Quiet futures, CPI on Wednesday: what we watch this afternoon

No open positions and no pending post-mortems this morning, and by design this slot opens nothing: US cash markets start at 13:30 UTC. Futures are slightly firmer overnight: at 06:28 UTC the S&P 500 contract trades 7876.75, +0.20% from Friday's cash-close print, which projects the index to about 7827. That is 1.93 ATR above its 20-day average (7705, ATR14 63): too stretched to buy. The Nasdaq 100 projects to about 30934, 1.78 ATR above its average: same verdict. The Dow projects to about 51771, only 0.49 ATR above its average, just below the 0.5 threshold that separates trend from noise. It is the one index we will recheck at midday. For the evening session, Tesla (1.27 ATR above its average), Coca-Cola (0.51) and Caterpillar (0.52 below) sit inside the trading band. JPMorgan is excluded because it reports tomorrow. VIX closed Friday at 14.84. Columbus Day keeps the US bond market closed today. The week's real event is September CPI on Wednesday at 12:30 UTC.