There’s Not Much There There

Avatar photo Doug Kass on September 28, 2026

*  There is less that meets the eye in the U.S. stock market

* Market breadth has a foul odor, the average stock is falling, crude oil and interest rates are rising and complacency reigns…

The quote “there’s not much there there” comes from Gertrude Stein’s book Everybody’s Autobiography written about 90 years ago. The phrase conveys that a place, person or situation lacks substance or death and originated from Stein’s reflections about her childhood neighborhood in Oakland, California. It was Stein’s feeling that the area had changed dramatically with the familiar landmarks and very essence of her youth gone (leaving a sense of emptiness and loss). Stein believed that time and development erased the “there” of her childhood city.    

At 5:30 AM S&P futures are -39 handles.

More interestingly is that Nasdaq futures are -310 handles — with, an infrequent occurrence that memory/semis AND hyperscalers are all falling down together.

A rejection by the president of an Iranian cease fire proposal has resulted in a +$3 rise in the price of crude oil.

For four months we have cautioned that the market IS NOT BROADENING OUT (despite a near-universal view on the part of the bullish cabal) and that market breadth is foul.

Importantly, several leading market sectors (e.g. financials/banks) are clearly rolling over — along with the Russell Index ($IWM) and the equal weighted S&P Index ($RSP):

As noted in my post in the Comment Section and in my Diary, I put back on my index shorts at around 8 PM Sunday night:

Sunday Night Trading

From last night:

Dougie Kass

8PM Sunday Night

Back shorting the Indices:

  •  SPY $769.83
  • QQQ $744.46

Position: Short SPY (S), QQQ (S)

BY Doug Kass · Sep 28, 2026, 5:41 AM EDT

Position: Short SPY (S), QQQ (S)

Feeling Less Fearful? Or Just Complacent?

Avatar photo Jason Meshnick on September 25, 2026

It’s been a while since I provided an update on CNN’s (mine) Fear & Greed Index. So, let’s do it!

The headline number of 38 is 11 points off the low of 27 set on 9/16. The stock market is up a bit in that time, too, but are we feeling less fearful? The stocks that drove those gains are the same ones we’ve all been focused on this year, the mega-cap techs. Specifically, $NVDA, $META, & $AAPL. Not all of the big names have been participating, though. In fact, NVDA, while it did rally off the 9/16 low, is still stuck, having set its yearly high in May.

Stocks:

Overall, breadth remains narrow, with net new 52-week lows dominating new highs by a big margin on the NYSE. Downside volume has swamped upside volume, too. As a result, even though the S&P 500 is near all-time highs, it’s gone sideways for the last 6 weeks.

Options

The options indicators have gone sideways and show no fear. They seem to reflect only the performance of the mega-caps and not the performance of the other 490ish stocks. $RSP is down about 6% since August, and small caps (RUT) are off 7%. Helene Meisler says that investors are getting complacent, and I don’t disagree.

Bonds

So, how are bonds doing? The Safe Haven Demand indicator includes treasuries, while the Junk Bond Demand indicator is corporate-focused, high-yield corporates ($HYG) vs. investment-grade ($LQD), so the treasury decline isn’t reflected there. What we see is that stocks are beating bonds. No surprise. Small surprise, however, is that Junk is beating Investment Grade. Not by much, and both are down, but Junk has the edge.

Final Thoughts

So, like Helene said, investors are complacent in the face of a market that is not holding up as well as the big-cap weighted indexes would have us believe.

Fear & Greed hasn’t been over 60 since last spring, and that’s my line in the sand. Until we can get above that level, stocks may rally, but it will likely be narrow and not be a healthy rally.

Bringing this back to the Diary, as Crazy1 said this morning, there could be some good tax loss harvesting opportunities this fall.

All charts are from CNN Business: https://www.cnn.com/markets/fear-and-greed

This commentary was originally posted in the Daily Diary on TheStreet Pro.

Feeling Less Fearful? Or Just Complacent?

Avatar photo Jason Meshnick on September 25, 2026

It’s been a while since I provided an update on CNN’s (mine) Fear & Greed Index. So, let’s do it!

The headline number of 38 is 11 points off the low of 27 set on 9/16. The stock market is up a bit in that time, too, but are we feeling less fearful? The stocks that drove those gains are the same ones we’ve all been focused on this year, the mega-cap techs. Specifically, $NVDA, $META, & $AAPL. Not all of the big names have been participating, though. In fact, NVDA, while it did rally off the 9/16 low, is still stuck, having set its yearly high in May.

Stocks:

Overall, breadth remains narrow, with net new 52-week lows dominating new highs by a big margin on the NYSE. Downside volume has swamped upside volume, too. As a result, even though the S&P 500 is near all-time highs, it’s gone sideways for the last 6 weeks.

Options

The options indicators have gone sideways and show no fear. They seem to reflect only the performance of the mega-caps and not the performance of the other 490ish stocks. $RSP is down about 6% since August, and small caps (RUT) are off 7%. Helene Meisler says that investors are getting complacent, and I don’t disagree.

Bonds

So, how are bonds doing? The Safe Haven Demand indicator includes treasuries, while the Junk Bond Demand indicator is corporate-focused, high-yield corporates ($HYG) vs. investment-grade ($LQD), so the treasury decline isn’t reflected there. What we see is that stocks are beating bonds. No surprise. Small surprise, however, is that Junk is beating Investment Grade. Not by much, and both are down, but Junk has the edge.

Final Thoughts

So, like Helene said, investors are complacent in the face of a market that is not holding up as well as the big-cap weighted indexes would have us believe.

Fear & Greed hasn’t been over 60 since last spring, and that’s my line in the sand. Until we can get above that level, stocks may rally, but it will likely be narrow and not be a healthy rally.

Bringing this back to the Diary, as Crazy1 said this morning, there could be some good tax loss harvesting opportunities this fall.

All charts are from CNN Business: https://www.cnn.com/markets/fear-and-greed

In Case You Missed It: Deteriorating Breadth

Avatar photo Doug Kass on September 22, 2026

For those that celebrated the Jewish holiday I wanted to repost two columns from Monday.

The first column is on the deteriorating breadth, updated for yesterday’s performance:

Not Broadening

* As previously noted (repeatedly by myself and The Divine Ms M), the market is narrowing — with the Russell not crowing and the equal weighted S&P Index (RSP) rolling over

* Given the narrowing and the valuation model discussion in my upcoming opener, I am planning to expand my short book on the recent rally and strength in the indices

* It feels like deja vu all over again…

Here was Friday’s report card:

$SPY +0.30% 

$QQQ +0.81%

$IWM -0.48%

$RSP -0.40%

Though S&P futures rose by 21 handles and Nasdaq futures increased by +238 handles on Friday, market breadth continues to have a foul odor as seen by these tweets delivered by Jason Goepfert:

Shades of the Dot-Com Era

And the correlation between tech stocks and the rest of the market is the lowest in 22 years:

It feels like deja vu all over again.

Position: Short SPY (S), QQQ (S)

BY Doug Kass · Sep 21, 2026, 7:05 AM EDT

Position: Short SPY (S/M), QQQ (S/M)

 

Not Broadening

Avatar photo Doug Kass on September 21, 2026

* As previously noted (repeatedly by myself and The Divine Ms M), the market is narrowing — with the Russell not crowing and the equal weighted S&P Index (RSP) rolling over

* Given the narrowing and the valuation model discussion in my upcoming opener, I am planning to expand my short book on the recent rally and strength in the indices

* It feels like deja vu all over again…

Here was Friday’s report card:

$SPY +0.30% 

$QQQ +0.81%

$IWM -0.48%

$RSP -0.40%

Though S&P futures rose by 21 handles and Nasdaq futures increased by +238 handles on Friday, market breadth continues to have a foul odor as seen by these tweets delivered by Jason Goepfert:

Shades of the Dot-Com Era

And the correlation between tech stocks and the rest of the market is the lowest in 22 years:

It feels like deja vu all over again.

Position: Short SPY (S), QQQ (S)