HaiKhuu Daily Report - 02/18/2026
Good morning and happy Wednesday! Wow. Markets are looking great during the pre-market session, and I hope you all are excited about today! With the strength and confidence that traders are feeling going into open, I will say that it is almost hard not to be optimistic leading into today! Conditions are looking great, and trading sentiment is becoming less fearful despite the fact that we have continued to remain in this range for the previous three months.
I think that it is funny that the markets continue to chop in this range and traders are feeling more and more nervous as we get to the lower end of this range, despite the fact that again, we continue to chop here before finally having what it takes to break out from this range.
It is obviously not ideal that the markets haven’t moved up exponentially at this point, but honestly, the inconsistencies and irrationality in the markets are providing us with both the strength and confidence to capitalize on the short-term volatility.
Please continue to capitalize on these market conditions and do everything in your power to realize a significant amount of gains during this confusing time, as this is one of THE best times to be actively scalping, trading, and capitalizing on volatility.
I’ll talk more about my sentiment later on in the full report, but for now…
Continue to trade to your heart’s desire, and have an amazing time today!
The updated $SPY daily levels are as follows:
Conversion Line Resistance: $686.81
Baseline Resistance: $686.46
Psychological Support: $680
Daily Cloud Resistance: $684.73
Thoughts & Comments from Yesterday 02/17/2026
Yesterday was a wild time for the markets, with some INSANE volatility but overall neutrality. I hope you all had a profitable first trading day of the lunar new year and that you were able to set yourself up for success! It was a more difficult day to capitalize on, but a green day for the markets is a win for all! So I hope you all had a wonderful time and were able to realize some gains!
So, we started the week with markets slightly down, opening at $680.09, down about $2 from Friday's close. Right after opening, we watched as the markets quickly popped up, then crashed back down within the first hour of the day, and continued chopping around before hitting the official low of the day early in the morning, trading at $675.78.
Market conditions at the bottom were far from ideal and provided us with an opportunity to buy the dip before watching as the markets almost fully recovered everything lost in the morning, with $SPY green again, leading into the lunchtime lull.
There was neutrality through the lull, with everything remaining extremely choppy and slow until the beginning of the afternoon, where $SPY recovered to $680, before bouncing again, leading into the early afternoon, where $SPY went on and made the official high of the day at $684.93. Conditions were beautiful at the top, but we watched as $SPY dropped into close, where we officially ended the day with $SPY trading at $682.85, up roughly $1 for the day, or up about 0.16%.
Overall, I will say that it was not the worst day in the world; the markets were green overall, and traders had opportunities to actively scalp on an intraday basis. There were some organizations that did not perform as well as others, but generally, as long as you simply followed the market momentum with your allocations and did not attempt to trade neutrality, you should have come out of yesterday relatively unscathed. So again, hopefully you all were able to realize some gains while trading yesterday to start this new year off strong!!!
S&P 500 Heat Map - 02/17/2026
Thoughts & Comments for Today - 02/18/2026
Today is setting up to be a beautiful day for the markets. If that remains true or not is a different story, but with the way the markets are trending, we are seeing strength during the pre-market session, which everyone should be excited for, and hopefully, this strength leads to more optimism here in the short term.
As I’ve said before, with the current placement in the markets, I am expecting that the next directional move that happens in the markets is going to be both unexpected and extremely volatile. There is a possibility of that directional move happening towards the upside today, but again, this is just one of those situations where I am going to advise everyone to make sure they are practicing the most risk management possible, but make sure to do everything in their power to realize gains at this time.
These market conditions are not the most optimal for those who are attempting to simply hold equities, as we’ve seen continued neutrality and rotation over the previous couple of months at these highs, but these conditions are absolutely amazing for those who are attempting to actively scalp and trade at this time.
There is so much short-term volatility in the markets that many traders are going to have a generally difficult time trading, and that is completely understandable. The irrationality and inconsistencies we are seeing with these market conditions are making trading exponentially more difficult, but that is simply just life.
Look towards attempting to actively scalp higher beta stocks at this time, as many of these mega-cap names have dropped heavily over the previous couple of weeks trading, and as a result of that, opportunities to ride a larger directional move only increase heavily as a result. Obviously, there are going to be risks assosiated to attempting to do this, but timing your position and allocation correctly, I genuinely do not see any issues with attempting to do so right now.
A couple of organizations you should keep your eyes on at the moment are $ORCL, $INTC, and $AMD. With the volatility in these three organizations, those who are attempting to actively scalp and or day trade, should be provided with some beautiful opportunities to realize a significant amount of gains as a result. Again, I am not blindly endorsing you to purchase any of these organizations, but assuming that there is momentum that you can capitalize on, and realize gains with, I genuinely do believe that these three organizations are higher beta, and as a result, will provide you with more opportunities than not to actively scalp.
Day trading 0-DTE contracts at this time also is not the worst play. With the confidence that traders are feeling, there are going to be some that attempt to trade either 0-DTEs on $SPY, or because of the new contracts, attempt to trade single names with 0-dte contracts. I don’t feel that 0-DTE contracts are necessarily bad, but I just want to warn you that with inconcistencies and irrationality in the markets, 0-DTE contracts are going to be more difficult to trade with confidence, and the volatility experienced is going to be elevated exponentially, so tread lightly and be extremely careful when attempting to scalp 0-DTE’s today!
If I see any opportunities, or if I decide to get into any other plays, I’ll announce what I see in the HaiKhuu Discord.
My Personal Watchlist:
Note, just because something is on my watchlist does not mean it is a signal to buy or sell any equities
Watchlist:
Tech: $INTC, $RIVN , $ORCL, $NVDA, $TSLA, $AMD, $PLTR
Speculative: $PTLO, $RIVN, $CVX, $UNH, $AIFF
Long Dividend: $JEPI
Long Investment: $PTLO
Short: $BRK/B
Crypto: $MSTR, SOL, BTC
Economic News for 02/18/2026 (ET):
Housing Starts (delayed report) - 8:30 AM
Building Permits - 8:30 AM
Durable-goods orders (delayed report) - 8:30 AM
Retail Inventories - 8:30 AM
Wholesale Inventories - 8:30 AM
FOMC Minutes - 2:00 PM
Notable Earnings for 02/18/2026:
Pre-Market Earnings:
Analog Devices (ADI)
Moody's Corporation (MCO)
Garmin (GRMM)
Constellium (CSTM)
Jones Lan LaSalle (JLL)
Global Payments (GPN)
HF Sinclair (DINO)
After Market Earnings:
Kinross Gold (KGC)
Carvana (CVNA)
B2Gold (BTG)
eBay (EBAY)
Cheesecake Factory (CAKE)
DoorDash (DASH)
Moison Coors Beverage (TAP)
Wrap up
Hopefully, this is a beautiful day for the general markets that provide us with some beautiful opportunities to realize a significant amount of gains in an extremely short period of time. The strength and recovery we are seeing in the markets does provide us with confidence during the pre-market session, so let’s have an amazing time, realize some gains, and make the most out of today!
Good luck trading, and let’s see where $SPY takes us!