HaiKhuu Daily Report - 08/18/2026
Good morning and happy Tuesday! Market conditions aren't looking their best right now, as $SPY is down roughly 0.5% at the time of this report, so I hope you're all ready for some volatility and inconsistency. Things have not looked the best so far this week, but hopefully conditions get better soon.
War news and general uncertainty have picked up leading into today, so please continue to tread lightly on these market conditions and prepare for some generalized difficulties.
I am not saying the markets are ultimately going to crash from this level, but given current market conditions and how everyone is interacting, many traders will be both skeptical and hesitant today. So please, if you are attempting to trade or allocate, make sure you are practicing safe risk management, mostly on a day like today!
These conditions are going to be interesting to navigate; prepare for irrationality and inconsistencies, and let’s see what the markets have in store for us today!
Good luck trading, and let’s see where the markets take us!
The updated $SPY daily levels are as follows:
Conversion Line Support: $773.41
Baseline Support: $754.24
Psychological Support: $760
Previous All-Time High: $779.37
Daily Cloud Support: $740.72
Thoughts & Comments from Yesterday - 8/17/2026
Yesterday was a slow and gross day for the general markets. We watched as conditions remained extremely tight and neutral for most of the day before turning bearish. As bad as this sounds, there were no great opportunities on an intraday basis unless you were able to perfectly time the drop, and even so if you were able to time things out perfectly, the large majority of traders were not able to realize anything of any major significance. Hopefully you all were able to survive yesterday's mild bearish momentum…
We started yesterday with $SPY opening at $776.27; we quickly made the official high of the day trading at $776.75, and watched as general market conditions were less than ideal. Markets opened, we chopped around, and general market conditions were slow. We saw mild bearish momentum as we fell to $775 leading into the lunchtime lull, then recovered to test $776 during the lull. Early morning was slow, and we essentially saw no change in the markets.
Then, after the lunchtime lull, we watched as $SPY started to show some quick weakness, dropping to a relative low around $773 before bouncing back slightly, chopping between $773 and $774 for a couple of hours, then dropping again leading into close. Literally in the final minutes of the trading day $SPY started to sell off once again, and went on to make the official low of the day trading at $772.51, before bouncing back up slightly, officially ending the day with $SPY trading at $772.67, meaning $SPY dropped 0.5% overall, or dropped approximately $4 in the process.
So what I will say about yesterday's market conditions is that everything was less than ideal. Market conditions could have gotten a lot worse than they actually were, and traders had a difficult time consistently realizing gains during that time. Things could have been better and momentum could have been stronger, but hey, regardless of everything, life is good and so are these market conditions. Let’s see what the markets have in store for us today, and try to navigate some of this volatility!
S&P 500 Heat Map - 08/17/2026
Thoughts & Comments for Today - 08/18/2026
Today is setting up to be a rougher day for the general markets. There is no reason to attempt to sugarcoat things. $SPY has officially broken below the daily conversion line support; we are seeing fear start to return to the markets on war news, and things are not looking their best heading into today. I am not attempting to scare you when I say any of this; it is just the reality of these conditions. If you are attempting to trade today, please make sure that you are treading lightly and practicing safe risk management. Many traders are going to watch their positions get violated, so please, protect your bottom line and be rational leading into today.
I am not saying you shouldn't be optimistic and should hope for the best, but given market conditions and how confused most traders feel, it is going to be genuinely difficult to stay overly bullish heading into today.
If you are attempting to trade, just please make sure that you are following the momentum, even if that means you should be bearish today. Again, this is not a signal that the markets are guaranteed to continue to sell off today, but with the way that things are going and the markets are trending, it is almost going to be hard not to remain realistic with your expectations on a day like today.
If you are attempting to short any organizations today, I just want to make sure you know a couple of things. I typically “hate” on 0-DTE option contracts, but given the conditions, under the assumption that we do get a larger bearish move today, 0-DTE options are not going to be the worst move. They will be expensive and extremely risky, but given the current market conditions and the way everything is trending, it's hard not to consider taking on some risk.
Many organizations are also heavily overvalued in these conditions. So, if you are looking for something to short, look at some of these higher-beta chips and organizations that are “overpriced” in your eyes, and take advantage of the opportunities presented to us as a result. A couple of organizations that have rallied irrationally over the previous couple of trading days are $MU, $MRVL, and $SNDK. I am not saying you should short these organizations, but under the assumption that war news continues to drive weak market conditions, I would say those organizations are statistically likely to drop as a result.
So please, the biggest thing I need to warn you all about is to just make sure that you are protecting your bottom line and practicing safe risk management, as many traders are going to get absolutely short, while others have the time of their lives.
Just be careful. In the case that the markets decide to sell off from this point, I believe that there is a realistic chance that $SPY comes back down to the $760 support range, and understand that in the case we break below $760, we can watch as $SPY drops as low as $740 in a very short period of time.
Again, this is not a signal to be overly bearish today, but please, tread lightly, and expect rough conditions. Hopefully the markets fully recover on some Trump headlines, but unless that happens, good luck today because things can get messy.
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: $ORCL, $INTC, $AMD, $SPCX, $TSLA, $MU, $SNDK, $NVDA
Speculative: $PTLO, $AIFF , $RIVN
Long Dividend: $JEPI
Long Investment: $PTLO
Crypto: $MSTR, SOL, BTC
Economic News for 08/18/2026 (ET):
Housing Starts - 8:30 AM
Building Permits - 8:30 AM
Import Price Index - 8:30 AM
Industrial Production - 9:15 AM
Capacity Utilization - 9:15 AM
Notable Earnings for 08/18/2026:
Pre-Market Earnings:
Baidu (BIDU)
Home Depot (HD)
Klarna Group (KLAR)
Amer Sports (AS)
Prenetics Global Limited (PRE)
Hesai Group (HSAI)
iQIYI (IQ)
VNET Group (VNET)
After Market Earnings:
Auna S.A. (AUNA)
La-Z-Boy (LZB)
Chemical & Mining (SQM)
Jack Henry & Associates (JKHY)
Keysight Technologies (KEYS)
Mercury Systems (MRCY)
Toll Brothers (TOL)
ZTO Express (ZTO)
Wrap up
These market conditions are going to be spicy. With the way the markets are trending right now, we are seeing some fear due to generalized war news. I don't think this is a major concern in the short term, and hopefully things don't continue to worsen. I think that many traders are going to have a difficult time navigating this momentum, so please, tread lightly, practice safe risk management, and have an amazing time!
Good luck trading, and let’s see where $SPY takes us!