Stock Market Today: September 27th - October 1st, 2021

Welcome StonkForums to the trading week of September 27th!

This past week saw the following moves in the S&P:


S&P Sectors End of Week:


Major Indices End of Week:


Major Futures Markets on Friday:


Economic Calendar for the Week Ahead:


What to Watch in the Week Ahead:

• Monday

Earnings: Aurora Cannabis

8:00 a.m. Chicago Fed President Charles Evans

8:30 a.m. Durable goods

12:50 p.m. Fed Governor Lael Brainard

• Tuesday

Earnings: IHS Markit, Micron, Cal-Maine Foods, Thor Industries, United Natural Foods, FactSet

8:30 a.m. Advance economic indicators

9:00 a.m. Chicago Fed’s Evans

9:00 a.m. S&P Case-Shiller home prices

9:00 a.m. FHFA home prices

10:00 a.m. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen before Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee on pandemic response

10:00 a.m. Consumer confidence

1:40 p.m. Fed Governor Michelle Bowman

3:00 p.m. Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic

7:00 p.m. St. Louis Fed President James Bullard

• Wednesday

Earnings: Jabil, Cintas, Herman Miller

10:00 a.m. Pending home sales

11:45 a.m. Fed Chairman Powell on European Central Bank panel

2:00 p.m. Atlanta Fed’s Bostic

• Thursday

Earnings: Jefferies Financial, CarMax, Bed Bath & Beyond, Paychex

8:30 a.m. Initial jobless claims

8:30 a.m. Real GDP Q2

9:45 a.m. Chicago PMI

10:00 a.m. Fed Chairman Powell and Treasury Secretary Yellen before House Financial Services Committee

11:00 p.m. Atlanta Fed’s Bostic

11:30 p.m. Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker

12:05 p.m. St. Louis Fed’s Bullard

12:30 p.m. Chicago Fed’s Evans

• Friday

Monthly vehicle sales

8:30 a.m. Personal income and spending

10:00 a.m. Manufacturing PMI

10:00 a.m. ISM manufacturing

10:00 a.m. Consumer sentiment

10:00 a.m. Construction spending

11:00 a.m. Philadelphia Fed’s Harker

 

Stocks Shrug As Taper Tantrum Sparks Bond Bloodbath; Beijing Batters Bitcoin
US equity markets rebounded from Monday's pukefest on Evergrande fears (which actually came to be realized as the giant property developer did indeed default on its foreign dollar bonds). But then headlines about SOEs preparing for collapse and the payment of a local yuan bond's coupon seemed to spark exuberance. A brief taper tantrum ensued in equities after the FOMC statement, which ignited momentum higher and shorts were squeezed as rates spiked. The surge in rates, however, hammered the growthier assets and Nasdaq underperformed, ending the week lower (for the 3rd straight week), while Small Caps (value) outperformed.



In case anyone doubts that algos are running the show - just look at how Nasdaq futs were levitated desperately to get back to unchanged on the week. Additionally, 4450 was the key level for S&P...



...pinned by today's option expiration...



Source: SpotGamma

If one were to guess the S&P's weekly performance after everything that happened – Evergrande's missed coupon payment, Evergrande's EV unit liquidity crunch, more hawkish than expected FOMC/BOE decisions, the FDX/NKE outlook cuts signaling supply chain stress is here to stay, chaos in DC with debt ceiling doubts and complete uncertainty over the size (if any) of a new stimulus bill, crypto carnage, and weak seasonals - we suspect the vast majority of people would have predicted steep declines... as opposed to modest gains.

(h/t @knowledge_vital)

BTFD, right? 'Bad news is good news' right?


After the Monday rout, the short squeeze was unleashed and got back to even on Thursday... running out of ammo again to maintain the lift into Friday...



Source: Bloomberg

Notably the rotation back to Small Caps (value) from Nasdaq (growth) stalled today at a key resistance level...



Energy stocks went from worst to first this week after plunging almost 6% on Monday to ending the week over 3% higher (followed by Financials). Utes were the biggest losers...



Source: Bloomberg

Evergande's dollar bonds are trading 25c on the dollar and the stocks tumbled another 7% this week (helped by a brief reprieve midweek which was reversed quite quickly) following last week's 30% plunge...



Source: Bloomberg

Oh, and don't forget the debt ceiling debacle looms over all of this...



Source: Bloomberg

Oh, and the market is now pricing in at least one rate hike by the end of 2022...



Source: Bloomberg

Treasury yields rose for the 5th straight week (biggest weekly spike in yields since March). Notably, the move was entirely contained in the last two days which were the biggest 2-day spike since the first week of March. Aside from 2Y, the move was surprisingly uniform with the entire curve up around 9bps...



Source: Bloomberg

2Y yields rose back above FF and 5Y yields pushed up to their highest since February



Source: Bloomberg

30Y Yields spiked up to post-payrolls highs...



Source: Bloomberg

The Dollar ended marginally higher on the week but was whipsawed around on China and Fed headlines...



Source: Bloomberg

Cryptos were clubbed like a baby seal this week, hit on liquidity needs around Evergrande's broad-based degrossing and on China's statement making crypto transactions "illegal". Bitcoin was actually the least bad horse in the glue factory but everything was hit...



Source: Bloomberg

Bitcoin has remained above $40k though for now...



Source: Bloomberg

Bitcoin found support at its 100DMA three times this week...



Source: Bloomberg

A noisy week for commodities saw Crude outperforming along with modest gains for copper while PMs were very modestly lower...



Source: Bloomberg

WTI rallied back above $74, its highest since mid-July...



Source: Bloomberg

And gold ended back below $1800...



Finally, Goldman had a warning this week. Valuation is not typically the cause of a bubble bursting and stocks can stay 'expensive' for a long time.



But over a long time, the returns that you might expect to get from investing in equities tend to be far smaller when you buy stocks at high valuations than when you buy them when they are 'cheap'.

Oh and remember, tapering is not tightening so BTFD!?



Source: Bloomberg

You are here.

 

Here are the percentage changes for the major indices for WTD, MTD, QTD & YTD in 2021-



S&P sectors for the past week-

 

September Seasonality Update

Well. Seasonality is back. Everyone in the financial media has been talking about September seasonal weakness lately. And here we are in September and the market has sold off the 5% or so we projected last month. And it did so in the notoriously treacherous week after September quarterly options and futures expiration.

Then as expected traders and fund managers bought the 5% dip as they have throughout this bull market rally with the blessing of the Federal Reserve’s continuing dovish tone and accommodative policy that they reinforced at the conclusion of yesterday’s FOMC meeting.

We do not expect stocks to succumb to the October curse this year. That doesn’t rule out some downside disturbance, but we do not foresee an impending crash, massacre or big selloff of the sort that have given October it’s dubious reputation as the jinx month.

Many of the same geopolitical, political, fundamental and technical headwinds we highlighted last month remain, as well as some others, so another 5% or so pullback is quite likely as Wall Street still may suffer from chronic “Octoberphobia.”

We’ve been doing this for decades and this pullback was prototypical end of Q3 window dressing and institutional selling. Several factors weighed on the markets, but most had been there all year. So why did the market selling off this month? Seasonality.

Individual Investor Sentiment Bounces Back
Thu, Sep 23, 2021

Last week saw a massive decline in optimism according to the AAII's weekly investor sentiment survey. In fact, bullish sentiment saw its largest one-week decline in over two years. Even though the S&P 500 has technically declined more in the week leading up to this week's survey than last week's, sentiment actually improved with the percentage of respondents reporting as bullish rising from 22.4% to 29.9%. That was the biggest one-week increase since the first week of July, but the percentage of bullish respondents is still well below the past year's range.



Even though there was a big pickup in bullish sentiment, bearish sentiment was only little changed. This reading only fell 0.1 percentage points to 39.3%. That remains at a level above anything observed since last fall.



That means that mostly all of the gains to bullish sentiment this week borrowed heavily from the neutral camp. Neutral sentiment fell sharply this week shedding 7.4 percentage points. That was the biggest one-week decline since a 7.5 percentage point drop in the first week of August.

We'd also note that while last week saw a big shift in sentiment among individual investors, this week, newsletter writers followed suit as bullish sentiment among that group fell below 50% to 47.1% for the lowest reading since May. Bearish sentiment meanwhile rose to 22.3% which is the highest reading since October 7th of last year.



Pandemic Claims Still There
Thu, Sep 23, 2021

Rather than the expected decline to 320K this week, seasonally adjusted initial jobless claims rose to 351K (from weekly FRED data). That is the second week in a row that claims were higher and in which claims were worse than forecasts. After the past two weeks of increases, claims are also now at the highest level in a month, though, that is still near pandemic lows.



On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, claims were also higher rising by 40.3K week over week. That brings regular state claims back above 300K for the first time since the week of August 13th. Pandemic era programs technically ended in the first week of September and last week's release was the first data point to capture this. PUA claims did drop substantially that week with an over 70K decline, but they did not fall to zero as one might expect. The same is the case this week with PUA claims falling further to a very low level of 15.16K. As for why PUA claim counts are still being recorded following the end of the program is not exactly clear, but it could be due to backdating of claims.



While PUA claims will likely continue to drop and become even less of a factor than is already the case, we are now past the point of the year in which claims have seasonal tailwinds. As shown below, on average claims historically rise from mid-September through the end of the year with week over week increases happening more than half the time. In other words, pandemic programs falling off have and will keep lowering claim counts but that will also be to some degree offset by seasonality.



Continuing claims are lagged an additional week to initial claims making the most recent data through the week of September 10th. Here too, claims saw a surprise uptick to 2.845 million versus expectations of a further decline to 2.6 million.



The inclusion of all programs adds yet another week's lag to the data making the most recent data through the week of September 3; the last before the end of pandemic programs. Leading into the deadline for pandemic programs, total non-seasonally adjusted continuing claims fell to a fresh low of 11.26 million. PUA claims and PEUC claims were the biggest contributors to that decline as the former fell by 591K and the latter fell by 161K. Regular state claims also experienced a significant decline of 290K. As those programs all saw significant declines, that was offset by another sizeable increase in extended benefits programs although there is a caveat to that move.



Over the past couple of months, we have frequently made note of the volatility in claim counts for extended benefits programs. Week to week this reading has been in a cycle of big increases followed by big drops. To quantify just how volatile it has been, in the second chart below we show the 8 week rolling average in the program's absolute week-over-week change. That average not only surpassed last year's highs but it hit a record last week, surpassing the prior high from after the Global Financial Crisis.

 

Here are the current major indices pullback/correction levels from ATHs as of week ending 9.24.21-


Here is also the pullback/correction levels from current prices-


Here are the current major indices rally levels from correction low as of week ending 9.24.21-

 

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Here are the upcoming IPO's for this week-

 

Stock Market Analysis Video for September 24th, 2021
Video from Alphatrends
(VIDEO NOT YET POSTED.)

ShadowTrader Video Weekly 9.26.21
Video from ShadowTrader

 

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Here are the most anticipated Earnings Releases for this upcoming trading week ahead.

***Check mark next to the stock symbols denotes confirmed earnings release date & time***

Monday 9.27.21 Before Market Open:

Spoiler: CLICK HERE TO VIEW MONDAY'S AM EARNINGS TIMES & ESTIMATES!

Monday 9.27.21 After Market Close:

Spoiler: CLICK HERE TO VIEW MONDAY'S PM EARNINGS TIMES & ESTIMATES!

Tuesday 9.28.21 Before Market Open:

Spoiler: CLICK HERE TO VIEW TUESDAY'S AM EARNINGS TIMES & ESTIMATES!

Tuesday 9.28.21 After Market Close:

Spoiler: CLICK HERE TO VIEW TUESDAY'S PM EARNINGS TIMES & ESTIMATES!

Wednesday 9.29.21 Before Market Open:

Spoiler: CLICK HERE TO VIEW WEDNESDAY'S AM EARNINGS TIMES & ESTIMATES!

Wednesday 9.29.21 After Market Close:

Spoiler: CLICK HERE TO VIEW WEDNESDAY'S PM EARNINGS TIMES & ESTIMATES!

Thursday 9.30.21 Before Market Open:

Spoiler: CLICK HERE TO VIEW THURSDAY'S AM EARNINGS TIMES & ESTIMATES!

Thursday 9.30.21 After Market Close:

Spoiler: CLICK HERE TO VIEW THURSDAY'S PM EARNINGS TIMES & ESTIMATES!

Friday 10.1.21 Before Market Open:

Spoiler: CLICK HERE TO VIEW FRIDAY'S AM EARNINGS TIMES & ESTIMATES!

(NONE.)

Friday 10.1.21 After Market Close:

Spoiler: CLICK HERE TO VIEW FRIDAY'S PM EARNINGS TIMES & ESTIMATES!

(NONE.)

 

StonkForumers! Come join us on our stock market competitions for this upcoming trading week ahead!-

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• Stockaholics Weekly Stock Picking Contest & SPX Sentiment Poll (9/27-10/1) <-- click there to cast your weekly market direction vote and stock picks for this week!

• Daily SPX Sentiment Poll for Monday (9/27) <-- click there to cast your daily market direction vote for Monday!

========================================================================================================

It would be pretty sweet to see some of you join us and participate on these!

I hope you all have a fantastic weekend ahead!

 

And finally here is the most anticipated earnings calendar for this upcoming trading week ahead-
($MU $ACB $DAVA $KMX $BBBY $PAYX $THO $IBIO $JBL $UNFI $FDS $MKC $SNX $INFO $CTAS $WOR $SANW $EPAC $AYTU $CNXC $ANGO $WWE $PTN $JEF $CALM $MLHR $IPW $NG $LNDC $FERG $GNFT)


If you guys want to view the full earnings post please see this thread here-

• Most Anticipated Earnings Releases for the week beginning September 27th, 2021 <-- click there to view!

 

Top of the morning StonkForumers! Happy Monday to all of you! And welcome to the new trading week week and a frrrrrrrrrrrrrrrresh start! Here is a quick check at the futures as we are about 2 hours from the cash market open.

GLTA on this Monday, September the 27th, 2021!

 

Morning Lineup - 9/27/21 - All Eyes on Washington
Mon, Sep 27, 2021

Equities were looking higher to start the week, but that's not the case anymore as Dow futures are now flat, the S&P 500 is indicated lower by about 0.30% while the Nasdaq is looking at a decline of nearly 1%. Small caps, meanwhile, are indicated slightly higher for now.

Washington will be a key area of focus this week as lawmakers attempt to hammer out an infrastructure bill and an agreement to keep the government funded and raise the debt ceiling. Whatever the outcome of all these negotiations, one thing we can count on is that it will not be smooth.

September and October are notoriously volatile times of the year, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that the equity market's historical short-term performance to close out September and start October has been weak. Over the last ten years, the S&P 500's median performance in the week following the close on 9/27 has been a decline of 0.20% which ranks in the 24th percentile relative to all other one-week periods throughout the year. While short-term performance has been on the weak side, returns one and three months out have been considerably better. Over the last ten years, the S&P 500's median one-month performance from the close on 9/27 has been a gain of 2.41% which ranks in the 84th percentile. Performance over the following three months has been even more impressive as the S&P 500 has seen a median gain of 6.82% ranking in the 99th percentile. You can't get much better than that.

 

Kind of a boring day today. But, think it's kinda encouraging that the SPX continues to hold that 50-day moving average the past few sessions now. Could be basing to which it can launch higher from.

Meanwhile, speaking of "moving averages", had just stumbled across this bit of stat on my Twitter news feed just a little while ago.

Evidently, the SPX has been trading above its 200-day moving average for 314 consecutive trading days now.

In fact, it had just topped the 313 days from 2003.

Here are the longest streaks ever for this stat. Worth noting that the all time record for the longest streak for the SPX trading above its 200-day was 526 days from the late 90s. Never say never, but should the SPX avoid any major downside from that would get it near its 200-day, could this top that record?

We shall see. Still got a little over 200 trading days to go to even get close to that record.



Hope you guys all had a nice weekend btw!

Still going to be a little busy with IRL here unfortunately. Hence, I will be largely in and out for the next little while here. Full disclosure here, but I am all cash now, and not trading. Figured after a nice trade shoring the S&P futures the other week, don't want to ruin a good thing haha. Might step back in if I see things get overheated again like that time. But, I think if the market can continue chopping it up here, it could be setting up potentially another break higher, which could possibly bring us to testing the ATH at some point again.

 

Here is a final look at today's market and futures maps, as well as how each sector performed individually at the close on Monday, September 27th, 2021.

 

Top of the morning StonkForumers! Happy Tuesday to all of you! And welcome to the new trading day and a frrrrrrrrrrrrrrrresh start! Here is a quick check on the futures as we are about 3 and 1/2 hours from the cash market open.

GLTA on this Tuesday, September the 28th, 2021!

 

Hey welcome! Good to see another former HSMer in here lol. I don't recognize the name personally, but anyway, really great to see you drop in here!

Will apologize as this forum is not super active at all. It's still relatively new (started up in late January). But, still am hopeful the growth will eventually come with some more time.

As for your question there -- no this isn't the new HSM per say. It's just a dedicated forum of one of HSM's most prominent members of all time lol.

Not sure you remember me? But, I've been a member at the HSM community since 2006 when I first came on the scene there.

However, due to an unfortunate squabble with the head honcho of that community towards the end of January, I had no choice but to branch off with that community that I had called my home for 15 years for good, to start my own here at StonkForums.com where I don't have to worry about someone always breathing down my neck over every little thing..

So, if you were a member at HSM you might remember I was the guy who was always creating these weekly market discussion threads, etc.

Anyway, it's good to have you on board here. Not entirely sure how you found this place tbh. So, if you wouldn't mind sharing how you stumbled across this forum would be kinda interesting to know as well haha.

There are some other members here too, mostly have been MIA, but @stock1234 and @Stoch are the most active one's here which I've been super grateful to have them still here.

Good to have another old timer from the old community joining in here though!

 

Here is a final look at today's market and futures maps, as well as how each sector performed individually at the close on Tuesday, September 28th, 2021.