SPY and QQQ Today: October 13, 2026 Recap and the Night Before CPI
Jake here. Tuesday’s numbers are settled, so I start there, then move to tonight, when options holders make the decision that matters.
Tuesday’s close, by the numbers
SPY opened at 777.34, traced a range from 775.95 to 778.75, and closed at 778.01. Monday’s close was 778.10, so the change was -0.09, or -0.01%. That is flat for practical purposes. The open was 0.76 below the prior close, and the day finished 0.67 above the open, roughly 74% of the way up a 2.80 range.
QQQ had the wider swing. It opened at 739.52 against a prior close of 746.04, a gap down of 6.52, which puts the open about 0.9% below the previous close. The range ran from 738.83 to 744.20. QQQ closed at 743.57, which is 4.05 above the open and about 88% of the way up a 5.37 range, near the high of the day. The final change was -2.47, or -0.33%. In other words, QQQ opened down about 0.9% and finished down 0.33%, recovering most of the opening drop. The gap was never filled, and the close is the lowest since October 1, when it was 742.03.
I am not going to tell you why any of that happened, because I do not know, and neither does anyone else who is being straight with you. What I will say is that the open was not the day.
The real event is tomorrow morning
Wednesday, October 14, at 8:30am ET, the CPI report lands, and it carries a high-impact tag. The forecasts are 0.6% month over month against a previous 0.4%, and 3.6% year over year against a previous 3.4%. Core CPI is forecast at 0.2% month over month against a previous 0.3%, and 2.5% year over year against a previous 2.4%. The Beige Book follows at 2:00pm. Thursday, October 15, brings a cluster at 8:30am: PPI (forecast 0.6%, previous 0.4%), Retail Sales (forecast 0.3%, previous 1.2%), Unemployment Claims (forecast 199K, previous 197K), plus Philadelphia Fed, Empire State, Core PPI and Core Retail Sales.
Those are reference points only. I make no call on where the numbers land.
The options holder’s checklist
The first item is the plainest one. Do you hold a contract through an 8:30am print, or do you not. Both are legitimate. What is not legitimate is drifting into the answer because you forgot to decide.
The second item is implied volatility. Implied volatility is the market’s built-in price for expected movement, and it is baked into every option premium. It tends to be elevated going into scheduled high-impact releases, because everyone knows a big event is coming. After the release the uncertainty is gone, and implied volatility can fall even when the underlying moves.
Here is what that means for a long call or put bought tonight, in plain words. You pay a premium that already includes the cost of the event. If the underlying moves your way after the print but implied volatility drops, part of your gain gets eaten by the shrinking premium, and in some cases the contract can finish lower despite a move in your direction. You need the underlying to move enough to cover that cost, and that is a harder hurdle than most people assume when they click buy.
The third item is the contract itself. A same-week contract is cheap because it has little time left, which also means the event is a large share of what you are paying for, and time decay keeps running against you. A longer-dated contract costs more up front, but the event is a smaller slice of its value, and you are not forced to be right within a day or two. They are different bets, so know which one you are making.
The fourth item is that flat into the number is a position. Sitting in cash through 8:30am is a decision with a clear cost of zero.
An illustrative hypothetical
This is a made-up example with round numbers, not market data. Say you buy one call tonight for a premium of $2.00, which is $200 per contract, and you decide your maximum loss is that $200. Tomorrow the underlying moves a little in your favor, but implied volatility drops after the print, and the premium is quoted at $1.70. You are down $30 on a move that went your way. That is the mechanic, and it is why the plan has to exist before the number, not after.
What a pre-set plan looks like
Write down the maximum loss in dollars before you enter, and size the position so that number is one you can take without flinching. Decide whether you will add after the print instead of before it. Adding after gives you information the night before never could, and it costs you the early entry, which is a fair trade. Improvising at 8:30am is how a defined risk turns into an undefined one.
Where copy trading fits
This is the reason I built my routine around alerts. A concrete alert arrives with an entry and a defined stop already attached, so the hard thinking happens before the pressure does. I started out improvising. Year 1: lost $11,400. Year 2: broke even. Year 3-6: profitable. The difference was not a better read on the news, it was having the plan written down first.
One honest line: copied trades can lose, stops can slip in fast markets, and nothing here is a promise of results. If you want to see how the alerts are structured, there is a free trial, and you can judge the format without risking a dollar.
Curious how mirroring works on a real account? The 7-day free trial connects your account so you can check the fills yourself.
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