Price Check at 8:30

Wednesday, October 14, 2026

Our board put a sell level on the Nasdaq's overnight high and a buy level on the Russell's overnight low. NQ printed an hourly bear at 30859.5 at 4:16 a.m. ET, touched at 30861.75. That was the top of London, and NQ is 113 points lower. RTY printed an hourly bull at 2798.7 at 8 p.m., touched at 2798.6. That was the low of the night. From Tuesday's 6 p.m. reopen to the run, the imbalance board sent 12 prints: 12 hourlies, 0 Daily, 0 Weekly, and MedianReclaim added 5 Daily median tags and 3 Weekly median tags. Every count is a Discord alert from imbalance-alert-router.

That's the setup going into the number. ES is a little higher, NQ is a little lower, crude is bid and gold is soft. Nobody is leaning hard, because September CPI hits at 8:30 a.m. ET.

Here's what the street is looking for. Headline CPI is expected up 0.6% on the month and 3.6% on the year, from 0.4% and 3.4% in August. Core is expected up 0.2% on the month, from 0.3%. Core on the year was 2.4% in August, and forecasters are split between 2.4% and 2.5%. Energy is the story in the headline. Core is what the bond market trades.

This prep ships before the release. We don't know the number, and neither does anybody else. What we do know is where the levels are, how far the options market thinks each contract can travel today, and which side of each level we're on going in.

Here's what the board printed, session by session, and what we're doing about it.

Asia: the board marks the lows

What printed on our board. Five UW prints in Asia, all hourlies. Micro bitcoin hourly bull 83420 at 7:04 p.m. ET. Then **RTY