Monday ended with the trend floor one ugly headline from trouble. Tuesday opened with the best kind of rescue: actual data.
🧊 CPI Finally Gave Tech Something Better Than Hope
June CPI fell 0.4% month over month, the biggest monthly decline since April 2020. Core prices were flat, shelter rose just 0.1%, and the 12-month core rate cooled to 2.6%. That is not a rounding-error beat. It is the first inflation print in a while that lets bond traders exhale without squinting.
QQQ responded exactly how an expensive duration trade should. After Monday's $711.74 close, it traded near $720 shortly after the open and reached $722.76 in the live database. The 10-year yield slipped to 4.57% from 4.61% before the report. Lower inflation, lower yields, higher tech. For once, the market reaction came with instructions.
The catch is that energy did most of the work: June's energy index fell 5.7% and gasoline dropped 9.7%. That was last month's gift. This morning's oil market is already trying to repossess it.
🏁 The 75/25 Book Earned Back a Round
The raw score moved from 4.43 at 8:05 AM ET, with QQQ near $715.61, to 4.47 at 9:10 AM ET, with QQQ near $719.55. It remains Extreme Risk-Off, and the small CPI lift did not create a new score trade. The live system still holds 75% QQQ / 25% TQQQ because QQQ is above EMA60 at $703.53. The broker was aligned at the latest check; no trade was needed, no stretch bonus was active, and no rebound lockout forced cash.
Now grade the position instead of admiring the machinery. From Monday's close to this morning's database mark, QQQ gained about 1.2% and TQQQ gained roughly 3.4%. The blended book was up about 1.7%, beating plain QQQ by around 0.6 percentage points. Monday's leveraged loss was real. So is Tuesday's leveraged recovery.
The current long book was re-established on July 8 with QQQ around $703.83. Near $720 today, the trend floor is not merely surviving; it is carrying the portfolio while the raw score stays buried.
🛢️ June Inflation Is Cool. July Oil Is Not.
Brent climbed another 4.3% to about $86.90 this morning after Monday's near-10% surge, while U.S. crude pushed above $80. Fresh U.S. strikes and Iranian attacks around Hormuz are turning an energy shock into a live inflation input.
That does not invalidate the CPI print. Flat core prices and the smallest shelter increase since January 2021 are genuinely friendly. But investors are celebrating a June energy collapse while July crude is sprinting the other way. The rearview mirror looks lovely. The windshield has smoke in it.
Fed Chair Kevin Warsh still has to testify later today, and bank earnings are landing into the same tape. I doubt either matters as much as whether oil can stop climbing. Another leg higher in crude would turn today's rate relief into a very short lease.
🎯 My Call: Respect the Bounce, Distrust the Peace
This is a deserved green light for tech, not an all-clear for the world. CPI removed one immediate excuse to sell, and the composite system did its job by staying long through Monday's panic. That decision is beating QQQ this morning. Give it credit.
The practical line is brutally simple: QQQ has about $16.47 of room above EMA60. Above that line, the 75/25 book keeps the wheel. Below it, the Extreme Risk-Off score stops being commentary and becomes the allocation. The upside score gateway at 5.35 is so far away that pretending it matters today would be comedy.
My bias is long for the session, skeptical for the week. Cool CPI bought the trend another round. Oil decides whether it gets a third.