Futures gap higher as Trump's Iran stand-down cracks oil, but the rally is rotational, not broad.
SPY indicates near 750, up roughly 0.4%-0.9%, while QQQ lags around 688-692 as semis roll over — Micron down over 4%, SMH off more than 1.5% — even as small caps and industrials lead a catch-up bid. WTI is down 5-6% to the high-$70s on the de-escalation, pulling a real risk premium out of the tape. VIX is bouncing off Friday's slide to just above 16; vol is being sold again but term structure stays touchy into Friday's jobs print. With live gamma unavailable, treat 750 as the SPY pivot, flip near 745, call wall building 758-760; on QQQ, 685 is the level dealers likely defend, resistance 692-696.
Calendar's stacked: ISM manufacturing and construction spending land at 10, building into Friday's July payrolls, where the Street wants 80-88k after June's soft 57k and unemployment steady at 4.2%. That print carries extra weight because fed funds futures are pricing better-than-60% odds of a September hike, not a cut — a hawkish, tariff-driven backdrop the tape hasn't fully priced. Earnings stay heavy: Palantir tonight, AMD, Disney, SpaceX, McDonald's later this week.
The risk: a de-escalation rally sitting on a hawkish rate path and two straight payroll misses. A hot ISM or another soft jobs number reopens the stagflation trade, oil snaps back if Iran talks stall, and QQQ's underperformance flips from rotation to real risk-off if semis keep breaking down.