The market’s most recent volatility is having a greater impact on investor psyche, and is being reflected in the fear index. 

Clearly the market continues to be burdened by the headwinds of rising interest rates, but I did think we might get some kind of relief rally following the Fed’s announcement yesterday. 

Whatever high anxiety remained ahead of today’s Fed announcement probably played out in yesterday’s session. 

When assessing the market’s intermediate-term outlook — and I do have a bullish forecast looking into the 1st half of 2022 — I think that the real tells are in the rally days and not the declining sessions. 

Last week’s tumultuous market action took us to the midpoint of September — the cruelest month historically for stock — and this month is proving to be a difficult one, but I don’t think it’s going to be a game changer either. 

It may be early, but looking like this September might not be as cruel as had been anticipated earlier and not in keeping with its historical characteristic. 

Yesterday’s rallies among the major market indices didn’t change my short-term outlook for the market to remain in a restricted trading range. 

There are some indications — anecdotal and otherwise — that inflation may be starting to roll over… 

For the stock market this year, it’s been a grizzly winter, a thawing spring and a bouncing summer, and now comes along autumn which is historically the cruelest month of the year. 

Given the current trajectories of the trend lines, we could see convergences of the 50-day and 200-day moving averages among the major market indices by early to mid-October.