SPY OPEN | Wednesday June 10
$736.29. Down 0.10%. Flat. The dealer engine re-engaged overnight. CPI this morning is the catalyst.
THE KEY CHANGE:
Net dealer delta flipped positive. +13.6M. Was -26.1M yesterday. Dealers are back to short delta, buying dips mechanically. The engine that reversed for the first time in six weeks just flipped back in one session. The forced-selling regime lasted 24 hours.
THE STABILIZATION:
Yesterday's progression told the story:
9:55 AM: +22.0 Lean Bullish, +4.1M flow
11:37 AM: -51.9 Strong Bearish, -104M flow, IV crossed 25%
12:50 PM: $724.83 low, -203M record bearish flow, zero magnets
2:00 PM: Bounced $8 from the low, $720 put wall held
Today: +10.5 Neutral, +6.2M bullish flow. The panic exhausted. The structure stabilized.
WHAT REBUILT OVERNIGHT:
Composite: +10.5. Up 62 points from yesterday's -50.9 Strong Bearish. The largest overnight composite recovery of the cycle.
Flow: +6.2M bullish. Was -104M yesterday morning, -203M at the low. The direction reversed.
Premium: +$550M at 68% call-heavy. Was -$3.25B at 6% call at yesterday's low. The institutions are buying calls again.
Deep floor: $684. Cushion: 7.1%. Back to the structural level that held all cycle. Yesterday's near-term flip at $742 above price was a near-term scan artifact. The full-chain floor is $684 and holding.
Magnets reappeared: $750 (+$65M) and $755 (+$62M) in the top ten. Yesterday had zero magnets. The structure is beginning to form upside pull again.
Vanna: +137.1K dealer effective. The largest supportive reading since Friday. IV at 19.3% means significant fuel is loaded. Any IV compression triggers mechanical dealer buying.
WHAT HASN'T RECOVERED:
GEX: -$1,194M. Still deeply negative. The amplification regime persists. Wider ranges continue.
IV: 19.3%. Elevated. Not spiking further but not compressing yet. The elevated IV is the fuel source for the vanna recovery. It needs to start dropping for the mechanic to fire.
IV skew: +2.61% bearish. Puts still expensive relative to calls. The hedge book is still loaded for downside. The institutions are protected.
Accelerators below: $735 (-$101M at price), $730 (-$121M), $725 (-$92M), $720 (-$198M, largest). The downside chain is intact. If $730 breaks, $720 catches with the heaviest accelerator in the chain. The $720 proved yesterday it holds.
THE CPI BINARY RESOLVED:
We mapped two scenarios this morning. Soft CPI or hot CPI. The soft scenario printed. Core at +0.2% vs +0.3% expected.
What we said would happen on a soft print: "The put unwind fires. $2B+ of hedges get closed. Each put closing forces dealers to buy shares. The mechanical bid returns. IV compresses. Vanna fires."
That mechanic is now in play.
CPI PRINTED:
Headline: +0.5% vs +0.5% consensus. Inline. Core: +0.2% vs +0.3% consensus. Below forecast. Cool print.
Core CPI is what the Fed watches. It came in cold. Both headline and core decelerated from April (+0.6% and +0.4%). This softens the rate hike narrative heading into Warsh's first FOMC next week.
Our research says cool CPI days drift higher from the open. The gap direction predicts the close 72% of the time. If it gapped up this morning, the base rate favors an up close.
The inflation matrix update: last month's PPI was hot. This CPI is cold. That puts us in the CPI Cold / PPI Hot quadrant, the weakest in our matrix. SPY 20-day forward in this quadrant averages -0.46%. This is the mixed signal regime. The market can handle inflation in either direction. What it struggles with is conflicting signals from CPI and PPI.
The 20-day hot CPI buy signal did NOT fire. That signal requires a hot print. Today was the opposite.
Watch PPI tomorrow morning. If PPI comes in cold and aligns with this CPI, we move into the agreement quadrant. That's where the 20-day edge lives.
The mechanical read: the soft core print is the catalyst for the put unwind we described above. $2B+ of hedges positioned for hot inflation are now offside. That unwind creates the mechanical bid. IV should compress. Vanna should fire. The structure favors recovery into the close.
$742 is the GEX flip. $750 is the first magnet. $736 is at price. $720 is the floor. PPI tomorrow is the next catalyst. 4 trading days to FOMC.
$SPY $QQQ $IWM
Gold tested all support levels. Today is likely going to be a decider. Either US and Iran come up with a peace deal or precious metals completely decouple from this topic. Enough of absurdity...
Just saw $AVGOโs earnings, and it might be hinting that AI spending growth has peaked. With crazy high expectations already baked into chip stocks like $SMH, this could mean lower multiplesโand maybe even an AI bubble burstโespecially if the Fed stays hawkish. ๐๐
Nice clean rejection from the ABC 1.0 extension at Thursday's high.
Also touched the -2 ATR daily level.
Solid confluence to watch for.
Looks like the sell-off is finished... for now.
$SPX
Chinese margin debt is going wild, hitting a record ~$431 billion. That's doubled in 2 years and now 22% above the 2015 bubble peak. ๐ณ
Shanghai margin trading has averaged $22B daily over the last 2 weeksโalmost all-time highs. Volume has tripled in 12 months and matches 20
People are scrambling to protect themselves from a drop in South Korean stocks:
Put option bets on the $EWY ETF have hit around 880,000 contractsโthe most in over a year. That's quadrupled in just weeks.
On the flip side, call options rose by 80,000 to about 400,000, also