Futures are green after four straight down days, but the tape is one CPI print away from deciding whether next week's FOMC hikes.
S&P and Nasdaq futures are up roughly half a percent pre-market after Thursday's close near 7,592 and 26,082 respectively, helped by WTI fading back toward $99 from Wednesday's $102 spike on comments easing Strait of Hormuz supply fears. The 10-year had touched its highest yield since 2023 into Thursday's close on the back of a hotter PPI print, and any relief there is supporting risk. Oracle is up sharply pre-market on cloud growth, offering an AI-capex tailwind into the open. VIX has backed off to the high-16s/17 area, still elevated versus the summer base but well shy of stress levels.
Dealer positioning context: live GEX is unavailable this run, so treat the following as indicative, tape-inferred levels rather than a hard read. Four consecutive lower closes with rising realized vol argue for a market that has drifted toward a flatter-to-negative gamma zone, meaning moves off the CPI print can extend rather than mean-revert until dealers re-hedge into a clearer post-data range. Expect thin liquidity and wide intraday chop until 8:30 resolves the CPI question, then a second decision point as the print filters into rate-hike odds ahead of the September 16 FOMC.
The risk: a hot CPI (above the 0.4% headline / 0.2% core core consensus) alongside sticky oil-driven inflation cements hike pricing, spikes yields further off multi-year highs, and flips this bounce back into day five of the selloff; a soft print does the opposite and can squeeze shorts hard given how compressed the week's gamma has become.