A 'September to remember' persists. Skepticism of the rally predominates; as well as our own view that S&P might retreat 'after' the Fed cuts rates; even if it's 50 basis points instead of just the minimal 25 basis points.

Either way isn't a negative aside daily perceptions perhaps; while leadership in this market is stretched. The Fed easing (and beginning that trend) is a plus for many aspects of the economy, aside bonds perhaps, and equities solely to the extent it's already priced into the market by virtue of this pre-Fed-cut rally.

So that's what makes a 'September to Remember', as usually when the S&P starts September in messy fashion, rebounds fail, and equities drop further. One reason to mitigate that this year is the 'continued' bifurcation that has so many stocks still scraping along their bottoms; and all it took was reviving the AI and Semiconductor leadership, to spur the S&P to run-in the bears.

Mostly you can thanks Nvidia's CEO Huang for this past week's extension; as he lamented customers edgy about protracted waiting times for AI processors even as the 'fab' works at full speed. That encouraged others about AI as very important (which is is, but the craze had become a bit muted), and assisted at least a majority of this recent upside extension.

Market X-ray: nothing magic about a rate cut; given this one is priced-in. But a majority of technicians fought the S&P move or even shorted rallies; so that helped the upside when the big-caps kicked back in. We are skeptical about it extending much, since we called it, focused on the 50-Day Moving Average (it is now support considerably below current prices).

But we didn't fight S&P as a preceding washout actually provided entry spots, for any willing to buy; even at the risk of realizing it's still September plus the 2nd half is often riskier than the first half. We know there's limited cash-flows to markets this time of year; however that sometimes contributes to 'swings', more than fundamentally-based shakeouts. This was technical dancing S&P moves, and we emphasized not be too bearish in an Election Year too.

The market wants to see the economy hold up 'better', and not view a coming Fed cut this new week as somehow discouraging optimism for the future. So, a 'softish landing' we've desired all year still prevails as a most likely prospect.

Bottom line: impressive upward consolidation (brief interludes) in this S&P uptrend, promising record S&P highs 'before' the Fed's cut decision. A spate of profit-taking could follow thereafter, but again in a favorable S&P structure.

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