Stocks End August Flat After Early Collapse; Bonds & Gold Soar On Rate-Cut Hopes

The S&P 500 traded in a 500+ point band in August (about 10%) as investors first became very concerned that an imminent recession was being ignored by the Fed, before becoming more convinced that a recession may not be that imminent and the Fed is poised to cut rates at its September meeting.

Along the way, the Nikkei dropped 12% in one day (only to reclaim almost all the lost ground by today, Sep-30) and the VIX spiked above 60 before receding back to 15 as uncertainty receded…

Source: Bloomberg

August was a replay of July in terms of macro surprise data (early ugly, late recover)…

Source: Bloomberg

…but August really spooked the markets (after payrolls – recession concerns), sparking a bloodbath in stocks to start the month, stocks (broadly speaking) rallied back to unchanged-ish on the month (flat-ish on the week and the day) with the S&P 500 leading the month while Small Caps lagged…

Source: Bloomberg

Rate-cut expectations rose on the month – mostly driven by the early month panic…

Source: Bloomberg

Treasuries were aggressively bid on the month led by the short-end (2Y -33bps)…

Source: Bloomberg

…which steepened the curve significantly  (disinverting 2s30s)…

Source: Bloomberg

Bonds and stocks disagreed notably on the month and the recession odds…

Source: Bloomberg

Gold rallied to new record highs on the month after the early tumble…

Source: Bloomberg

Oil oscillated in a broad range but ended lower on the month…

Source: Bloomberg

The dollar was down hard on the month but staged a decent comeback this week after testing near YTD lows…

Source: Bloomberg

Bitcoin ended the month lower after recovering the early month losses and fading back…

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, it was a big week for the world’s most important stock…

Source: Bloomberg

Can NVDA keep the recession risks away single-handedly?