February 12, 2026

Markets:

Futures posted modest gains Thursday morning the day after a solid jobs report drew mixed emotions and traders took in more earnings news from big companies.

hardware such as switches and routers issued disappointing guidance for the current quarter. McDonald’s turned positive after an earnings beat.

Those moves come after a downbeat trading day on Wall Street, with the 30-stock Dow off by more than 66 points, or 0.1%, while the Nasdaq Composite dipped about 0.2%. The S&P 500 ended the day just a tick lower.

Stocks ended the session lower after earlier rallying off the back of a strong jobs report. The January nonfarm payrolls report showed sharp jobs growth of 130,000 last month, far above what economists were expecting, and much higher than the downwardly revised December gain. The unemployment rate ticked lower to 4.3% from 4.4%.

More data on the labor market is due out Thursday morning, with the latest weekly jobless claims figure. The existing home sales report is also set to release.

Portfolio:

Heading into today, we’re holding TGB, CORZ, and SD.

We are still in a consolidation range, exactly like we laid out last week. Yes, this range can chop people up — but not us. We’ve been crushing it. Volatility is our playground, but with key data ahead and a long U.S. market weekend, patience is the edge over the next few sessions. Tomorrow’s close will be telling — risk-on or risk-off?

Technically, QQQ still has a gap to fill at 591, and make no mistake — new highs are coming. The longer this market coils, the more violent and explosive the next move will be. We are not even close to the euphoric phase of this AI / Tech revolution. That’s still ahead over the coming years.

Zooming out this administration views the market as a scoreboard, and President Trump has openly stated the Dow will double by the end of his term. Agree or disagree his three major market calls this year have already materialized. This is the biggest one yet.

From a tactical standpoint, the ideal setup is a flush into CPI, followed by a buy-the-dip launch. Strip the fear out of CPI and we rip higher. Alternate path? Continued chop into NVDA earnings on 2/25, then full throttle into the end of Q1 and Q2. Both scenarios are firmly on our radar.

 No need to force trades. Let price confirm, let setups mature – then we strike.