Iran Strike Report Lifts Oil Nearly 5% and SPX Opens Under 7,800

The White House has asked the Pentagon for Iran strike options. Oil is up almost 5% on it, WTI near $92.50 and Brent over $104, after The Atlantic reported the request Wednesday with the timing set before the Nov. 3 midterms. SPX closed Wednesday down 0.2% at 7,801.77, its first loss in five sessions. Premarket 7,770, down 32.

It cuts against what the White House has spent two weeks doing. In the last ten days it announced up to 40 million barrels from the strategic reserve and got the G7 to agree to 100 million more, both meant to pull fuel prices down, and WTI is now $3 above where it closed the day of the first one. Bonds had just caught a break, too. Wednesday's $39 billion 10-year sale cleared at 5.30% and the yield closed under it. It's back over 5.30% this morning, with $22 billion of 30-years to sell at 1:00. Chips are lower on a second AI financing report in two days, the Journal's on Broadcom arranging more than $50 billion of private credit for OpenAI's chips.

Premarket is 30 under the flip at 7,800 and inside the heaviest part of the profile. Negative gamma sits at every strike from 7,790 down through the put wall at 7,720, with one of the biggest nodes right at price. Overhead there isn't much to lean on. The call wall at 7,825 is about a quarter the size of Wednesday's, and the whole positive side adds up to roughly a fifth of the negative. The flip is also Wednesday's close with that session's high at 7,807, so I'm treating 7,800 to 7,807 as one test. First support is 7,763, prior demand and Wednesday's low to the point. Under it sit the 7,750 node and the 8-day, then the put wall, the largest node on the profile.

The lean is short under 7,800, sold on a bounce. Premarket is only 7 over first support, so the entry is a push into 7,790, where Wednesday opened and two prior demand levels sit, for 7,779 and 7,763. A break of 7,763 takes out Wednesday's low and extends it to 7,747, then the put wall at 7,720. A hold back over 7,806 ends it, since that puts price above the flip and Wednesday's close.