FUNDAMENTALOVERVIEWThe Nasdaq sold offyesterday after early reports suggested the third round of US–Iran talks hadbroken down, with Iran reportedly rejecting US demands. Later in the day,however, new headlines indicated that the discussions had actually madesignificant progress and that another round was scheduled for next week. Thiskind of back-and-forth on the macro and geopolitical front is keeping mostmarkets rangebound.Right now, the main risksfor the Nasdaq are a potential US–Iran military escalation and a hawkishrepricing of Fed interest rate expectations.On the rates side, themarket is still pricing in about 57 bps of easing by year-end. This outlook couldbe at risk of a hawkish repricing on further improvement in the US labourmarket data. In fact, Fed Governor Waller said that he would consider holdingrates steady if we see another strong NFP report like January’s. That makesnext Friday’s data especially important as solid numbers could weigh onequities in the short term as traders dial back expectations for rate cuts.The bigger risk, though, isgeopolitical. If a military conflict between the US and Iran were to break out,oil prices would likely surge. That would represent a negative shock to theglobal economy and raise stagflation concerns. The initial market reactionwould almost certainly be a sharp move toward risk aversion, with equitiesselling off hard as growth expectations deteriorate. To sum up, there are lotsof downside risks at the moment with little reasons for a rally into newall-time highs. The macro backdrop remains broadly supportive, with easinginflation and a resilient labour market, but that picture could shift quickly. Traderswill need to stay nimble. NASDAQ TECHNICALANALYSIS – DAILY TIMEFRAMEOnthe daily chart, we can see theNasdaq has been trading in a wide rangesince October of last year. Such long consolidations generally lead to bigtrending moves once the price breaks out. Until then, the market participantswill continue to play the range. NASDAQ TECHNICALANALYSIS – 4 HOUR TIMEFRAMEOnthe 4 hour chart, we got abreakout of the 24,700-25,127 range on Wednesday, but all the gains were eventuallypared back yesterday on the US-Iran tensions. We now have an upward trendline definingthe bullish structure on this timeframe. The buyers will likely lean on thetrendline with a defined risk below the 24,700 support to keep pushing into newhighs, while the sellers will look for a break below the trendline and thesupport to increase the bearish bets into the 24,200 level next. NASDAQ TECHNICALANALYSIS – 1 HOUR TIMEFRAMEOn the 1 hour chart, there’snot much we can add here as the buyers will have a better risk to reward setuparound the trendline and the 24,700 support, but another break above the 25,127could see the buyers piling in for a move back into the 25,500 level. Thesellers, on the other hand, will likely step in around the 25,127 level with adefined risk above it to position for a break below the trendline. The redlines define the average daily range for today. UPCOMING CATALYSTSToday we conclude the week with the US PPI report but continue to watchout for US-Iran headlines. This article was written by Giuseppe Dellamotta at investinglive.com.