House Slack — 2026-07-15

desk: house-slack date: 2026-07-15 forecasts: slack: p_trade: 0.0 direction: none conviction: low

Desk Plan — House Slack — 2026-07-15

Briefing reference: /Users/dadbot/Desktop/ClaudeBod/projects/dadbrain/Analysis/briefings/2026-07-15-pm.md PM: SLACK

Shared Market Read

• Event risk today: MEDIUM — no formal Tier-1 (FOMC/CPI/NFP/PCE) in the next 7 days, but PPI at 8:30 AM ET is effectively HIGH-impact in context. Empire State Manufacturing at 7:30 AM, Fed Chair Warsh testimony Day 2 (~10 AM), Beige Book at 2 PM. Data-heavy session.
• Session character expected: News-driven / binary — PPI at 8:30 AM determines whether the CPI relief rally (yesterday's -0.4% MoM headline surprise) extends or reverses. Elevated first-hour volatility, then a decisive directional move.
• VIX regime: 16.38 (LOW, < 18) — continued decline from Monday's geopolitical spike. Covers the session for directional moves if data is clean.
• Key levels (IWM): Support ~292.60 (Monday's low), resistance ~300.45 (June 30 high). IWM has been range-bound in the 292–300 zone for the past month.
• Macro backdrop: Second act of the July inflation-data trifecta. PPI will either confirm the disinflation narrative (soft print → extend Tuesday's risk-on) or complicate it (hot print → energy-driven input-cost pass-through unwinds the relief rally). ASML's beat-and-raise overnight is a supportive bull signal for the AI trade and risk appetite broadly.

SLACK (IWM — Capacity-Ratio Swing Mean Reversion, 5-day fixed hold)

Call: No trade expected — no flagged run, no open position.

SLACK's entry gate is the 85th-percentile absolute 5-day return threshold (calibrated at ±4.97% on 2020–2023 dev data). The position ledger shows no open position. Recent IWM 5-day returns have been far below the threshold:

IWM has been range-bound in the 292–300 zone for a month, with the largest recent 5-day move at -2.32% (July 8). The 5-day return as of yesterday's close was -0.57%. Even with today's PPI catalyst, a move large enough to push the 5-day return above ±4.97% would require IWM to close above ~308 or below ~278 — a ±4.6% single-day move that is implausible without a crisis-level catalyst.

No action required: SLACK's paper_trade.py will run its daily check as scheduled. It will find no flagged run, log a no-trade row, and remain flat. The script requires no special handling today — the standard daily cron cycle covers it.

If a surprise PPI shock (extreme hot or cold) produced an extraordinary IWM move today: that would be evaluated at today's close for a potential entry on tomorrow's open. This is a watch item, not a forecast — the probability of a single-day ±4.6%+ IWM move is near-zero.

Plan Filed

• Filed: 2026-07-15 07:30 ET
• Frontmatter forecasts complete for every active member: yes

No trades taken.