Morning Market Notes 08-12-26

Market Calendar

$SPX & $QQQ

CPI morning and the print came in friendly. QQQ up 0.81% premarket, SPY up 0.32%, VIX bleeding back to 15.2. Tech is leading before the cash open.

The catalyst is July CPI. Headline came in at 0.1% on the month with the annual rate slipping to 3.4% from 3.5%, and core printed 0.2% against the 0.3% consensus. That's the cool print the rate-cut crowd wanted, and you can see it in the leadership, QQQ doing double what SPY is doing. SPX implied at 7750 between the 7700 Put Wall and the 7800 Call Wall with a 0.96% implied move. Bulls have the data on their side today, so a grind toward 7800 is the path unless the open gets sold.

Rest of the macro day is quiet, just the monthly federal budget at 2. PPI hits tomorrow morning and retail sales close the week 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.