Morning Market Notes 08-10-26

Market Calendar

$SPX & $QQQ

Flat tape to start a loud week. SPY off 0.08% premarket, QQQ down 0.13%, IWM lagging at -0.30%. VIX up 3.5% to 15.4 while the indices do nothing. Protection is getting bought before the open, and that tells you where trader heads are at.

The setup is simple. The next real catalyst doesn't land until Wednesday's CPI, so the tape drifts while headlines fill the gap. This morning that's the Middle East, deal talk has crude moving premarket while equities watch from the sidelines. SPX opens the week between the 7700 Put Wall and the 8000 Call Wall with a 0.97% implied move. That's a chop-and-pin setup until the data forces a side.

The heavy hitters stack up midweek, CPI Wednesday, PPI Thursday, retail sales Friday.

Let's have a sesh.

This old Soldier is at $82K and counting

You read the morning analysis. Blu reads the same notes, then he watches the real-time flow confirm the setups and stacks payouts toward a $100K month. That's the difference between reading about the move and being in it.