The CPI-Print Scalp Plan: Mapping Structure Before the 8:30 Number
The inflation print hits before the bell and rewrites the overnight map in seconds. The scalp plan is preparation, patience, and the reaction, not the print itself.
CPI (and PPI/PCE) releases at 8:30am ET, an hour before the cash open, and the reaction is instant and violent in futures. By the time SPY opens, the overnight map has been repriced. The plan is to be ready for that, not to bet on the number.
Before 8:30: map it
Know the prior-day and pre-print levels, and know that IV is elevated into the release. Have your prior-day high/low and key structure marked so that whichever way the print sends futures, you know which levels are now in play. Don't hold premium into the print hoping for a direction — that's a coin flip with an IV crush attached.
At 8:30 and into the open: skip the spike, trade the reaction
The initial futures spike on the number is not tradeable structure — it's the market repricing. As with a Fed day, let it settle. The tradeable event is how price behaves as the cash session opens: does it accept the new range (gap-and-go) or reject and fill? Trade that reaction with your overnight-gap playbook around the reset levels.
You can't out-guess the print. Map the levels before it, ignore the spike, and trade how price handles the reset.
The discipline
Most CPI-day losses come from trading the first two minutes — the widest spreads, the fastest reversals, the least structure. Wait for the open, wait for a level to be tested, and trade the reaction. If the reset structure is unclear, the honest read is often no trade until it clarifies. NoVo re-maps the levels on the reset so you're trading the post-print structure, not the chaos.
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