Seasonal Context & Events

Earnings season is over and the next one won’t arrive for another month. There are no options expirations scheduled, but markets will remain closed on Monday, September 1st for Labor Day. In the meantime, end-of-month and beginning-of-month inflows and outflows may still influence price action as capital is reallocated and portfolios are adjusted.

Key events include:

• 03rd September 14:00UTC JOLTs Job Openings
• 04th September 12:30UTC Initial Jobless Claims
• 05th September 12:30UTC Unemployment Rate

Those events may or may not influence the opening direction and subsequent days.

The Trading Week Recap

Let’s go a bit technical this time. Remember when we talked about the S&P 500, SPXEW, and VALUA? Well, this is in the same ballpark—just swapping players.

Enter the DJU (Dow Jones Utility Average). I’ll leave the full “what it is and what’s inside” to your Google search bar, but here’s the gist: plenty of market watchers have noticed that DJU tends to flag market tops and bottoms earlier than the broader indices—roughly three months ahead, give or take. That “three months” is based on my own observation, and I’ve seen some variance in the timing—it’s not a stopwatch. Why utilities lead the way? Honestly, not my concern. I’m more interested in what happens if you combine it with SPXEW/VALUA divergences against the S&P 500. Together, that mix starts to look like a handy toolkit for long-term investing calls. Would I use it for trading anything under three months? Nope—too noisy for that.

To make it a bit clearer, I put together a simple chart with data back to 1992: S&P 500 in orange, DJU in blue, but shifted forward by three months (again, give or take). The rest? That’s on you—draw your own conclusions, see if the pattern holds water.

I know, the quality of the chart isn’t going to win any awards—it’s well below “acceptable.” But hey, you can do the legwork yourself too, the data’s out there.

And just to be clear, I didn’t invent this. People way smarter than me had already noticed this years (decades) ago. If you want to dig deeper, look up:

• Richard Russell, Dow Theory Letters
• Norman G. Fosback, Stock Market Logic
• Martin J. Pring, Technical Analysis Explained

I’m just connecting dots they already sketched out.

What happened last week? Forecasts were calling for another bullish week, but with a caution flag—after that Friday the 22nd, the “enthusiasm bleed-off” could make any push up to R1 (and maybe R2) a tougher climb than it looks.

What did we actually get? Monday didn’t exactly set the week on fire, but the move to R1 still played out—missed it by just $2.85. Since I don’t count decimals, let’s call it a $3 miss, which I’ll happily file under “acceptable.” By Friday, though, price couldn’t push through R1, got rejected, and rolled back down.

Support & Resistance Levels

R3	6593
R2	6575
R1	6536
Close	6460
S1	6360
S2	6321
S3	6298

Forecasts

What’s next? Honestly, this one’s a bit of a head-scratcher. My trusty Casio couldn’t spot any real support until 6360—about 100 points below this week’s close—so I threw in a bonus trendline just to give myself something to work with (you’re welcome). If someone had a gun to my head and demanded a 5-day forecast (well, 4 this time), I’d say Friday’s drop looked more like a news-driven hiccup than genuine technical weakness. Moves like that usually linger for 2–3 days before losing steam. So maybe we drift lower early in the week, tagging that handy little trendline before it gets ugly, and then see a bounce by Wednesday or Thursday (reminder: Monday’s closed).

Will we punch up to R1 by Friday’s close? Not sure—draw a trendline across the recent highs and you’ll see why I’m hesitant.

Bigger picture, I still expect September to lean lower overall—but not just yet. More on that in the End of Month section below.

End of Month

Let’s recap what went down in August, but first, let’s bring back the forecasts.

As for the rest of August? I don’t really have any solid DOIs marked—just one, actually. The 22nd. That’s the only spot on my map where a potential buy-and-hold setup might show up. Outside of that, it’s a month to stay nimble or stay out.

Now, how did reality play out? Well, not exactly as expected. Instead of the dull sideways grind with a bearish tilt, we got some surprisingly clear DOI action—right on the 1st of the month and again mid-month, both highlighted by the two red vertical lines on the chart (yep, missed those in advance). The only DOI I had flagged was the 22nd (blue line), and we all know what happened there.

But… yep, there’s a “but.” It’s not like I missed a couple of DOIs and took it personally—ego stayed out of it. What I do want to show you though is a quick comparison between the S&P 500 and the SPXEW.

What do you see? Personally, I see that the rise from the 1st through mid-month was carried almost entirely by a handful of stocks—probably the usual big names—because the SPXEW didn’t follow. Same story with that 5-day decline into the 22nd: S&P 500 showed it, SPXEW didn’t confirm it.

What does that mean? Trading-wise, unless you were in those few leaders, you weren’t making money. And value-wise? If you thought the whole Market was roaring, nope—it was just a handful of names dragging the headline higher while the rest lagged behind. The S&P 500 gave you a higher high, but SPXEW quietly printed a lower one.

What about September?

DOIs on the map: 8th, 15th, 19th, 29th.

Here’s the rough sketch: a possible rise into the 8th, stall out there, then a pullback that could drag into the 15th. After that, maybe another push up toward the 19th, and then a slide again into month’s end.

We’ll check back in a month to see how reality treated this roadmap.

Just a little preview: by the time we circle back to check these forecasts, it’ll already be October 3rd, so here’s the gist. I’m expecting a solid rise through October that could stretch into mid-November. After that, aside from a little post-Christmas rally, the last month and a half of the year doesn’t look packed with trading opportunities. Rolling into the new year, I see a dip—some turbulence to the downside—lasting until mid-January 2026, followed by a climb that could run into the first few days of April 2026.

Why give this away now? Simple. If I were you, I’d be watching my favorite stocks closely as September closes and October begins—it could be the right time to line things up.