Good morning investors, traders, and chart lovers ☕
At 8:30 AM EST the July employment report printed negative 23,000 payrolls against consensus near positive 80,000. Unemployment fell to 4.1%, but for the wrong reason. Participation dropped to 61.4%, its lowest level in over five years. This is the first negative print of the cycle, and it lands one week after a 9 to 3 Fed hold, with markets pricing better than even odds of a September hike as recently as yesterday. That pricing is now being repriced in real time.
Layer on the energy tape. Brent jumped over 4% Thursday on the Iran and Oman framework for the Strait of Hormuz, which stops short of a full reopening. Weak labor data plus elevated oil is the exact combination that forces institutions to reposition, and repositioning shows up at levels.
That is why today’s roadmap is a video. I walk the SPY and QQQ profiles the way a desk would: where volume was accepted, where it was rejected, and the specific triggers, paths, and invalidations for the bull, balance, and bear scenarios into the open. No prediction. Preparation.
Watch the full video roadmap below before the bell.
CPI lands August 12. Today’s print set the table for it.
We don’t predict. We prepare.
- Roy
