Market Overview
This was a distribution week, plain and simple. The MES opened at 7885.25 Sunday evening, stalled just under 7887.00, and spent the next five sessions working lower, closing Friday at 7703.00 for a loss of 182.2 points or -2.3%. The shape of the week was a slow grind into Wednesday, a hard flush, a partial recovery Thursday, and then a second, sharper leg down Friday that tagged the weekly low at 7676.00. That is the structure of a market under real distribution, not just routine profit-taking.
The catalyst that broke the market open was Wednesday's September CPI print. Core CPI, which strips out food and energy costs, rose 2.6% against estimates of 2.5%. The S&P 500 declined 1% on the day and the Nasdaq fell 1.9%. That hotter-than-expected number revived rate anxiety and was the trigger for the week's biggest single-day drop of 63.2 points on Wednesday.
The broader selloff was led by technology. Wall Street posted its worst week since June as technology stocks tumbled amid concerns over AI spending and inflation. Chipmakers fell for an eighth straight day, the longest slide since 2008, on worries over whether the AI infrastructure buildout has outrun the ability of earnings to justify it.
The Nasdaq Composite and S&P 500 plummeted Friday and ended sharply lower for the week as AI-tied stocks sank further. Friday's 100.0 point drop in the MES was the week's decisive move, setting the tone for where the market now sits.
The 194-point range tells you volatility is back. VIX closed the week at 19.99, up nearly 30% from Monday's open of 15.39. That is a meaningful shift in the fear structure of this market.