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Here comes September. How has it performed?Broken out day by day, the share of trading days that closed positive for eac...
08/31/2026

Here comes September. How has it performed?

Broken out day by day, the share of trading days that closed positive for each date going back decades.

The weakness is not evenly spread. The back half has carried more of it.

Here comes September. How has it performed?Since 1976 it is the only month with a negative average S&P 500 return, near ...
08/31/2026

Here comes September. How has it performed?

Since 1976 it is the only month with a negative average S&P 500 return, near minus 0.7 percent.

It is also positive just over half the time, the lowest of any month. The weakest month on the calendar.

Every path to midterms diverges.We looked at the S&P 500's daily path from Aug 27 to election day, indexed to 100, acros...
08/31/2026

Every path to midterms diverges.

We looked at the S&P 500's daily path from Aug 27 to election day, indexed to 100, across the last 8 midterm cycles.

Average final: +1.5%
Median: -0.6%
Positive: 4 of 8 (50%)
Best: 2010 at +12.1%
Worst: 2022 at -5.7%

The dispersion is wide and there is no single midterm playbook. What matters more is the macro setup you enter the fall with. Right now, that setup is calm VIX, positive real wages, cooling inflation on real-time measures, and AI capex still rolling.

Real wages are still positive on both inflation measures.Nominal average hourly earnings are running +3.2% Y/Y.Adjusted ...
08/31/2026

Real wages are still positive on both inflation measures.

Nominal average hourly earnings are running +3.2% Y/Y.

Adjusted for Truflation Core, real wages are +1.4% Y/Y.
Adjusted for Core CPI, real wages are +0.7% Y/Y.

Both cuts, positive. This is why consumer spending keeps holding despite everyone waiting for the crack. Wages are outrunning prices, incomes are stretching further, and the labor market is still adding jobs at a healthy pace.

Low VIX is not complacency. It is a regime.The VIX at 14.5 sits in Q2 of the historic distribution across roughly 50 yea...
08/31/2026

Low VIX is not complacency. It is a regime.

The VIX at 14.5 sits in Q2 of the historic distribution across roughly 50 years of daily observations.

12M forward median SPX return in that Q2 bucket: +11.6%.
Hit rate positive over 12M: 89%.

Q1 and Q2 (VIX 0 to 16) together have the highest 12M positive hit rates in history. The takeaway is not that calm markets are dangerous. Calm markets pay.

The narrative says US consumers are drowning in credit card debt.The data says something different.Revolving credit card...
08/30/2026

The narrative says US consumers are drowning in credit card debt.

The data says something different.

Revolving credit card debt as a percent of disposable personal income sits at 5.7% as of June 2026.

The 2003 to 2019 average was 7.7%.

Even coming off the pandemic normalization, we are still nowhere near pre-COVID leverage levels. Incomes are stretching further than the headlines suggest, which is one of the reasons retail sales and consumer spending keep coming in ahead of expectations.

Nvidia's Q2 FY27 in one picture.$96.2B in revenue. $59.7B out as net income. That is a 62% net margin at $96B of quarter...
08/30/2026

Nvidia's Q2 FY27 in one picture.

$96.2B in revenue. $59.7B out as net income. That is a 62% net margin at $96B of quarterly revenue, which is not supposed to be possible at this scale.

Data Center revenue was $89B, up 117% year on year. Edge computing was $7.2B, up 27%.

Gross margin 75%. Operating margin 66%. Both expanded year on year despite the ramp.

The whole AI ecosystem is leaning on Nvidia harder, not less. That was one of the big themes in this week's newsletter.

Full breakdown: https://open.substack.com/pub/investingwithdata/p/11-charts-software-and-ai-finally

For a steady-growth software name, the tell is not the quarter. It is the backlog behind it.Okta Q2 FY27:Revenue +11% Y/...
08/30/2026

For a steady-growth software name, the tell is not the quarter. It is the backlog behind it.

Okta Q2 FY27:
Revenue +11% Y/Y
cRPO +14% Y/Y
RPO +17% Y/Y

Both RPO and cRPO reaccelerated and now sit above the 11% revenue growth line. That means demand booked this quarter is running ahead of demand recognized. Exactly the shape the underwrite wants to see.

One honest caveat: Q3 guide calls for cRPO growth to ease back toward 11 to 12%, so this reacceleration has to hold rather than being a single strong print.

Software and AI are no longer competing for the same dollar. That was one of the big takeaways in this week's newsletter.

Full breakdown: https://open.substack.com/pub/investingwithdata/p/11-charts-software-and-ai-finally

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