Friday the 13th delivered early – Brent above $100, 2026 lows hit Thursday, bears back in full control of both SPX and RUT
VIX held the range highs all week – that was the signal that the mid-week recovery wasn’t going to stick
PCE drops at 08:30 ET today – headline 2.7% expected, core near 3%, Fed meets March 17-18, Goldman now says September for the first cut
BTC breaking out of its range on the hourly – 6MMPs pattern #5 in play, targets marked, grinding sideways overall but the setup is there
22 trades across 4 days – 18 wins, 4 losses – profitable every single day without exception
Winning ROC held between 61.5% and 90% across a crisis open, a fast day, a clean sweep and an absolute grind
Thursday’s RUT paid 64-65% ROC on $2 and $6 index moves – the underlying barely moved and it didn’t need to
One VWAP trade got stopped by a penny at -93.5% – the next trade paid 90% – the penny didn’t matter
IEA dropped 400 million barrels – biggest emergency release in history – Goldman immediately said it can’t close the gap – Iran said $200/barrel
Higher low or dead cat bounce – the broken record plays again – what matters is the hard right edge, not the hindsight view
6 trades, 6 wins yesterday despite a scrappy session – most closed in the live sessions Monday and Wednesday
WTI back above $90 after crashing to $77 Tuesday on a deleted Navy escort post – this market is being moved by tweets and deletions
Oracle up 11% after hours – revenue +22%, cloud +44%, RPO +325% – first time in 15 years both organic revenue and EPS grew above 20% in a single quarter – bears duly noted
CPI at 8:30 ET this morning – 2.5% YoY expected, pre-conflict data, the oil surge doesn’t register until March prints
Range trading view: breakout, retest of range middle, early bears stopped out, price heading back out – Phil staying bearish on the swings
Yesterday’s poppers: 6 trades, 5 wins, 1 loss – the day trades continue to not care about the macro debate
Mark Steffens entered his first ever live SPX trade at 1.00, cold sweat, scaled target to 0.40, closed it – “Will keep grinding”
Irina Csont went 6 from 6 in a single session – ORBs and T&Ts on SPX and RUT – full house
Andy D. logged a 160% loss and came back in the same morning with 3 wins including 97% ROC – that’s process over outcome in one session
Chris Taylor used AI to analyse his trade log from November to February – ORB30 confirmed sweet spot, average return +$15.38
Andy D. pulled over on a public road to trade, “violated a few laws” (kidding), and banked RUT 100% ROC before driving away
Mary set up the lazy poppers, had lunch with her sisters, came home to winners – this is the whole point
Swanky Swank quietly hit 88% win rate over 50 consecutive trading days – read that again
Duncan’s Gold BWB was supposed to run 7 days – it finished in 1 – “actually a mistake”
Trump told CBS the war was “pretty much” complete – Brent cratered 7% from $119 to $91 overnight, futures now +0.4%
Markets doing what markets do – U-turning at the range lows, Sunday’s gap downs fully recovered and then some
VIX retreated from above 30 but still flirting with range highs – tensions not gone, just paused
Yesterday’s Poppers: frustrating start with 2 BO losses, walked away, came back, 3rd BO bullish on SPX then a VWAP trade – net positive
The Fed is caught between a slowing economy and an oil-driven inflation shock – the same trap that’s caused recessions in 1974, 1980, 1991, and 2008
Historical record is damning: the Fed made the wrong policy call in 8 out of 12 quarters during oil shocks since 1973
Leading indicators falling 3.7% annually while coincident indicators grow just 0.9% – signals say the Fed should already be cutting
But oil surging toward $88 could push inflation from 2.4% to 5% – making cuts politically and economically impossible
Kevin Warsh takes over from Powell in May, inheriting the worst possible starting hand for a new Fed Chair
CME FedWatch shows less than 4% chance of a March cut, rate cuts pushed to September at the earliest
Bond options traders are now betting the Fed may not cut at all in 2026 – some positioning for potential hikes
Gasoline jumped 11 cents in one day to $3.11 per gallon – the largest single-day increase since Hurricane Katrina in 2005
S&P futures -1.6% at 6,608, Nasdaq -2%, Dow -1.3% – nobody is arguing with the direction this morning
NFP printed -92,000 on Friday – worst print since the pandemic – and CPI lands Wednesday with the war’s first fingerprints on it
SPX is outside the range, RUT has broken its longer-term rising channel and hit the 10% down mark from recent highs
Premium Poppers keeping the scorecard green whilst the world rearranges itself around us
Triple macro collision at 08:30 ET today – NFP, live tariffs, and oil above $83 all land simultaneously
VIX at 24.77, SPX and RUT in bear breakouts and range retests – RUT more so than SPX
Yesterday’s Premium Poppers: Trade 1 stumbled on both instruments, Trades 2 and 3 got paid – system held
The up-a-day, down-a-day grind continues – and that’s exactly what the system was built for