And so it begins…

Bloody September. Septic September. Shred-tember. Septem-burn. Call it whatever you want, Wall Street just got reminded why this month has been cursed since 1928, when the S&P 500 started racking up an average loss of -1.1%. 

Over the last five years it’s been even uglier, with the index averaging a -4.2% drop. So to all the white girls twirling through Target with their pumpkin spice lattes like it’s time to go apple picking during the football game… you’re wrong. It’s not pumpkin spice season. It’s portfolio slaughter season. The only thing getting roasted right now is your boyfriend's 401(k).

With that said, the selloff wasn’t just Wall Street keeping its weird tradition of ghosting stocks the second Labor Day ends. What really spooked the herd was Friday’s federal appeals court ruling that shredded most of Trump’s tariffs and tossed a fresh layer of “WTF happens next?” onto an already gloomy setup. 

The judges pretty much said, “Hey Don, only Congress gets to tax people,” which, fun fact, is like the first line in their job description. Of course, Trump called the ruling “highly partisan” and vowed to take it to the Supreme Court. Add in rising bond yields and a jobs report lurking later this week that could make or break rate cut hopes, and September opened like Bill Belicheck’s head coaching gig at UNC… a disaster.

The Dow fell 340 points, or 0.8%, while the S&P 500 dropped 0.9% and the Nasdaq slid 1%. That’s the first time the tech-heavy index has logged back-to-back 1% declines since April, when Trump first rolled out his so-called “liberation day” tariffs. Tech, the same crew that carried the bull market all summer, finally cracked. Nvidia sank more than 2%, Amazon and Apple each lost over 1%, and Alphabet wasn’t far behind.

While stocks were sh*tting the bed, the bond market decided to pile on with its own freak-out. The 10-year Treasury yield ripped to 4.28% and the 30-year nearly tagged 5%, levels that instantly make stocks look about as attractive as Lizzo’s Vogue magazine cover picture. Why the freakout you ask? Because investors are gaming out the nightmare where Donnie Politics has to cough up billions in tariff refunds thanks to the court ruling… cash he once pitched as the “External Revenue Service” that would lower our taxes. Instead, it’s shaping up to blow an even bigger hole in the country’s already wobbly and incompetent finance department.

Goldbugs, meanwhile, were having their best Tuesday in years. While the rest of Wall Street was stress-refreshing their portfolios, these old farts were kicking back in their recliners, polishing coins, and bragging to anyone within earshot at the country club that they “told you so.” Gold ripped to new all-time highs near $3,600 an ounce, and somewhere a grandpa with a “Buy Gold, It Never Fails” bumper sticker just ordered dessert at Denny’s without even checking the price.

So here we are… September. One day in and it’s already living up to its reputation. History says the next few weeks won’t be pretty, so put on your big boy pants… you’ve officially entered Wall Street’s least favorite month.

If you read all of this, congrats for having a 10 second attention span (better than me). As always, here’s our heatmap for today.

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News holds positions in Amazon, Apple, and Alphabet as mentioned in the article.