September seasonals: The worst month on the calendar for the S&P 500

August was a wild ride. It’s typically a quiet, summer month but it was anything but that this year as markets melted down early in the month only to post a full recovery in a remarkable turn.

That’s left some nice-looking monthly charts and a series of breakouts. The US dollar has fallen substantially and will end the month at or near multi-year lows on a few fronts.

Here are some September seasonal trends (over the past 20 years):

• Worst month on the calendar for the S&P 500 (by far), a trend that’s held true with losses in the past four years despite a raging bull market
• Second worst month for the
  DAX (after August) but is followed by a strong three month run.
• September is the start of a strong three-month seasonal run in natural gas (though this is largely priced into the strip)
• September is the start of a weak three-month seasonal run in WTI crude oil
• Worst month of the year for the MSCI world index
• Second worst month for silver
• Worst month for gold

What you don’t see on that list is FX. Despite some strong trends elsewhere, it doesn’t flow through in the usual ways to FX as September has been generally coupled with a flatish USD and JPY.

This article was written by Adam Button at www.forexlive.com.