U.S. Stock Market Futures: Review and Forecast for 03/23-27/2026
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Over the past week, all quarterly futures went through rollover. Since the final Friday statistics on open interest have not yet come out, I see no point in discussing the rollover. So now we will discuss the results of the Fed meeting and their impact on rate expectations, as well as the behavior of the VIX volatility index. The rest is not very interesting.
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On March 18, Jerome Powell spoke a lot about rising inflation and inflation expectations, lamented the labor market slowdown, and tried in every way to prove that the current situation is not stagflation.
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In response to all these evasions, investors (not to be confused with players or even speculators) changed their expectations for the upcoming rate. In the image above are rate expectations after the June meeting (for April, there are no special changes).
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So, if a month ago a little more than half of professional participants expected a rate cut, then a week ago there were already fewer than a quarter of them. Right after the meeting, for the first time in many months, some investors began to proceed from the idea that the rate could even be raised.
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If anyone thinks this information is not very important, let me remind you of a simple connection: the lower the rate, the more lively stocks and cryptocurrencies behave. And since the idea of a rate cut is being postponed, so is rapid growth.
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Meanwhile, the same and some other professional participants continued buying the VIX volatility index. The week closed at 25.75, and this is clearly a fear level, especially after it had shown a value of 30.
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And now let us look at the usual volume quote of the main stock futures: ES, NQ, YM.
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The first thing that must be noted: trading turnover during the rollover week is, of course, elevated, but lower than in the previous two weeks. At the same time, open interest is not really growing, but simply flowing from one instrument to another.
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This suggests that players are not very interested in opening positions here, and also that amid increased volatility one can simply speculate intraday, rather than, for example, over a week.
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But let us not guess, and simply note the following.
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From this follows the conclusion that now, if one wants a medium-term move, one needs to see how liquidity is loaded over the next one or two weeks. If it is in the area below 45900–45500, then 43500 will look quite achievable.
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Similarly, by the way, sellers may build up some strength in the 46100-46800 range and then move lower.
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Well, the third selling scenario is a continuation of this kind of volatile decline. But then somewhere around 44500-45100 buyers will definitely aggressively buy something back for a couple thousand points of buy-side movement.
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Let's also look at the intraweek chart (H2 cluster, external D1 cluster).
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The week's core was built from below. Range 46030-46200, POC 46185.
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At the beginning of the week, if nothing extraordinary happens over the weekend, one should expect not so much support forming around 46900 as sellers' unwillingness to work lower. But clearly, it is also not worth expecting buyers above 46940-46590 in the coming days.
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At the same time, on Monday-Tuesday they may shake the quote around in order to reduce volatility in the second half of the week and settle into a corridor for accumulating the initial balance volumes of the contract.
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The ES futures also, unsurprisingly, reached the VWAP of the buy impulse that began almost a year ago: 6540. It is worth noting that the game is now taking place in the imbalance zone (very roughly 6500-6650) between the September (ES 09-25) and December (ES 12-25) contracts.
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Here one can speculate about how they may linger in this zone. In exactly the same way, one can speculate about how to continue the decline. For example, they can reach the lower boundary of the 6400-6500 range and somehow set something up there. Still, why not go almost immediately to 6150-6235?
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But in the current position, one should not expect buying on the higher timeframe.
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But of course, we also need to assess how the first liquidity was loaded within the week on the new contract.
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Here the picture differs from what we saw on the YM futures.
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Let's immediately mark out the imbalance zone: it is in the 6685-6715 range. Somewhere under this zone they may accumulate liquidity for shorts, while they may also enter here extremely aggressively for a reversal.
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And finally, let's analyze the NQ futures.
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Here they did leave, managed to move below 24770-25070. And it may very well be that they said goodbye to the range for a long time. I will explain the logic.
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In this range (and this is roughly a +0.5 VWAP deviation from the yearly impulse), they traded for a long time and densely. After all, this is not even so much about futures as about the stocks included in the index. In such a model, if they work densely at the half deviation, then the average VWAP of the impulse (around 23950 for us) does not hold the quote.
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It is clear that on the weekly TF they are not obliged to break down literally tomorrow, but within the model I will not be surprised at all if by the end of the coming week (and that is also the end of the month) we see 22800 as well. That is, of course, very lively indeed, but somewhere around 23500 will almost certainly be in the terminals.
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Inside the week, the model is generally identical.
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The key imbalance was formed in the 24685-24815 range. If playing the impulse short, then sales loading during the week will take place in the 24420-24520 range with a possible test from below of the imbalance range.
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The most obvious thing in the current situation is to wait for Wednesday or Thursday; then it will be clear how to speculate. I am talking about the volume model.
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But geopolitics (let's call it that) can make serious adjustments, within which quotes can very quickly say goodbye even to the lower ranges of the past week and go update Friday's lows.
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Everything looks as though there are no buyers in the market ready to work at current prices, which means the market will go on looking for an equilibrium zone.
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