Markets Gonna Get Ya – Bear Teases Monstrous Move Then Pulls A 50% Retracement | SPX Market Briefing | 12 Feb 2026

Thursday 12 Feb. Markets digesting yesterday’s NFP blowout. 130K versus 55K expected. Strongest hiring in 13 months.

Rate cut timeline reshuffled. March collapsed to 8%. Next cut now priced July. 10-year surged to 4.17%.

AI trade split in two. Vertiv exploded 21% on data centre guidance. Micron +9.9%. Meanwhile software got massacred again. Salesforce -4%. Intuit -5%. Atlassian -6%.

Bitcoin broke the 200-week EMA at $68K. First time this rally. Fell 3% to $66K. CPI Friday carries enormous weight for every asset class.

Current Multi-Market Status:

• ES: 6,982.50 (NATHs 7,043) – still grinding below highs
• YM: 50,347 (NATHs 50,611) – pulled back from fresh ATHs
• NQ: 25,351.50 (NATHs 26,399) – still -10% from highs
• RTY: 2,677.1 (NATHs 2,749.2) – bearish TnT active, retracing
• GC: 5,093.3 (NATHs 5,626.8) – holding above $5K
• CL: 64.61 – Iran carrier threat vs inventory build
• VIX: 17.28 – at an interesting juncture, offering bear clues
• BTC/USD: 67,204.19 (was 93,161) – broke 200-week EMA, gravity winning
• NYSE Advance-Decline: +113,000 (barely positive, fading fast)

SPX Tag ‘n Turn – Pinch Point On The 30 Min

AntiVestor Tag ‘n Turn Status:

SPX is in a pinch point on the 30-minute chart. The Bearish @ Upper Range zone remains marked. Multiple PFZ Flips visible across the last two weeks.

Yesterday’s bear move was a monstrous tease. Moved lower with conviction then failed to follow through after the 50% retracement. Classic market indecision.

MACD-v on the 30-min is curling. My hand-drawn annotation shows the curl developing. Breaks and pullback in either direction to get positioned further.

The system remains flat awaiting a fresh setup. But I’m still leaning bear.

“Target Range Lows” is still annotated on the chart. Price at 6,941.46 on the daily. NATHs at 7,002.28. ATR 14 at 77.43.

SPX Gamma Exposure – The 7,000 Magnet

GEX Data (11 Feb):

Both put wall and call wall sitting at 7,000. That’s dealer gamma concentrated at one strike. A magnet and a brick wall rolled into one.

Price sitting at 6,941 means we’re above the gamma flip point at 6,906.87. That’s positive gamma territory where dealers buy dips and sell rips, suppressing volatility.

But here’s the thing. If price drops below 6,906.87 the gamma flips negative. Dealers start selling into weakness and buying into strength. That amplifies moves and increases volatility.

The IV Rank at 11.85% tells you options are historically cheap right now. IV Percentile at 58% shows we’re mid-range. Cheap options ahead of CPI Friday the 13th? That’s the kind of setup that catches people out.

RUT Tag ‘n Turn – Bearish But Same Story

AntiVestor Tag ‘n Turn Status:

RUT very much the same story. Bearish TnT active. Little follow through after a retracement.

Price at 2,669.47 on the daily with the lower support at 2,643.41. Bearish TnT and PFZ Flip confirmed on the 30-min at the highs near 2,700.

MACD-v showing the same indecision pattern as SPX. Fading from the extremes but not yet giving a clean directional signal for the next leg.

The “Bearish @ Upper Range” zone is still marked. The measured move target from the head and shoulders pattern sits at 2,564 but we need follow through to get there.

The NFP Blowout – What It Actually Means

January NFP hit 130,000 versus 55,000 expected. Unemployment fell to 4.3%. Strongest hiring in 13 months.

Markets rallied on the number. Then reversed. That’s the sell the news.

Treasury yields surged. 10-year hit 4.17%. 2-year surged 6bp to 3.52%. March rate cut odds collapsed to 8%. Next cut now priced July.

The benchmark revisions we flagged yesterday? Less dramatic than feared. But the forward-looking implication is clear. The labour market isn’t as weak as the bears hoped. The Fed stays higher for longer.

Three Fed cuts was the consensus last week. Now the market is rethinking that entirely. CPI tomorrow will either confirm or blow up whatever’s left of the rate cut narrative.

The AI Trade Splits Wide Open

This is the story of the week. The AI trade has bifurcated into two completely separate trades.

Hardware wins:

• Vertiv exploded 21% on $13.5B revenue guidance (crushed $12.43B consensus)
• Micron surged 9.9%
• Caterpillar +4.3%
• Data centre infrastructure is the picks-and-shovels play

Software burns:

• Salesforce -4%
• Intuit -5%
• Atlassian -6%
• Workday -4%
• Dan Ives called it the worst structural software selloff in 25 years

The market has chosen. Build the infrastructure. Kill the applications. If AI can replace what your SaaS product does, your SaaS product is dead.

Fastly surged 28% bucking the trend. But Robinhood crashed 11% on revenue miss and Moderna fell 10%. The market punishes anything less than perfection right now.

Bitcoin – Below The Line That Matters

BTC broke below the 200-week EMA at $68,000. First time since this rally began.

Fell 3% to $66,000 yesterday. Now at $67,204 on the SnapView. Ethereum hit $1,950, down 35% YTD. $5.7 billion in ETF outflows since November.

This is not a dip. This is a structural rotation. Digital to physical. Bitcoin to gold. Speculation to infrastructure.

Gold holding above $5,075 whilst BTC breaks critical support levels tells you exactly where institutional money is going. And it’s not going to crypto.

BTC 4-Hour – Russian Dolls And Compression Pops

The dead cat bounce I mentioned earlier in the week continues to bounce. Or not. As the case may be.

On the 4-hour chart I’ve marked off some interesting quick-hit setups. Price compresses then pops out for a quick but short move. While there are more on the chart I’ve marked off areas 1, 2, and 3 as reference.

The point at 4 is where it gets interesting. Tight Russian doll-type pattern with multiple inside bars. Compression equals opportunity.

The pop when it happens should offer a short-lived but explosive opportunity. Whether that’s a recovery bounce back towards $70K or a continuation lower towards $60K is the question mark I’ve drawn on the chart.

Crypto Total Market Cap sitting at $2.29 trillion. Down from $4.4T highs. The broader picture hasn’t changed. But these compression setups offer tactical opportunities regardless of the macro direction.

Premium Poppers – 3 Scalps Banked Live

Took 3 scalping Premium Popper trades during my live session with insiders yesterday. Profitable despite the market tease.

SPX is leaning towards providing the better setups on the Poppers right now. Clearer and more frequent setups. This is one of those things that jumps around. One month it’s SPX delivering. Next month it’ll be RUT.

For now, Im being lazy and not yet made up the post trade flash card

We also looked at Mag7 VWAP setups as a sidebar. AAPL, TSLA, AMZN, META all provided interesting setups through the day. The stock setups did most definitely follow through where the index trades didn’t.

That’s the beauty of having multiple tools. When one instrument is being a tease, another is following through. Systematic flexibility.