S&P 500 Daily Trade Plan: The Breakdown Below 7527 & The Downside Lean
A detailed ES & VIX plan for July 8th, breaking down the 7524.25 / 7527.00 broken inflection, the 7492.50 tested daily, and the VIX 17.44 monthly pivot.
SCHEDULED NEWS
OPTIONS VOLITILITY LEVELS
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Good morning everyone. Today is Wednesday, July 8th, and we came off another insane day in the trade plan yesterday. We talked about how 7573.00 was the big make-it-or-break-it for the bulls to continue higher, and immediately after the open we broke underneath it and came screaming down to get insanely close to our leg up at 7527.00 — nailing the 50-point short call we gave way in advance. SPX played absolutely flawless: we broke below 7520 and ultimately 7501, pushed lower, and played our main defined support at 7478.84 to the tick, which shot us up well over 50 points — only to go right back to the 7520 daily and play it with ultimate precision, smacking it four times before rolling over at the end of the day. An absolute beautiful display of trade-plan perfection across both ES and SPX. Congratulations to all who took advantage — a difficult day, but Team VICI managed it with style.
As we come into the day, we find ourselves down 41 points at the time of this writing, with a peak down move this morning of well over 70 points as President Trump’s issues with Iran finally pushed the market lower. We’ve dropped well below the 7527.00 / 7524.25 daily area that was our huge must-hold level, pushed all the way into our 7469 area near the true floor we discussed in the post-market breakdown, and that area has held so far and is pushing back up.
A Note on Today’s Market:
News: We have only one Red Tag event today — the FOMC Meeting Minutes at 2:00 p.m., the minutes from the first Fed meeting with our new Fed chair. This is more than likely a moot point, since we already know what the Fed is anticipating and there’s no new news here — but respect the 2:00 p.m. time and be prepared for a small volatility shake.
Volume: Relative Volume is a massive +155%, meaning participants are here in full force pre-market. This number will likely die down slightly as the market opens, but we should still expect a pretty large range to stay above or below the overnight high or low.
Range: Expected range of 89.5 points — and we’ve already moved 94.5 points, exceeding it by over five points before the open. Taking today’s range into account, we could still see a minimum of 44 points above or below the overnight high or low, with a possible extension into the 130s. Calculations are difficult today since we’ve already blown through our 5-to-10-day range.
Gamma: We remain in Negative Gamma to the downside, with the gamma flip at 7625 — dealers are still hedging lower, creating the expanded ranges and volatility we saw overnight. That makes for amazing trading, but be careful: increased volatility means increased stops.
Trend: We’re down on the day and now trading below the 7524.25 / 7527.00 daily leg up — the main support to the all-time highs. Being below this is inherently bearish, so our lean is to the downside and we remain suppressed until the bulls can reclaim it.
🧠 Current Market Context
The Breakdown Finally Arrives
We’ve been expecting a downside move for some time, and we’re finally getting it. We’ve discussed being stuck in a massive balance area for quite a while, going back and forth and essentially distributing — and this morning, President Trump’s issues with Iran were the catalyst that finally pushed us lower. We’ve now pushed well below the 7527.00 / 7524.25 daily area that was ultimately the huge level to stay above, dropping all the way into the 7469 area and getting extremely close to the daily below that we called our true floor. That area has held for now and is continuing to push back up. But make no mistake: the bulls are in a peculiar position well underneath the 7527.00 / 7524.25 daily, and being below the main daily leg up we’d need to hold is inherently bearish.
