Spooky Season

We've turned the page to to October, when pumpkin patches reach their peak, the leaves turn any number of delightful colors (depending on where you live, of course), and the market enters a period of vastly different seasonal performance. Historically, the beginning of the month is seasonally weak (here's looking at you, market crashes of 1929, 1987, and 2008). However, the end of the month tends to finish strong which really makes October one of the historically strongest months for seasonal performance. Main summary here: if your favorite furu calls for a crash or a face-ripping rally, there are good odds they could be correct.

Over the weekend, Congress finally agreed at the 11th hour to pass a stopgap funding bill to keep the government open for another 45 days. Now we must ask the question: government openings--bullish or bearish? On the one hand (and I've mentioned it a few times previously) the market has disliked uncertainty of any kind and rallied once that uncertainty is resolved, regardless of whether the resolution was truly positive or negative. On the other hand, did we really resolve anything or did we just delay the uncertainty another 45 days? The market might give us the answer today. Futures certainly gave us the patented "gap and crap" so far, with a nice gap up and fade off after opening Sunday night.

Finally, we do have our fearless leader, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, speaking today at 11am ET at a roundtable discussion in Philadelphia alongside Philly Fed President Patrick Harker. Anytime JPow speaks we listen, so pay attention at 11am in case the volatility increases.

The NQ levels for today:

Current Price: 14840

Upside Targets: 14865, 14920, 14977, 15020

Downside Targets: 14820, 14782, 14740, 14680

Stretch Targets: 15074, 14633