Western Digital Corp. (WDC)

Stimulus efforts could give a boost to 5G infrastructure spending, and usage spikes for many online services could drive higher cloud capex.

Chip equipment and memory stock particularly look more attractive now.

It's no secret that the Fed would like to get out of the short-term repo business.

Let's take a technical look at WDC.

How does one approach these markets? How does one interpret what they see before them?

It may not be too late to take part in the positive market action on semiconductor stocks, but be cautious. Here is how things stand.

Intel CPU shortages and the end of a business PC upgrade cycle are both likely to weigh on near-term PC demand.

Several Fed officials spoke on Thursday. The most important comments for folks to focus upon were made by Fed Vice Chair Richard Clarida. By far.

I am simply respectful of the power of hope melded with the strength of so many parts of technology and I want to buy, not sell, these stocks when they get hammered.

While chip stocks are now pricing in a lot of optimism, the latest headlines aren't exactly giving bulls cold feet.

Cloud demand trends, gaming GPU sales and Mellanox deal commentary are among the things to watch as Nvidia reports.

Though major chip suppliers shared both good and bad news in October, on the whole the positives outweighed the negatives.

Markets are watching what Fed Chair Powell will signal for future rate cuts during this afternoon's FOMC rate decision.

Do I want to buy equity here? I have enough exposure to the semis as whole right now.

Let's hope the blacklisting of eight companies supplying surveillance equipment to the Chinese state is not just another chip on the U.S.-China trade negotiating table.

As cloud giants digest some of their past investments in hardware and chips, they're still investing heavily in growing their data center capacity. That's ultimately a positive for data center REITs and chip suppliers with cloud exposure.

Trading volume has been shrinking from late June, and this is not the picture technical analysts like to see.

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.

Here's how I'd play it.

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.

Apple is on the verge of offering new products that could diversify its revenue stream even further.

The fact that the stock's running could be because CEO Bob Swann called the bottom in data center spend.

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.

Skeptics say nothing was resolved with China deal, but they're wrong -- do they know our stock markets have run wild the first half of the year not despite, but because of the endless pessimism?

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.

The trouble for me, as an investor, is that this business remains in decline until it is not in decline.