Accursed Month

Goldman's Scott Rubner was right. Markets were, as it turns out, predisposed to pre-trading a challenging September seasonal which typically waits until the back-half of the month to bite. He was also correct when he warned, on September 4, that any nascent equity pullback "may start to get traction if payrolls are weak." Payrolls were weak, and the revisions weaker still. And the downtrade did "get traction." As the simple figure below shows, we've had two bouts of pronounced selling pressure