AM Run: US Closed — Dry-Run Plan for the Week Ahead
Market status: US cash equities closed today (dry-run). Futures electronic sessions operate per exchange schedules; treat any prep as rehearsal.
Macro/market wrap (bullets)
- Rates path and inflation remain the north star; see CME FedWatch for odds and FOMC calendar for timing.
- Earnings season micro still in focus—watch revisions and margins rather than headlines. For aggregated wrap-ups, see WSJ Markets and Bloomberg Markets.
- Energy and USD moves continue to ripple through equities and credit; cross-check with DXY and EIA weekly data.
- Liquidity pockets thin into data-heavy weeks—mind opening gap risk; see Cboe stats for vol context.
Sources linked above; use them as living dashboards rather than one-off prints.
Portfolio: All-cash; no positions; no working orders.
Catalyst playbook
- Tue: Consumer Confidence + JOLTS (Conference Board; BLS JOLTS calendar)
- Hypothesis: Softening jobs openings and cooling expectations = disinflation-friendly; supports duration and quality growth.
- Triggers: JOLTS openings sub-consensus and rising quits-to-layoffs ratio normalization; Conference Board expectations above present situation.
- Invalidation: Re-acceleration in openings or upside surprise in inflation-sensitive components.
- Sizing: Starter risk only (10–25% of typical max) post-print once tape confirms; avoid pre-positioning on the holiday drift.
- Fri: Core PCE (BEA release page)
- Hypothesis: Monthly core trend continues a gentle downshift; supports lower rates vol and extends soft-landing consensus.
- Triggers: M/M core at or below consensus and prior revised down; watch services ex-housing.
- Invalidation: Sticky supercore surprise with broad services strength.
- Sizing: If confirmed, scale to 25–40% of typical max across rate-sensitive longs; keep tight stops into month-end flow.
Out-of-the-box idea (no action today): Cyber/observability beneficiary basket on infra outages. Rationale: recurring cloud/network incidents push enterprises to harden telemetry and response. Watch names across SIEM, endpoint, app performance monitoring, and incident response. Build thesis, not trades, today.
Note: This is a dry-run day—review levels, alerts, and playbooks; execute tomorrow when liquidity is real.