Sell Rosh Hashanah, Buy Yom Kippur is aligning quite well this year with late September seasonal weakness and the notoriously treacherous week after quarterly options expiration, AKA Triple Witching (Fri, Sep 15th). It’s a few days before FOMC (Tue-Wed, Sep 19-20) with a market jittery on hotter inflation data.
Rosh Hashanah lands on Saturday 9/16 this year so we close the day before. This is right at the mid-month peak of the typical September pattern. Yom Kippur falls on 9/25 (Mon) which is the 16th trading day of the month, right around the seasonal monthly low point.
The thesis is that folks sell positions on Rosh Hashanah the first of the Days of Awe to rid themselves of financial commitments and then return to the market after Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. It is no coincidence that this coincides with the seasonal September/October weakness. The market has been tracking the 4-year cycle and seasonal trends to a T this year and the past 3. So this should make a great entry for the Q4 pre-election year rally.
