Bears Flushed at Open, Bulls Stall at Call Wall — Afternoon Pin Fight Begins

This morning's bearish gap setup got decisively reversed: SPX opened near 7663, found buyers immediately, and has clawed back to 7700 — right at the call wall — by midday. The session's two most striking facts are (1) VIX dropped 3.34% while equities are basically flat on the day, an unusual vol-equity divergence that tells you fear is deflating faster than price is recovering, and (2) over $400M in 0DTE SPX call sweeps hit the tape at the open, all clustered between 7670 and 7690 strikes — a high-conviction early bet that the gap-down would reverse.

Now the hard part: SPY sits at 767.17, pinned between the 765.0 put wall below and the 770.0 call wall above, with 72.4% of 0DTE volume concentrated at max pain (765.0). The afternoon looks like a tug-of-war between negative GEX amplification on any breakdown and powerful pin gravity keeping price anchored. COSTCO earnings after the close add a binary wild card for consumer/retail sentiment heading into Friday.