Weekly Playbook: June 15

Launch Successful. Further Instructions Pending.

Vitalii Nechyporenko

Jun 13, 2026

∙ Paid

Market Overview
Earnings to Watch This Week: ACN
Research Unpacked: INTC, APLD, ORCL, ADBE and SPCX

1. Market Overview

It seems rockets are finally being launched in the right direction.

After spending much of the week watching headlines fly back and forth across the Middle East, investors became far more interested in a different launch altogether. On Wednesday, searches for “SpaceX IPO” reportedly outnumbered searches for “Iran war” by nearly two to one. It seems investors were far more interested in watching a rocket launch in the stock market than anywhere else.

The VIX signal worked beautifully once again.

By Tuesday, it did not take much effort to find calls for a deeper correction as volatility picked up and the Nasdaq found itself roughly 3% below all-time highs. Then a splash of green salsa hit the tape, buyers showed up exactly where they needed to, and the Russell 2000 even managed to print fresh all-time highs. By Friday, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq had both finished the week higher by 0.7%, making the midweek panic look somewhat premature in hindsight. Interestingly, many of the market’s favorite names remain nowhere near their own peaks, with Microsoft down nearly 30% from its all-time high, Meta 29%, Oracle 47%, Palantir 38%, Netflix 40%, and Spotify 39%. Apparently, not every bull made it to the finish line.

Thursday brings Quadruple Witching, shifted forward by one session because of Juneteenth. Single Stock Futures remain an interesting footnote. CME announced their return earlier this year, yet clear confirmation of a live launch remains surprisingly difficult to find. Whether they are part of this cycle or not, the market sits substantially higher than it did during the March expiration, and that alone should make positioning flows worth watching. I would expect substantial volume around the close. If the market insists on serving salsa lately, Thursday’s closing auction may be where the next batch gets delivered, and I’d gladly take a double portion, whether it comes in red or green.

The week also brings the first FOMC meeting under Kevin Warsh. The market is not expecting a rate move, which means attention will likely shift toward the dot plot, forward guidance, and any signs of disagreement beneath the surface. In other words, watch what they say, not what they do. The era of consensus-driven monetary policy may be ending as well, making individual projections and dissents potentially more important than the policy decision itself.

And then there is SpaceX. From a pure market mechanics perspective, this was one of the best tapes we have seen in quite some time. Liquidity was there. Price action was there. Some called it a boring IPO. From a market mechanics perspective, I could not disagree more. More than half a billion shares changed hands on day one, and the tape rarely felt crowded.

A detailed breakdown of trading IPOs on day one probably deserves its own article at some point, though it will have to wait given the backlog already in place. SpaceX may have been first, but it is unlikely to be the last. OpenAI has already filed for an IPO, while Anthropic continues making headlines for entirely different reasons, with the U.S. government unexpectedly ordering the suspension of its latest flagship models late Friday. Either way, both will definitely make excellent future case studies, provided they make it to the public markets in the first place.

For now, the Research Unpacked section below walks through the SpaceX IPO from a trader’s perspective, covering the opening auction, the initial range, key IPO extensions, developing POCs, the Big and Beautiful Flip, and the roadmap heading into Monday.

The first meaningful rejection occurred exactly at 168.75, a level that was marked in the research before the stock even opened.

2. Earnings to Watch This Week

In this section I share clean charts highlighting only the key areas used for planning and execution. The levels are identified using fully layered charts, but are presented here without the extra clutter.
All levels reflect Friday’s close and serve as a roadmap rather than a prediction. If a key area is in play before earnings, the focus shifts to the next relevant zone.
That’s not inconsistency. That’s price action.

Thursday