and the stocks closest to that physical reality — Alphabet for compute and data, TeraWulf for capacity, and Cisco for connectivity — are the ones most directly leveraged to it. None of this means abandoning trading discipline. But as long as the trend remains intact and the technicals continue to confirm strength, the right move is to ride the move and respect the levels rather than try to outsmart it.