Global week ahead: Welcome to September, Wall Street’s least-loved month

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Traders enactment connected the level of the New York Stock Exchange during greeting trading connected Aug. 22, 2025 successful New York City.

Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images

September successful markets is simply a spot similar a Monday morning; nary 1 looks guardant to it, and it usually lives up to its reputation.

August gave investors plentifulness to cheer about, but past says September tends to beryllium the worst period of the year for stocks.

The S&P 500 deed a caller grounds precocious astatine the end of August, topping 6,500, portion the Dow Jones besides touched caller peaks. Across the Atlantic, the Stoxx Europe 600 logged its archetypal two-month winning streak since February.

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S&P 500 successful August

But the specter of September looms large. Traditionally, the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite each station their worst period of the twelvemonth successful September, according to Dow Jones data.

From a assemblage perspective, it's a mixed picture, peculiarly successful Europe. Two-thirds of the mode done the 3rd 4th — driven by firm net crossed the continent and continued planetary macro uncertainty — determination are wide winners and losers.

The biggest gainer? Europe's banking sector. Shares deed their highest level since the 2008 fiscal situation astatine the commencement of August, arsenic affirmative net and much speech of deals successful the abstraction continued to thrust growth.

Germany's Commerzbank has led the complaint higher, with shares adding to their already awesome show successful the archetypal half, up implicit 100% twelvemonth to date.

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Commerzbank vs. WPP successful August

On the downside, media stocks person been deed hard implicit the past 2 months — a diminution of implicit 8% — with concerns implicit the interaction of AI hitting a fig of the large European players. Advertising radical WPP was the sector's worst performer, slumping arsenic it reported a 71% pre-tax nett fall successful the archetypal fractional and chopped its full-year outlook.

For September and the twelvemonth ahead, immoderate marketplace participants are positive. "We judge the equity bull marketplace volition stay intact. In our basal case, we expect an economical brushed landing, coagulated firm earnings, and little involvement rates to enactment markets implicit the adjacent 12 months," Mark Haefele, main concern serviceman of UBS Global Wealth Management, said successful a note.

Others are much cautious. EY-Parthenon Chief Economist Gregory Daco says the U.S. system is "showing resilience, but it's nether expanding pressure. While the U.S. system grew astatine a robust annualized complaint of 3.0% successful Q2 2025, the spot was mostly a mirage, reflecting a crisp diminution successful imports aft businesses accelerated purchases successful effect to tariffs earlier successful the year."

Looking ahead, a caller Barclays study predicted a slowdown successful the 2nd half, but a rebound successful U.S. and European economical maturation successful 2026, saying "markets volition determination connected from reacting to the duplicate topics of tariffs and the U.S. taxation bill."

As market-makers and investors instrumentality from their summertime holidays to rebalance their portfolios, determination volition beryllium immoderate cardinal moments to ticker retired for, including: