Yesterday: 4 SPX Poppers, 2 RUT Poppers, 1 Loss, 5 Wins – The Day Trades Don’t Care About the Swing View

So. Oracle. Up 11% after hours. Cloud up 44%. The bears who called it obsolete have been handed a very large invoice. Fair play to the company – that is a genuine statement quarter.

Here’s the thing though. I’m still bearish on the swings. And I’m aware of the contradiction. 95% of the time I follow the mechanics – it should be 100% but I’ve been watching these markets for 30 years and sometimes you see something. The TnT is technically bullish. The range is telling me something else. I’m doing the range trading manually until I get the automation updated and right now the range is saying: breakout, retest of the range middle, early bears stopped out, and now price moving back out. Back bearish on the swings. Sucking up the bullish whiplash.

The good news is the premium poppers don’t care about any of that. Yesterday was 4 SPX trades and 2 RUT trades – 5 wins and 1 loss. A lovely profitable day by any measure. The day trades are getting the bull moves just fine. The swing view is a separate conversation.

SPX. 30 Minutes. One Trade. Job Done.

Trade less. Profit more. This isn’t trading… it’s income engineering.

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Market Briefing:

Wednesday 11 Mar covers CPI at 8:30 ET expected 2.5% YoY against prior 2.4% – pre-conflict data, oil surge doesn’t show until March print – Fed meets 18-19 March with 97% rate hold probability.

Oracle Q3 FY26 beat: revenue $17.2B up 22%, cloud $8.9B up 44%, RPO $553B up 325%, non-GAAP EPS $1.79 against $1.70 estimate, stock up 11% after hours – first quarter in 15 years with organic revenue and EPS both above 20%.

Operation Epic Fury Day 11: WTI settled $83.45 Tuesday after touching $120 Monday, war signals contradictory, defense stocks Lockheed/RTX/Northrop at 52-week highs.

SPX TnT technically Bullish Above 6,711.17 with PFZ 6,636.04, target 6,896.28 – I’m manually range trading and remaining bearish on swings: breakout, retest of range middle, early bears stopped out, back bearish as price moves out of range.

RUT TnT Bullish Above 2,490.3, PFZ 2,463.38, target 2,648.12 – same rising channel breakout retest on daily. Yesterday: 6 popper trades, 5 wins, 1 loss, net positive.

Current Multi-Market Status:

• ES: 6,773.75 – NATHs 7,043 – pre-CPI cautious, futures -0.15%

• YM: 47,594 – NATHs 50,611 – lagging, defense rally vs tech weight

• NQ: 24,921 – NATHs 26,399 – Oracle +11% AH providing morning tailwind

• RTY: 2,534.3 – NATHs 2,749.2 – Bullish Above 2,490, PFZ 2,463, target 2,648

• GC: 5,200.7 – near $5,400 intraday highs – geopolitical bid holding

• CL: 88.10 – settled $83.45 Tuesday, war premium volatile between $83-$90

• VIX: 25.94 – retreating but still elevated, not resolved

• BTC/USD: ~69,700 – Fear and Greed at 8, extreme fear

• NYSE ADD: -147 – neutral, neither extreme

• SPX TnT: Bullish Above 6,711.17 / PFZ 6,636.04 / Target 6,896.28 / ATR 95.60

• RUT TnT: Bullish Above 2,490.3 / PFZ 2,463.38 / Target 2,648.12

Yesterday’s AAR – 10 Mar 2026 | Premium Popper | ORB20

Yesterday was a 6-trade session that demonstrated the point I’ve been making all week.

SPX opened with Trade 1 catching the 1st BO – filled at 2.80/stopped at 1.40 – loss of $30, -100% ROC. The gamma flip from positive to negative visible on the 5-minute chart – not an ideal entry environment and the market said so immediately.

Then the setups improved. Trade 2 came as the 3rd BO set up bullishly and closed +$20, 68.8% ROC. Trade 3 was a VWAP Flop setup – the kind that develops once the gamma environment shifts – closed +$40 at 65.2% ROC. Trade 4 added +$12 at 67.7% ROC. Three wins following one loss – net strongly positive on SPX.

RUT was cleaner all day. Trade 1 caught the 1st BO and ran to +$32, 72.9% ROC. Trade 2 came off the 3rd BO with price moving well through the range and closed +$27, 70.3% ROC. Both green. No drama.

6 trades total. 1 loss. 5 wins. The swing debate is ongoing. The popper results are not.

Current Status: 6 trades, 1 loss, 5 wins, net positive – day trade system independent of swing view.

The Range View vs The Mechanics

The TnT is technically bullish. I’m manually staying bearish on the swings. Here is why both positions are defensible.

The mechanical TnT signal reads Bullish Above 6,711.17 on SPX. Current price at 6,781 is inside the bullish zone. That is what the indicator says and it is not wrong on its own terms.

The range trading read says something different. A big range was established. Price broke out. Retested the range middle. The early bears who loaded at the breakout were stopped out as price pushed higher. Now price is moving back outside the range. From a range trading perspective that sequence argues for resuming the bearish posture. The daily SPX chart shows this as a breakout and retest of the same range zone – not a new bull trend, but a failed breakout returning to the prior structure.

RUT tells the same story. The rising channel on the daily broke. Price retested from below. The same pattern I’ve been watching on SPX is playing out on Uncle Russell simultaneously.

This is the tension that every experienced trader navigates. The mechanical system says one thing. The structural read says another. My resolution: follow the mechanics on the day trades, maintain the directional view on the swings, and accept the bullish whiplash as the cost of holding the larger position. The poppers are profitable in either direction. The swing is a separate bet.

CPI, Oracle and What Matters This Morning

Three things land this morning and only one of them is actually about today.

CPI at 8:30 ET. Consensus 2.5% YoY against 2.4% prior. Core CPI 0.3% month-on-month. This is pre-conflict data. The oil surge that took WTI to $120 does not register in February’s numbers. It will register in March. What the Fed reads this morning is the last clean inflation print before the war premium and the tariff impact hit simultaneously. A 2.5% print is almost irrelevant to what the March number will look like – but the market will react to it as though it is current. That reaction is the tradeable event.

Oracle up 11% after hours. Revenue $17.2 billion, up 22%. Cloud $8.9 billion, up 44%. Remaining performance obligations $553 billion, up 325%. The company is raising $45-50 billion for cloud expansion this fiscal year. This is not a dead company getting lucky. First time in 15 years both organic revenue and EPS grew above 20% in the same quarter. The bears who had Oracle filed under “legacy infrastructure” will be revising their notes this morning.

Defense stocks at 52-week highs across Lockheed, RTX and Northrop on the Pentagon’s $20.4 billion munitions push. WTI settled $83.45 after the $120 Monday spike – the war premium is compressing but not gone. Gold at $5,200 and holding.

The sequencing this morning: CPI at 8:30, market reaction sets the tone for the session, Oracle gap-up opens tech. Two very different signals arriving simultaneously.

Current Status: CPI 8:30 ET – pre-conflict data – Oracle +11% AH – defense stocks at highs – watch the 8:30 reaction

The Fed and the Impossible Position

March 18-19. Rate hold at 97% probability. The real question is what Powell says after.

The hold is not the decision. The language around the hold is the decision. A hawkish hold – “we remain vigilant on inflation” – tells the market the Fed sees the oil and tariff pass-through as their problem. A dovish hold – “we are monitoring downside risks to growth” – tells the market the Fed is more worried about recession than inflation. Both positions are defensible. Neither is comfortable. The stagflation framing makes both responses simultaneously wrong.

What the CPI print this morning does is narrow the language options. A hotter-than-expected 2.5%+ number closes off the dovish framing even before the conflict data lands. A softer number keeps the door open. Either way the March print – arriving in April – is the real Fed test, not today.

Current Status: Hold 97% – language at presser is the actual market event – CPI today narrows the options

2 – The CPI print this morning is a lagging indicator being used as a leading signal. February CPI captures price data collected through mid-February at the latest. [Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics methodology, public]. WTI touched $120 on 9 March. The Hormuz supply disruption that drove that move does not appear in today’s number. The market will react to 2.5% as though it is the current inflation environment. It is not. The March print – released in April – is the one that matters for the Fed’s June decision. Trading the 8:30 reaction requires knowing you are trading sentiment not data.

3 – Fear and Greed at 8 is a contrarian signal worth tracking against the technical picture. The CNN Fear and Greed Index has historically reached single digits at or near short-term capitulation points. [Source: CNN Business Fear and Greed Index, public]. The last time the index was at 8 was during the March 2020 COVID collapse. Being at 8 does not mean the bottom is in – it means sentiment is at an extreme. When sentiment is at an extreme and price is sitting inside a defined TnT bullish zone above 6,711, the technical and sentiment pictures are pulling in the same direction for the short-term trade even if the longer structural view is bearish.

Beep.

This Bot potentially hallucinates. Maybe. OK, Probably!

In Other News…

Oracle’s remaining performance obligations hit $553 billion, up 325% year-on-year. Six months ago the stock was at $110 and the narrative was legacy company losing the AI race. Tuesday night’s numbers suggest the race was closer than the bears priced. The stock jumped 11% after hours to $166. The distance from $166 back to the September $220 peak is not nothing – but the direction of travel has changed.

Defense stocks swept to 52-week highs Tuesday as Lockheed Martin, RTX and Northrop Grumman all caught the Pentagon’s $20.4 billion munitions commitment. The war that is hurting energy markets is simultaneously funding the defense industry’s best quarter in years. The market is pricing both things correctly and the irony is not lost on anyone paying attention.

Gas at $3.54 per gallon in the US, up 21% in one month. That is the war premium arriving at the pump before it arrives in the CPI data. The February print this morning will not capture it. The March print will.

Expert Insights

Oracle’s 11% after-hours move is the voting machine. The $553 billion RPO is the weighing machine. Both are operating simultaneously and both are telling the truth about different time horizons.

The tension described this morning is a version of the same problem. The TnT – a short-term mechanical signal – votes bullish above 6,711. The range structure – a longer-term weighing of where price has come from and what it has done – argues bearish. Neither is wrong. They are measuring different things across different time frames.

The professional resolution is what’s been described: use the mechanical system for the day trades where the signal is clean and the time frame is short, hold the structural view for the swing positions where the weighing machine operates. Attempting to use the short-term signal to override a structural observation built on 30 years of pattern recognition is how traders lose both trades simultaneously. Separating the time frames separates the decisions.

The CPI print this morning tests this framework immediately. A surprise to the upside – above 2.6% – is the weighing machine confirming the structural inflation concern. A softer print is the voting machine getting a one-session narrative to run with. The reaction in the first 30 minutes after 8:30 will tell you which instrument the market is using today.

Watch the level. SPX TnT PFZ sits at 6,636. A post-CPI drop that holds above 6,636 and recovers is the bull case intact. A drop that breaks 6,636 and holds below is the range trading view getting its evidence. The range is the range.

[Source: Benjamin Graham, “The Intelligent Investor” – public domain quote | BLS CPI methodology -]

Fun Fact:

The Consumer Price Index has been published continuously by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics since 1919 – over a century of monthly inflation measurement. It covers approximately 80,000 prices across 200 categories of goods and services collected from 75 urban areas across the United States.

[Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics – CPI Overview ]

The index was designed to measure the cost of living for urban wage earners. It was not designed to measure the impact of a Middle Eastern war on energy prices in the same month it happened. That problem arrives in the March print.

Trade well,
T2 Markets

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