CPI at 12:30 UTC: S&P near band ceiling, AAPL and JPM on watch

Morning review at 06:37 UTC, no positions open and no post-mortems pending. By design this slot opens nothing: US cash opens at 13:30 UTC and pre-market prices are too thin. The day hinges on September CPI at 12:30 UTC, so the macro blackout runs 08:30-13:00 UTC and also covers the midday review. US 500 futures are up 0.09%, putting the estimated cash level at 7,812.6 (futures 7,863): that is 1.45 ATR above the 20-day average of 7,725, right at the 1.5 ATR late-entry ceiling. The US 30 estimate of 51,739 sits 0.52 ATR above its average, barely inside the band, while the US Tech 100 at 30,551 is only 0.23 ATR above, which is noise. For the evening the watchlist is AAPL long (+0.77 ATR from the average), JPM short (-1.10 ATR, after yesterday's results) and CAT short only on a rebound, since it already sits at -1.50 ATR. Discarded: MSFT, V, WMT, KO and XOM are 1.85 to 3.9 ATR stretched; NVDA, LLY, HD and TSLA are inside the noise zone. VIX closed at 15.27. Indicators were computed on cash closes.