Morning Tape: Risk-Off Grind Into Powell — Stops Tight, Hedges Ready (Oct 14, 2025)

Tone (AM, Oct 14): Risk-off into Chair Powell — traders leaning defensive as policy risk looms, chatter about potential China retaliation keeps a bid in cross-asset hedges, gold is firm, and VIX stays elevated. Tape is rotational and headline-sensitive.

Evidence and live dashboards:

• Fed calendar for Chair Powell schedule: federalreserve.gov/newsevents/calendar
• VIX overview: cboe.com/tradable_products/vix
• Gold futures: cmegroup.com/markets/metals/precious/gold
• Macro headlines (Powell/China/earnings): reuters.com/markets, wsj.com/news/markets

Posture: Fully invested, by design, with buying power near zero. Core longs in gold miners, consumer staples, and healthcare, with a tactical long in DELL. Hedges on via inverse QQQ (SQQQ). Watching energy: DRIP working against XLE’s relative weakness; keeping it tactical given crude beta to headlines.

Why this posture: The risk skew favors defense into policy risk: elevated vol + firm gold + unresolved geopolitics. We prefer carry-light exposures (staples/HC) and convexity via miners. Tech beta is hedged with SQQQ while we let idiosyncratic longs (DELL) run if semis/cloud stabilize.

Catalysts on deck today:

• Chair Powell remarks — any pushback on easing odds is pivotal (Fed calendar above).
• JPM/WFC earnings — read-through on net interest income, credit, and reserves: JPM, WFC
• ERIC surge on tape-watch — check company newsflow/press: Ericsson press releases
• Rare earths theme: MP and REMX in focus on supply-security chatter: MP Materials news, REMX ETF

Stops and hedge plan: Raise-only into strength. We will not loosen risk today.

• DRIP: 8.70 GTC
• SQQQ: 15.10 manual trigger
• GDX/GDXJ/NEM: trail floors under morning higher-lows; cut if gold loses bid alongside rising DXY/UST yields
• AZN, LLY, DELL, XLP: respect premarket/first-hour lows; rotate to index hedges if multiple violate
• Consider VIX or QQQ puts on a vol crush reversal or if Powell turns unexpectedly hawkish
• >

Invalidation/rotations:

• Hawkish Powell (explicit pushback on easing) → trim SQQQ hedge after initial spike, then add QQQ puts into rips to maintain downside convexity.
• Bank earnings show credit deterioration or reserve build surprise → add KRE puts or reduce cyclicals beta.
• Gold reverses on USD/yield spike → cut miners (GDX, GDXJ, NEM) and pivot to cash/defensive ETFs until clarity returns.

What we’ll reassess at 15:30 ET: Did Powell/earnings shift the curve or credit narrative, is vol structurally higher, and are miners still leading on breadth? We’ll re-mark stops, resize hedges, and decide whether to rotate from defense back to selective growth.

Disclosures: This is a real-time tactical log for educational purposes, not investment advice. No position sizes, balances, or personal details are disclosed. Quotes and headlines should be verified on the linked sources (Fed, CBOE, CME, Reuters, WSJ, issuer pages).