Lam Research Corporation (LRCX)

On the biggest day for earnings reports in the S&P let me give you my scorecard to date so you know which pile your stocks might land in.

The indices are within striking distance of the July highs after moving into position for a possible strong finish to the year.

Hire a lot of people, work with the Chinese government, and play by the rules.

The Defense Department's potential $10 billion award for their cloud computing contract is a never ending saga with Microsoft and Amazon as finalists.

The tech sector has been the victim of the recent "on again, off again" rotation. That may really just mean that the group has been victimized by its own success.

Microsoft, Lam Research and several other companies have announced hikes in dividends, so let's break them down.

So many companies -- like Netflix, Facebook and Johnson & Johnson -- are not trading on earnings per share, but on factors that are nearly impossible to quantify.

Let's check out the charts of this chip stock.

Recent pricing data, upbeat analyst reports and a guidance hike from a Taiwanese memory maker give fresh reasons to think the memory industry's downturn is nearing an end.

Samsung and Western Digital both suggest memory demand is improving following a very rough first half of the year. And Lam Research's outlook suggests industry supply growth is falling sharply.

The Fed chairman's news conference threw markets for a loop with hawkish words that did not support the Fed's dovish actions.

Understand that the expected Fed rate cut today is not about recent economic performance in the least.

And as the semiconductor sector continues to shine, Brooks Automation is a name to keep in mind.

Also, defense industry names can breathe easier with word of debt ceiling and federal spending deal.

The chip manufacturing giant issued upbeat Q3 sales guidance and forecast this year's capital spending will be at the high end of a prior guidance range.

Much of it occurs when someone jumps the gun, deciding that the headlines must be traded without any knowledge of what is underneath them.

As chip stocks gain nearly across the board following numbers from Micron that weren't exactly stellar, it's worth remembering how low valuations for many names had gotten.

Talks between Washington and Beijing unlikely to end tariffs, but what would be worse? If the Fed chief dropped his guard on a single tweet.

Broadcom's Huawei mess is at the heart of Trump's disregard for what happens to American businesses.

FedEx's rise on bad news and Facebook's fall on the same are two examples of how it's hard to figure out when enough's enough.

This softness in energy pricing, though not good for the oil patch, and certainly a negative for the railroads, will help in two ways.

Like other chip equipment makers, Applied is slogging through a rough 2019. But it outlined a case for better 2020 demand.

A review of the latest LRCX charts.

Following a big rally in recent months, KLA's shares are lower Tuesday after the company maintained a cautious view of near-term chip equipment demand.

The big portfolio managers get ahead of the turn in cycles -- as we can see in oil services, semiconductors and autos, among other sectors. Here's how to play their game.

Though the Korean tech and electronics giant is facing its share of challenges, it did report seeing strong Galaxy S10 sales and forecast memory demand will improve in the coming months.

The fact that the strong stocks are mainly index heavy weights is what is preventing an absolute rout of the indices at this point.