Risk snaps back hard pre-open: VIX down near 6% and tech-led futures erasing Monday's oil-driven slide ahead of a loaded earnings tape.
SPY is bid to roughly the mid-$740s (last ~$746, +0.5-1.3%) and QQQ is outperforming near $700-705 (+1.3-1.4%), clawing back Monday's session where the S&P slipped 0.19% to 7,443.28 on rising crude. VIX at 17.58, down 5.7%, is unwinding fast even as the CNN Fear & Greed gauge still sits at 37.6 in "fear" — sentiment lagging the tape. Polymarket odds imply a 95% chance of a higher open, with easing oil after reports mediators are pushing a 10-day Iran ceasefire following 10 straight nights of US strikes.
No live GEX this run, so treat levels as indicative: SPY flip sits near 742 (Monday's close/support), with a call-wall zone into 750 round-number resistance capping upside on a VIX-crush day. QQQ support is Monday's low near 695, with semis (Taiwan export strength, NVDA's stake in Nebius) doing the heavy lifting. Fed funds futures price an 83.4% chance of a hold this cycle, keeping macro a backdrop, not the driver — the driver today is oil and earnings, with Danaher, 3M, Halliburton, GM, Schwab, MSCI and Northrop before the bell setting the cyclical/industrial tone ahead of Alphabet, IBM and Intel later this week.
The risk: this is a vol-crush unwind on ceasefire hope, not confirmed de-escalation — a stalled talks headline or the threatened Houthi blockade on Saudi flow snaps crude back up, VIX re-bids, and the 742 flip fails fast.