From Panic to Surge: The 24-Hour, 269-Point ES Reversal

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The YM was down 1,100 points Monday and up almost 1,100 points post-yesterday. The current rally started late Monday after a big drop, followed by a late-day 90-point rally, then another pop on Globex, a big gap-up open, a very small drop—and then it was off to the races. Yes, there were some good rallies to sell, but the money trade was on the blue side of the trading card: BUY.

The ES made a high at 5497.75 on April 14th and a low at 5127.25 on Monday, April 21nd—that's a 370.50-point drop in four sessions. Then it rallied up to 5443 in last night globex, just 54 points off last week’s high, all in 24 hours. Like I said on my Twitter live stream, I went to lunch at the PitBull’s country club and told him the fix was in after that 90-point rally off Monday’s low, and then the follow-through on Globex. It was like Trump’s Liberation Day rally—when he said it would be a good day for a big rally in the Dow Jones, then announced a 90-day tariff reprieve—and the markets skyrocketed. Someone knew the China tariff talks were improving, and that’s why the ES rallied 269.50 points in 24 hours. The front-run headline was: US Treasury Secretary sees de-escalation with China situation and calls the situation unsustainable, delivered at a private JPMorgan conference.

I wrote about a rally in Monday’s Opening Print, and while I did say it would start later in the summer, it may have already started. After weeks of pounding the tariff drums, even slightly better news caused a huge 24-hour rally. Now the question is: will it keep going? I think so.

There was a noticeable change in price action. When the ES dropped, there were buyers at almost every level. Whether it was a 10-point pullback or 60 points, as soon as the sell programs were done, the ES and NQ futures snapped right back. I was right about my rule that after a big drop, the ES tends to rally on Globex and go sideways to higher during the day session. But again, who could have predicted Trump would come out saying he isn’t planning to fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and that the 145% tariffs on China are “very high”? Then he followed up with: “It won’t be that high; it will come down substantially.”

Everything is so helter-skelter, it's hard to believe it’s not just a giant charade.

While all of that was going on, the International Monetary Fund slashed its U.S. and global economic forecasts, warning that tariffs were ushering in a new era of slower growth. Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon said uncertainty was “too high,” holding back corporate decision-making and keeping asset prices under pressure.

Gold traded above 3,500, Bitcoin traded up to 91,700, the 10-year note yield fell to 4.389%, and the fear gauge VIX sold off below 31 after spiking as high as 52.70 on April 8th. Again—everything was moving.