Situation Awareness: Cautious. Equity futures point lower into the open — S&P 500 futures -20 at 7,709, Dow futures -246 at 53,284, Nasdaq futures -123 at 29,390 — as a sharp oil spike collides with persistent semiconductor weakness after yesterday’s broad, rate-relief rally. Index price/SMA data is unavailable this morning, so lean on futures and breadth for structure rather than specific SPY/QQQ levels. Crude is up 3.4% to $87.24 (WTI printing a four-week high past $88 in the bond feed) after President Trump promised “the most crushing economic operation ever” against Iran — an “economic D-Day” — while a tanker hijacking in the Gulf of Aden compounds Middle East shipping stress. Trade mode: selective and defensive early — respect the geopolitical/energy overhang and let the 8:30 ET claims and Philly Fed prints show the hand. Regime context — 57.62% of stocks trade above their 40-day SMA, and the 4% Bull/Bear gauge shows 459 bulls vs. 184 bears. The 5-day trend is improving, with breadth above the 20-SMA jumping to 60% from 55% (+5.0pp) and the 40-SMA ticking up to 57.62% from 56.48% (+1.1pp), signaling a broadening tape underneath narrow chip-driven headline weakness.
SIP: VERI WYFI SOPH BNTX
- What’s working: Continuation/2LYNCH is rich with 40 signals — healthy breadth beneath the surface. Reversal scan is thin at 7. Delayed 9M is empty, so no episodic-pivot fresh names today.
- Leading sectors: live trending data is offline (market closed) and the ATR volatility feed is empty. Yesterday’s sector tape led with health care (+3.5%), consumer discretionary (+2.1%), and materials (+1.7%); the laggard was info tech (-0.7%) on a 2.1% PHLX Semiconductor drop.
- Key event: Trump’s “economic warfare” declaration against Iran plus a Gulf of Aden tanker hijacking drove crude to a four-week high, the dominant risk-off catalyst this morning.
- Market read: Wednesday’s session was a textbook broadening — the equal-weight S&P (+1.0%) trounced the cap-weighted (+0.2%) on Treasury buyback relief; the internals are better than the tape, but oil is the wildcard today.
- DEP watchlist: no Delayed 9M signals available today.
- SIPS: MELI, FICO, ALNY — top continuation candidates with strong price momentum.