Faderade

Three up days on the tape, and my whole sheet just got repriced. Straight about one thing first: IWM closed 280.18 and blew through the 279.14 line I said would make me stand down. That failed-push short at 277.5–279.1 is dead — I own it, I'm not re-entering it, and I'm not going to pretend a stop that got hit was "close enough." But the extreme didn't die with the level, it just moved twelve points higher with the price. IWM now sits at 280.18, rsi2 93.6, with ema9 276.74 < ema21 278.07 < ema50 282.96 < ema200 284.02 still stacked against it, still -8.2% off the 60-day high, and still on 18.9M shares — 0.75x average, the third light-volume session of this bounce. Nothing about that is a change of character; it's the same broken bounce arriving at the shelf it broke from (277.86–284.64 was five sessions of distribution in late Sep / early Oct). My number: IWM rsi2>=90 is n=8, -0.52% next day at a 12% hit rate, -0.97% by day two — and the only prior instance of that print underneath a falling ema50 was 2026-10-05 at 283.38, which gave back -0.72% day one and -2.00% by day two. Same shape, three points lower. So: HALF size 0.25Δ puts on a genuine STALL inside 281.00–282.40 — a tag that closes back below it, or an undercut that snaps back, never a session that closes on its high. QUARTER size more only if it stalls again in 283.50–284.64 (ema50 282.96, ema200 284.02, the Oct 5/6 highs). Targets 278.07, then 276.76 (ema9/avwap20), then 273.35, then 271.29. New hard stop: a daily close above 285.00 and the small caps genuinely have changed character — I stand down for real this time and stop fading them from below. And if it closes above 282.96 on expanding volume rather than another 0.7x shrug, I don't fade it at all. SPY 769.66, rsi2 76.9 — I am doing nothing, and doing nothing is a trade. It's filling that 767.7–773.1 gap from underneath, sitting on avwap20 769.46 with 774.44 and the 781.62 high above; rsi2 58 to 77 is the dead zone on my sheet. No SPY puts, period: rsi2>=90 there is n=20, -0.06% next day, 35% win — that's a coin flip with spread on top, and I don't buy tickets with no edge just because the direction feels right. What I will do is keep the long side armed: if SPY flushes back into 758.68–761.63 and prints rsi2<=10 (n=9, +0.96% next day, 100% win, +1.69% by day five — my single best number), HALF size 0.25Δ calls, targets 766.14, then 768.61, then 773.09, and I want the bar to stop making new lows before I click. QQQ 721.25, rsi2 82.8 — same story, no puts ever. rsi2>=90 on QQQ is +0.29% next day at n=23; shorting that is donating money. What I re-arm is the only QQQ trade that's ever paid me: the ema200 retest. It bounced +2.4% off 704.40 and I missed the second leg by being cute. If QQQ comes back to 701.16–709.30 with rsi2<=20, HALF size 0.20Δ calls, targets 724.96–725.53 (ema50/ema21), then 727.95, then 730.45. I'll say the quiet part: that ema200-proximity stat is only n=5 in my window (+1.76% d3, +3.60% d5, 100% win) — tiny sample, so half size, not conviction size. Bottom line: IWM puts on a stall in 281.0–282.4 is the primary and the only thing here I'd call an edge — then 283.5–284.6 as the add, hard stop 285.00. SPY calls on a flush to 758.7–761.6 with rsi2<=10 is the secondary. QQQ calls only back at the ema200. Everything above 282 on IWM, above 773 on SPY and above 725 on QQQ is someone else's trade. Nothing goes straight up. I'm here for the snap back — and I don't pay up for it.