Pre-Markets in Red to Start Historically Worse Performing Month

Futures in today’s pre-market — the 1st of September (“Kalo Mina!”) — are down following back-to-back lower trading days on the major indexes. It’s immediately very hard to resist noting that September is statistically the worst month for the stock market, with the S&P 500 and Dow averaging losses of -0.7% and -1.1%, respectively. But these numbers are skewed by a couple moments in history: the Panic of 1931 and the fall of Lehman Brothers in 2008.

September is also, historically, when we put our summer vacation pants away and get back to business. Fund managers tend to rebalance and sell losing positions which can later be written off taxes. It also doesn’t help this year when we see hostilities once again increasing at the Strait of Hormuz, as the U.S. war with Iran enters its seventh month. Oil prices are back up to the high-$80s (WTI) and low-$90s (Brent) per barrel, and bond yields continue to tick higher on the 2-year, 10-year and 30-year.

Currently, the Dow is giving back -360 points, once again trading below 53K (it was at 54,633 four weeks ago), the S&P 500 is -50 points (it had dipped below 7700 yesterday; it was over 7850 as of August 13th) and the AI-heavy Nasdaq is -375 points at this hour (essentially flat since breaking below 30K a few weeks back; all-time highs were set back in early June). The small-cap Russell 2000 is down -19 points to 2938; it was over 3K just a week go.

What to Expect from Today’s Stock Market

While we keep one eye trained on developments in the Middle East — although an end to the Iran war looks more remote than it has in weeks — while we also turn our attention to key economic reports released after today’s open. These include manufacturing PMI for August, and employment and construction data for July.

S&P Manufacturing PMI is expected to tick down slightly from the previous print: 53.5 from 53.9. ISM Manufacturing looks to perform similarly: 55.3 from 55.6 last time around. Both appear safely in growth territory (above 50). Construction Spending looks to rebound somewhat from its negative headline of -0.1% from June. 

The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) report for July has seen its forecast come down slightly in recent days — to 7.3 million job openings expected from the 7.4 million reported in last month’s report. We’ve basically hovered at this midpoint in JOLTS data between the all-time low at the end of the Great Recession (2.2 million) and highs ahead of the Fed moves during the Great Reopening (12.3 million).

Wednesday brings us ADP ADP private-sector jobs numbers (47K expected for August) and Friday morning we get the big Employment Situation report (53K job gains expected). Over the past two years, job growth overall has been flat. While we’re unlikely to see a surge in employment higher in this week’s data, we are on a four-month downward swing.

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