Thick Above, Thin Below, PPI at 8:30

Cerebras beat on adjusted earnings and raised the full year to $880-890M. The stock is down sharply anyway, because hardware revenue came in at $54.1M and shrank 23% on the year. That's the pattern this whole season: the results are fine and the composition gets punished. It's the first real crack in the AI earnings run that carried this tape to within a hair of record highs, and so far it hasn't spread. S&P futures are up 0.2%. Premarket 7,766, eighteen over Wednesday's 7,748 close.

CPI did its job. Headline 3.4% annual, core 2.5%, in line, and the September hike worry came off the table. PPI lands at 8:30 with claims alongside. Consensus wants 0.2% on the month, 4.9% annual against 5.5% prior, core 0.3% and 4.2%. Claims seen at 202,000 versus 199,000 prior. Oil keeps sliding despite the Iran blockade talk, Brent just under $88, and the 10-year has backed off to roughly 4.65%. Applied Materials reports after the close. Retail sales and consumer sentiment close the week tomorrow.

The gamma picture is lopsided in a specific way. Premarket sits inside a thick positive block running from 7,750 up to the call wall at 7,800, and that wall is 1.4x the next biggest node. Dealers dampen inside that. Grind, not thrust. What's underneath is the issue. Two real positive nodes hold it up at 7,760 and 7,750, then it stops at 7,745. Below the flip the negatives run dense and uninterrupted into the put wall at 7,725, with 7,715 nearly as heavy right beneath. Prior demand sits on both: 7,746 on the flip, 7,725 on the wall.

Above 7,745 I lean higher toward 7,780 and 7,790. But gamma thins fast above 7,805, so 7,800 caps rather than pulls. Twenty points of cushion under price and then nothing, and PPI is the only thing today big enough to spend it. This is the Aug 13 expiry, so all of it decays into the close.