September 13, 2021
Good morning,
The S&P 500 was down each day last week with Friday’s decline accounting for half of the week’s damages. For the week, the S&P 500 Index was off -1.71% and what I called a pause last week turned into what felt like a grand mal correction on Friday. The feel is not real. With Friday’s close, the S&P 500 is off exactly 1.7% from its all time high set the week before on 9/2. Due to the lack of any meaningful corrections for a meaningfully long time, small declines feel world-ending.
Is this pause that refreshes, now known as the modern day correction, over? It looks that way this morning with Futures up .60% ahead of the cash market open.
Regardless of this morning’s look, I don’t think you can even begin to consider a decline in the market as a correction unless it violates the 50-dma (day moving average) or the down 3-5% from the top threshold where a flood of buy-the-dipsters have jumped in in the recent past. Will September deliver that kind of market action eventually – could be but unless some damage is done to the tape indicators (none so far) we will ride out these dips despite how they might feel.
Be well,
Mike