GM and Happy Sunday, friends. GPU Super Bowl week as Nvidia reports Wednesday night with the whole growth trade in its pocket, the inflation number lands that same morning, and the new chair talks from the mountains Friday. My four charts walk into that gauntlet split clean down the middle: both indexes broke their two-week shelf and closed under the volume they built; both commodities went vertical and closed sitting on theirs. I lean lower on the indexes while ES lives under 7725 and I am not stepping in front of crude or gold, which is a sentence that has cost me money before. Should be a fun week given whatever is happening in bond land. Last week started real slow. Needs some gas.
The Week That Was
The long end of the bond market ran the whole show. The thirty-year printed its highest yield since 2007 on Tuesday, the national debt crossed forty trillion, and the indexes bled for four straight sessions while the Treasury stepped in to double its long-term buybacks. By Friday yields had stopped climbing and everything on the board bounced at once. Crude put in its second straight up week as Washington moved from airstrikes to open economic warfare on Iran, with the actual sanctions package due Monday. Gold got flushed into the 4390s midweek, reversed the whole thing in a day, and finished at its highest price in three months on the weaker dollar and the debt math.
ES opened the week at 7803 and closed Friday at 7691.75, with all the damage done Tuesday through Thursday. The two-week shelf both prior weeks built near 7770 gave way in one session and price never came back to it. The week put its volume at 7725.50 and closed below it, resting on its own value floor at 7682.75.
NQ opened at 30219.25, tagged 30286.75 Monday, and closed Friday at 29396.25 after a five-session slide that bottomed at 29202.50 Thursday. The week did its business at 29600 and price finished under it, standing on a floor where the week’s 29311.50, July’s 29300 POC, and August’s 29295.25 all landed together.
CL rolled to the new front contract midweek, so every crude number in this brief is post-roll, read them fresh. On the new contract it opened the week at 82.16, ran to 87.46, and closed at 86.65, dead on its own week POC at 86.60. Second straight up week, and unlike the last one it closed on top of the pile instead of under it.
GC opened the week at 4450.90, got flushed to 4392.30 Tuesday, and closed Friday at 4674.70 after printing 4690.30 on the high. The week’s volume sits way back at 4549 and price finished nowhere near it. It ended the week above every structure on the chart except its own Friday high.
Cross-asset read: Last week the indexes closed on top of their volume while crude and gold closed under theirs. This week the split flipped sides: ES and NQ finished below the value they built, the commodities finished sitting on or above it. Four charts swapped ends of the same trade in five sessions.
Positioning (August 18 data): The trader crowd on the S&P flipped net long at the top two weeks ago after leaning against the rally all summer, and by Tuesday it had dumped the longs and gone back to flat-short. The Nasdaq crowd finally collected on its short lean and covered most of it into the slide. Gold’s long crowd sits on about 220,000 contracts and got the week it was built for, while the crude crowd is carrying less than thirty thousand into the second up week in a row.
Vol: VIX closed at 15.13, up on the week even after Friday’s bounce knocked it back. Protection is still cheap for a week with this much on the schedule.
The Calendar
What I’m Watching This Week
1. Wednesday, both ends of it. The inflation print at 7:30 reprices September in the morning and Nvidia reprices the growth trade after the close. If those two disagree, Thursday gets violent.
2. The 29300 shelf on NQ. The week’s value floor, July’s POC, and August’s value floor all stacked together, and Friday’s bounce started there. Everything above it is repair. Everything below it is a broken month.
3. The auctions. Two-year Tuesday, five-year Wednesday, seven-year Thursday, the first coupon slate since the long bond cracked and the Treasury started buying back its own paper. Weak takedowns restart the whole problem.
4. The Friday keynote. The new chair has spent his first summer saying as little as possible, and September is priced at about one in three. A first Jackson Hole speech is the one stage where even saying nothing moves markets.
5. Crude with the package pending. The sanctions detail lands Monday and crude opens tonight parked at 86.65, right on the shelf that decides its week. Tanker traffic through the lane is still running at a fifth of normal.
The Week’s Plan
ES:
ES goes into the week standing on 7682.75, its own value floor, with Friday’s 7684.50 floor printed right on top of it. That is the trigger. Hold it and the repair work reads 7700 Friday’s value ceiling, 7713.75 where August bottoms its value, then 7725.50 the week POC, the line my whole lean hangs on. Over 7725.50 the stack thickens: 7743.50 last week’s floor sitting against 7745.75 the week’s ceiling, 7770 August POC, 7805.25 last week’s value top, and 7838.50 the August high to finish it. Lose 7682.75 and the first stop is 7658.75 the week low, and under that the chart goes hollow: 7627.25 July’s high, 7615 July’s value ceiling, and then nothing with real volume until 7546 July POC.
NQ:
NQ closed at 29396.25 with a three-timeframe floor directly underneath: 29311.50 the week’s value floor, 29300 July POC, 29295.25 August’s value floor, one shelf wearing three names. That shelf is the trigger. Hold it and the repair runs 29534.25 last week’s floor, 29600 the week POC, then 29701 the week’s value ceiling into 29760, where August and last week put their POCs on the same tick. Through 29760 the air opens to 29932 August’s value ceiling, 30286.75 the week high, then July’s 30311 ceiling and 30356.50 high, the pair still capping everything. Lose the shelf and 29202.50 the week low is the only thing left, and below that the chart is empty to 28457.75 July’s value floor and 28313.25 the August low.
CL:
Crude closed at 86.65 sitting on 86.60, where the week and August share a POC, and that shelf is the trigger. Above it the room is thin: 87.18 Friday’s value ceiling, 87.39 the week’s, then 87.46 where the week topped with August’s ceiling printed on the same price, and 88.07 the July high with nothing but open air past it. Below 86.60 the first catch is 86.13 Friday’s low, then 85.08 July’s value ceiling and 84.37 the week’s floor. Lose 84.37 and it falls into 82.31 July POC with last week’s 82.33 high right on it, the gate for the whole rally. Under the gate it reads 81.35 the week low and 80.82 August’s value floor, with nothing else until 76.11 July’s floor.
GC:
Gold is in open air. It closed Friday at 4674.70 with exactly two prints above it on the whole chart, 4676.30 Friday’s value ceiling and 4690.30 the week high, and past those there is nothing but whatever it builds next. The line underneath is 4640.90, where August tops its value, with Friday’s 4640 volume printed on it, and that is the trigger. Hold it and the discovery continues. Lose it and the steps down read 4629.80 Friday’s floor, 4566 the week’s value ceiling, 4549 the week POC, then 4502.40, the top of the old run and the gate for the whole move. Under the gate the unwind runs 4450 where last week and August share a POC, 4405.50 the week’s floor on last week’s 4403.70, and 4392.30 the week low, with 4253.20 the July high the last thing on the board.
The White Van Stuff
The books that spent two weeks pinned at the top of their yearly range let go. The S&P book unwound to the bottom half of its year and the tech book is near the floor of its own, while the weight moved to the other side of the board: gold’s book is up near the top of its year and energy sits heavy. Nothing on the equity side is pinned going into the report.
ES: The book followed price down: the cap that sat at 7900 all month is 7800 now, the floor is 7600, and the magnet at 7725 lands square on the week POC, options and structure agreeing on one line. Price closed at 7691.75, under the magnet, with the band running 7624.60 to 7750.90.
NQ: The tech book hollowed out on the way down: the cap fell to 30000 with the expected top printed on it at 29985.24, the magnet sits overhead at 29500, and below 28950 there is one line at 28500 before the 28000 floor. Price closed at 29396.25, below the magnet.
CL: Crude’s book is the only one leaning bullish outright: the heaviest interest stacks 86.50 through 88 right on top of spot, the cap is 90, and the band runs 84.23 to 89.05. The magnet at 80.75 is a leftover from the price crude quit trading two weeks ago. It closed at 86.65, inside the heavy stack.
GC: Gold’s book chased harder than anything on the board: the cap moved from 4510 to 4750 in one week and the interest ladder rebuilt itself 4575 through 4725 around spot. The 4340 magnet and the 3900 floor have not caught up and mean nothing this week. Price closed at 4674.70, pressed against the 4675 to 4700 cluster.
Stops? Where we’re going, we don’t need stops.
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