Pity the poor active trader. September is living up to its reputation as a difficult month. ” Squirrelly ” is how one trader described the market Tuesday. In other words, a tough, choppy market for investors. The markets opened positive, with a nice lift from Oracle , which is keeping the expanding artificial intelligence story going. The company’s positive comments on AI helped lift the hyperscalers — Amazon , Microsoft and Alphabet — as well. Nvidia rose as much 2.8% early, only to fall as much as 1.4% later. But that was about it. None of the other semiconductors got a lift from Oracle. Everything else in the group is down, including STMicro, off 4.6% at midday, and Taiwan Semiconductor, lower by 2%. Elsewhere, banks, a former leadership group, have been trending down for the past week, and at midmorning, we got word of third-quarter guidance from JPMorgan Chase at a Barclays conference, where it said net interest income expectations for 2025 were “too high.” Stock in the country’s largest bank immediately sold off, and was recently down 7%. That alone is chopping about 100 points off the Dow Industrials. But Goldman Sachs , down about 5%, is also knocking about 160 points off the Dow. These were two major leadership stocks in the S & P 500. Both were at historic highs going into September — not anymore. Even regional banks such as Regions Financial , which opened up, reversed course and are now lower. The issues facing the market are well known: weak seasonals through October, concerns about a slowing jobs market and valuations that are still on the high side. Put this all together, and it reinforces the view that there is no reason to stick your neck out.
