Buyers Strike

The End of Summer Hangover.  Unless you are a stay at home parent with kids, the end of Labor Day weekend, when schools are back in session and summer starts to wind down is always a tough time of year. After a summer of nice weather, swimming, hiking, outdoor sports, and hopefully even a vacation, Tuesday morning after the three day Labor Day weekend is one of the tougher days of the year for a lot of people. This year was no exception, and it was reflected in the performance of the US and global equity markets.

Take a look at the chart below, for six straight trading days now, the S&P 500 had a lower intraday high and lower intraday low than the prior day’s levels. That type of consistent selling with zero in the way of buying doesn’t happen very often. To find the most recent occurrence, you have to go all the way back to May 2012, and since 1982, it has only occurred eight other times.