Nasdaq 100 Holds 28,160 Pivot as AI Sentiment Turns Around

The Nasdaq 100 is trading around a decisive pivot at 28,160, and according to TradingView analyst SroshMayi, that single level now separates an active bullish run toward 28,800 from a slide back to 27,610. It's a technical setup built directly on top of a fundamental tug-of-war: improving AI sentiment on one side, sticky inflation on the other. Here's what the levels mean for anyone positioned in tech indices this week.

Why did AI sentiment improve?

The catalyst, per SroshMayi's analysis, was CoreWeave. The cloud and AI-infrastructure company posted strong results, and that helped ease some of the recent market anxiety around excessive AI spending and data-center investment. Those fears had weighed on the sector for weeks — the worry being that hyperscalers and their suppliers were pouring capital into capacity faster than demand could justify.

The market's read on the CoreWeave numbers was immediate. Nasdaq 100 futures were outperforming the broader market on the day, with AI and semiconductor shares leading the rebound. In plain terms: when one of the most AI-levered names delivers, traders reprice the whole spending narrative, not just one stock.

What does the CPI print change?

The recovery has a ceiling, and it's the Federal Reserve. Yesterday's hotter-than-expected CPI report has reinforced expectations for another Fed rate hike, SroshMayi notes. Higher-rate concerns remain an important risk for growth and technology stocks — the classic duration problem, where the further out a company's cash flows sit, the harder rising rates hit its valuation.

So the setup is genuinely two-sided. Earnings momentum says buy the AI complex; macro data says the cost of capital is still climbing. That's exactly why the technical picture matters more than usual right now — the chart is where both forces get arbitraged into a single price.

What are the levels to watch?

SroshMayi lays out the map with 28,160 as the key pivot. The structure is straightforward:

• Pivot: 28,160
• Resistance (upside targets): 28,400 → 28,600 → 28,800
• Support (downside targets): 27,780 → 27,610

While the Nasdaq 100 holds above 28,160, bullish momentum remains active, the analyst writes, with the path mapped toward those three successive resistance levels. A confirmed break above 28,400 — the first ceiling — would strengthen the next bullish leg, signaling the recovery has legs rather than being a one-day futures bounce.

The downside case is equally defined. Stability below 28,160 would weaken the recovery and expose 27,780 first, then 27,610. Note the wording: it's not a single tick below the pivot that matters, but the index establishing itself underneath it.

What does this change for traders?

For practitioners, the practical question is where risk gets defined. Above 28,160, the bias is higher, with 28,400 as the first test of conviction. Below it, the trade flips, and roughly 550 index points of air sit between the pivot and the 27,610 support — a move of about 2% that would unfold quickly if rate-hike expectations keep hardening.

The tension won't resolve on the chart alone. The next CPI reading and the Fed's response will decide whether AI earnings strength or rate fears win the argument — and which side of 28,160 the Nasdaq 100 calls home.