Hey, Ross here:
Hope you had a great Labor Day weekend.
Now that we’re back, we’ve already got four September trading days in the books.
And so far, the month isn’t behaving quite the way its reputation would suggest.
Because September has a reputation.
Usually, that reputation is deserved.
Take a look:
Chart of the Day
September has been brutal historically.
Going back to 1927, almost every major S&P 500 sector has lost ground when you stack up all the September returns.
- Technology: -82.6%
- Financials: -76.5%.
- Industrials: -69%.
- Real Estate: -85.1%.
To be clear, this is not the average September loss – it’s the compounded result of September performance across the full historical sample.
Telecom is the only sector on the table that’s managed a positive cumulative return.
So if you came into September expecting trouble, history gives you plenty of ammunition.
Except the market isn’t cooperating.
We’ve already had four September trading sessions…
The S&P 500 is still flirting with new highs…
And the VIX is sitting below 15.
That’s hardly the kind of fear you’d expect from the market’s most notorious month.
And there’s another wrinkle.
This chart looks at what happened after short-term realized volatility jumped to more than 1.5 times its one-year level.
In several years, those spikes were followed by lousy returns.
But 2026 has been completely different.
This year, those volatility shocks have been followed by some of the strongest three-month returns in the sample.
The average forward return is nearly 5%, while the median forward return is around 2%.
In other words, when this market has finally gotten shaken hard enough to produce a real volatility spike…
Buying the fear has paid.
But we haven’t gotten that kind of shakeout yet.
So we’ve got September seasonality screaming caution…
An S&P 500 still hanging around its highs…
And a volatility trigger that has worked well this year sitting there unfired.
That leaves the broad market giving me a whole lot of noise and not much of an edge.
But as I explain below…
You don’t need to wait for the broader market to give you one.
Insight of the Day
The best signal doesn’t always come from the market.
The VIX gets plenty of attention because everybody can see it.
Same with an S&P breakout or a big breadth washout.
But some of the biggest stock moves start with something much smaller.
One stock suddenly begins showing activity that looks completely different from its normal baseline.
Price may not have done much yet. There may not even be a clear explanation for it.
But something has changed.
That’s the kind of thing we want to catch early.
Because in my experience – it can lead to explosive out-of-the-norm stock moves that almost nobody expects.
So, even though the market’s volatility signal above still hasn’t fired…
I don’t care.
Because I’m scanning for something different…
Something happening below the surface of the ordinary market…
But that’s unique to an individual stock.
I’m talking about a little-known underground signal that could have pinpointed stock moves like 287%… 542%… and even 806% – all in a matter of weeks or even days.
And in just a few hours at 11 a.m. Eastern today…
I’m going LIVE to show you what this underground signal is…
Why it’s so powerful (and controversial)…
And exactly how to spot it – and use it – in your own trading.
Click here to lock in your free seat if you haven’t yet…
And I’ll see you in just a bit at 11 a.m. ET.
P.S. If you’re planning to attend on a mobile device, make sure you download the presentation app now so you don’t miss anything when it starts. See you there.
iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/goto/id1465614785
Android: https://play.google.com/store/search?q=goto&c=apps
Customer Story of the Day
“Traders Agency has a great system. Ross’s training is great and support is there to assist even more.”
Ross Givens
Editor, Stock Surge Daily
