Log Out of Your Brokerage Account Until Labor Day

Although the S&P 500 closed at all-time highs again yesterday, the markets have materially slowed down over the past week.

With a busy week for earnings ahead, there may be some more upside. But seasonally, August is a slow month for stocks, and September tends to see markets pull back.

Here’s a chart worth saving and referring back to – it’s a composite that shows the S&P 500’s average daily performance throughout any given year:

Turn Your Images On

The seasonal weak period for stocks has arrived.

Why do markets slow down in the lazy days of summer?

Historically, it’s when brokers used to take their vacations and motor off to the Hamptons.

Today, with algorithms running the show, it’s harder to say why.

But it’s a trend that has largely remained intact over the decades, and while past performance doesn’t show future performance, it’s a seasonal trend worth remembering.

If you’re not a trader, you can probably log out of your brokerage account for the next few months and not miss anything.

If you’re a trader, beware – the lack of a clear direction either way could be a challenge. And a slowdown in markets could precede an autumn selloff. Now isn’t the time to make overly leveraged trades, and to exit them if you’ve been in them.

After this year’s “Liberation Day” slide lower, stocks may not be inclined for a massive pullback this summer – but it would be healthy for markets before a year-end rally.

~ Addison

P.S. With markets slowing down now, they’re at greater risk of breaking lower following their massive rally over the past few months.

As we learn more about tariffs and trade deals – not to mention earnings – over the coming weeks, the seasonal selloff period in September and October could be more volatile than usual. Another reason to avoid leverage, and enjoy other things in life besides the stock market for the next few months.

As always, your reader feedback is welcome: feedback@greyswanfraternity.com (We read all emails. Thanks in advance for your contribution.)

How did we get here? Find out in these riveting reads: Demise of the Dollar, Financial Reckoning Day, and Empire of Debt — all three books are now available in their third post-pandemic editions. You might enjoy one or all three.

Although the S&P 500 closed at all-time highs again yesterday, the markets have materially slowed down over the past week.

With a busy week for earnings ahead, there may be some more upside. But seasonally, August is a slow month for stocks, and September tends to see markets pull back.

Here’s a chart worth saving and referring back to – it’s a composite that shows the S&P 500’s average daily performance throughout any given year:

Turn Your Images On

The seasonal weak period for stocks has arrived.

Why do markets slow down in the lazy days of summer?

Historically, it’s when brokers used to take their vacations and motor off to the Hamptons.

Today, with algorithms running the show, it’s harder to say why.

But it’s a trend that has largely remained intact over the decades, and while past performance doesn’t show future performance, it’s a seasonal trend worth remembering.

If you’re not a trader, you can probably log out of your brokerage account for the next few months and not miss anything.

After this year’s “Liberation Day” slide lower, stocks may not be inclined for a massive pullback this summer – but it would be healthy for markets before a year-end rally.

~ Addison

P.S. With markets slowing down now, they’re at greater risk of breaking lower following their massive rally over the past few months.

As always, your reader feedback is welcome: feedback@greyswanfraternity.com (We read all emails. Thanks in advance for your contribution.)

Gold mining companies are leveraged to the price of gold. That’s because their costs are fixed in the short term. So higher gold prices cause profits to surge.

Smaller companies – the so-called juniors – in the business of exploring can fare even better if they have a strong find.

Today, gold’s price looks ready to move higher, after pausing for a few months – there’s a “pennant” formation in the price chart. If that plays out, gold could top $4,200 in the next year.

Investors, still transfixed by Big Tech’s gravitational pull, appear eager to believe that earnings and AI will save the day — even as political crosswinds and global trade risks swirl like a Florida thunderstorm.

Earnings, regulation, tariffs, and bitcoin-fueled bravado are quietly rewriting the rules. For now.

If you took last week off, as we did, you missed a massive consolidation of AI dominance, a fresh crypto Wild West, and an epic skirmish between two of the world’s richest men and the government entities they can’t quite buy off.

From a strategic perspective, the UK’s bitcoin holdings represent a once-in-a-generation opportunity. As fiat currencies decline in purchasing power and the global economy moves toward digital and AI-driven systems, this asset could help Britain re-establish itself as an economic superpower with significant geopolitical leverage and monetary independence.

An opportunity of this kind is not to be thrown away lightly.

Once those coins are sold, we will never be able to buy them back.

This is the same BLS that printed a massive revision of over 800,000 jobs lower in August of last year, too.

Basic math puts the two revisions at 1.6 million jobs… that were reported but were never created.

That’s bad news – unless you were trying to make the economy look good for some reason in the back half of 2024. (The election, perhaps.)

The new massive revision also suggests that the labor market was in a worse spot when President Trump got back into the big chair.

And… it may even give some credence to Trump’s incessant abuse of Federal Reserve Chair, Jerome Powell. Not enough to cut rates to 1% overnight. But still…