Yesterday I posted this in the War Room: “We’re entering into a historically weak period of the market.”

This morning’s JOLTS report validated everything I’ve been telling you. Job openings came in at 7.181 million versus 7.382 million expected – a miss of over 200,000 jobs.

While everyone’s celebrating two consecutive 23-24% S&P years and feeling invincible about their account growth, I positioned my subscribers for exactly this kind of economic reality check.

The First Domino Just Fell

I mentioned we had three major catalysts hitting this week. JOLTS was catalyst number one, delivering exactly the disappointment I was preparing for.

Now we’ve got ADP Employment tomorrow and the big jobs report Friday. If we’re already seeing labor market weakness, what happens when the next shoe drops?

Since 1928, September has been the market’s worst month – declining an average of 1.2% with positive returns only 44% of the time. No other month comes close to that failure rate.

Why September Keeps Killing Portfolios

Fund managers rebalance at fiscal quarter-end. Tax-loss harvesting accelerates. Summer’s low volumes give way to volatile institutional activity.

But here’s the real killer: September has become a psychological powder keg. When bad news hits, traders expect the worst because history taught them to.

The Fed’s Walking Into a Trap

Everyone expects a 25-basis-point cut on September 17-18. Markets are pricing it at 86% certainty.

Here’s why that’s terrifying:

• Nominal GDP growth is running above 5%
• Core inflation sits at 3.1% – well above the Fed’s 2% target
• Consumer inflation expectations just spiked to 4.9%
• Financial conditions are at their loosest since May 2022

The economy is already overheating.

Cutting rates now isn’t stimulus – it’s pouring gasoline on a fire.

The Fed risks reigniting inflation right when everyone thinks they’ve won the battle

The Tech Concentration Bomb

In 2004, tech was 19% of the S&P 500. Today? It’s 46%.

When almost half your index depends on one sector, and economic data starts cracking before a potentially disastrous Fed decision, you get September-style massacres.

Remember 2008?

It didn’t start with Lehman’s collapse. It built momentum throughout September as reality slowly dawned on overconfident markets.

YOUR ACTION PLAN

The employment disappointment validates what I’ve been seeing: economic data is cracking while markets trade near all-time highs with record low volatility.

Thursday’s ADP and Friday’s jobs report just became landmines.

If we’re getting weakness across multiple employment metrics right before the Fed potentially makes their biggest mistake since 2008…

September’s worst crashes follow a script:

1. Early warning signs get ignored
2. Unexpected catalyst hits vulnerable markets
3. Psychological selling accelerates the damage

This morning felt like step one. And we’ve got two more employment reports plus a potentially inflationary Fed decision coming.

I issued a zero DTE trade yesterday in the War Room and positioned myself defensively before this morning’s miss.

While retail scrambles to understand what employment weakness means, I was already prepared.

Everyone else is about to learn why September earned its reputation as the market’s killing season.