Coming into this week, the S&P 500 was up three weeks in a row, six of the past seven and 10 of the past 13, though this is not as impressive as the Yankees now having made the playoffs in 26 out of the past 31 years (“but MAC Desk, it’s been 16 years without a championship”...that’s not the point of this narrative). September has also historically been the worst month for equities, but that trend wasn’t holding as the S&P was up 3% MTD heading into the week (10yr average -2%). We were also coming off last Friday’s Triple Witching while drawing closer to next week’s month and quarter-end. We noted last week all this movement could lead to a MVGA movement: Make Volatility Great Again. Equity volatility (VIX) has been consistently below 20 since the middle of June, and bond volatility (MOVE) was at multi-year lows. On Monday the S&P closed at another record-high but that was the apex as the index pulled back over the rest of the week before finishing with a solid Friday. The streak of three straight weekly gains was broken. The equal-weight squeezed out a gain for the week and outperformed the main index. Small caps lagged the larger caps with both the Russell 2000 and S&P 600 down, though they rallied on Friday and outgained the S&P. This week rates moved higher and the curve flattened. A lot of that was due to solid economic data. Growth across market caps lagged Value. Looking closer at the sectors this week there was one obvious winner, Energy, which rode crude’s strong reversal from last week’s weakness. Comm Services was the worst performer. Consumer Discretionary and Staples also lagged. Next week we move into the home stretch with month and third quarter-end. The US government shutdown deadline is also Tuesday night (midnight). The major data revolves around the labor market, including NFP on Friday. Good luck Dart.

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