The Verdict
Major News
The CPI print that started it. September CPI rose 0.6% on the month and 3.7% year over year, against 3.6% expected and 3.4% in August. Core printed 2.6%. Gasoline, up 9.1% on the month, did much of the damage. An Oct 28 rate hike is back on the table.
AI credit stress, day two. CoreWeave fell 15.5% Wednesday and more pre-market today. Its bond yields sit near 15%, credit default swaps for CoreWeave and Oracle are at record highs, and Wednesday's selloff wiped about $80B across AI names. CoreWeave's CEO told staff its backlog covers its debt. The market is pricing the question, not the answer.
TSMC: demand is not the problem. A sixth straight record quarter: net profit NT$763.1B, up 68.7% year over year, revenue NT$1.49T, full-year growth guidance raised to about 44%, Q4 guided to $52.3B to $54.3B. Management sounded cautious on 2027, and the stock still fell pre-market. Financing is the constraint, not orders.
Anthropic's numbers. Q3 revenue $16.8B, up 45% from Q2, profitable on an adjusted basis, per its Oct 14 investor day. IPO expected after the midterms.
Banks stumbled. Bank of America fell 4.8% Wednesday on a revenue miss plus a $1.2B regulatory charge. Morgan Stanley beat (EPS $3.03 vs $2.91 expected) and still slipped 2.8%.
The rout went global. Samsung fell 9.9% and SK Hynix more than 11% in Thursday Asia trade. Rocket Lab dropped about 10% pre-market after delaying Neutron's first launch to 2027.
Ahead. PPI, retail sales and jobless claims at 8:30 AM ET today. Monthly options expiration Friday, and Fed Chair Warsh speaks. FOMC decision Oct 28.
Market in Numbers
Technical Levels
| INDEX | LAST | SUPPORT | RESISTANCE | THE READ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| S&P 500 | 7,718.94 | 7,700, then 7,600 | 7,805, then the 7,818.93 record close (Oct 6) | First down day over 1% since Jul 29. Holding 7,700 keeps it a dip; losing it opens a real pullback. |
| SPY | $769.60 | $769 range low; 50-day at $768.04 | $779.09, then $782 range top | Range-bound $770 to $782 since early October. A close below $769 targets $758; a reclaim of $779 targets $790. |
| QQQ | $728.95 | 50-day at $725.14 | 52-week high near $762 | First down day over 2% since Jul 29. The 50-day is the line: growth gets no benefit of the doubt below it. |
| Dow | 51,621 | 51,600 | n/a | Down only 0.09% Wednesday on healthcare weight. Holding 51,600 keeps the defensive rotation intact. |
| 10-yr yield | ~5.19% close | Spiked near 5.30% intraday Wednesday | Sustained back above 5.20% to 5.30% pressures growth again; holding under 5.20% calms the tape. | |
Note for Friday: monthly options expiration, with large open interest at the SPY $770 and $780 strikes. Expect pinning or amplified moves around those levels into the close.
Sector Rotation
| SECTOR | OCT 14 | OCTOBER SO FAR | THE READ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Health Care | about +2.5% | Improving | Wednesday's leader. GILD is in today's setups. |
| Consumer Staples | about +2.2% | +5% or more | Classic defensive bid as yields rise. |
| Energy | CVX, MPC at 52-week highs | XLE +9% in two weeks | The month's leader, and where today's setups live. |
| Utilities | Higher | +5% or more | Defensive bid, second leg of the rotation. |
| Financials | Second worst | Mixed | BAC's miss and $1.2B charge dragged the group. |
| Technology | -3.0%, worst | -0.9%, only sector down | Semiconductors (SOX) fell 4.3%, a sixth straight down day. Duration is being sold, earnings or not. |
The pattern is textbook: money is leaving long-duration growth for cash-flow defensives and energy. This morning's futures say it continues (Dow green, Nasdaq red) until yields or AI credit calm down. Trade with the rotation, not against it: that is why today's setups are two energy names, a healthcare name, and Apple on a retest, and why there is no semiconductor setup despite the dip.
Today's Setups (conditional pullbacks, risk about 1% per idea)
Closed Wednesday at $222.04, up 1.98%, a fifth straight gain and a new 52-week high on above-average volume, while the index fell. Above its 20, 50 and 200-day averages. The entry is a retest of the Oct 13 peak, not a chase: RSI is 71.2, so no buying above $222.50.
Closed at $153.54, up 3.80% Wednesday on the Vir Biotechnology oncology collaboration, clear relative strength on a down tape. Pullback entry only. Earnings land late October, so treat this as a pre-earnings swing, not a hold through the print by default.
Closed at $342.96, up 0.50% Wednesday while the Nasdaq fell 1.88%, a record closing high. Still below the $348.15 intraday high from Oct 13, so this is a retest setup, not a clean breakout. Entry only if the retest holds. JPMorgan raised its target to $360 on Oct 14. Earnings Nov 2.
Closed at $484.92, up 1.66%, a third straight gain and a new 52-week high. Also the most extended name here: up 9.7% in 5 days and 17.2% in a month, with Brent down pre-market. Skip it entirely without the pullback to the Oct 13 peak. UBS raised its target to $510 on Oct 9.
Watch, Don't Chase
VLO ($459.78, extended), PM ($205.58, earnings Oct 21), KO and XOM (near highs, same theme as CVX), PAG (up 8.6% pre-market on a $212 take-private, deal-capped, not a swing). The AI debt complex (NVDA, MU, ORCL, CRWV, RKLB) is still falling with no base: no long setups there today.
The Scoreboard
The engine's tracked record, as last fully audited on Oct 2: 61.9% win rate across 651 resolved patterns (403 wins, 248 losses) out of 663 tracked, expectancy +0.08R per signal, 12 setups still open at the audit.
This page starts the public daily ledger for the new format. Today's four calls (CVX, GILD, AAPL, MPC) will be resolved here in coming issues, target, stop, or expiry, in the open. Nothing gets quietly dropped.
Pattern Weather
Today's menu is the weather report: zero breakout chases, four pullbacks, all in energy and defensives. In rotation tapes, pullback entries in relative-strength names are the high-probability trade; breakouts in growth are where accounts go to die. Per-pattern 30-day vs 365-day splits join this section when the archived pipeline export lands. Until then, we publish only numbers we have verified.
Earnings Minefield
| TICKER | REPORTS | NOTE |
|---|---|---|
| PM (watch list) | Oct 21 | Inside the 5-day window. No new position into the print. |
| GILD (setup #2) | Late October | Pre-earnings swing only. Plan the exit before the print. |
| AAPL (setup #3) | Nov 2 | Outside the window, but the swing horizon ends before it. |