evening wrap, september 25

market vibes

“No…I ordered two Big Macs, fries and a chocolate shake.”

Trading in NY was a mixed bag of outliers on Thursday. Silver trading at new contract highs of $45/toz. in London. Gold was relatively soft pre-Comex and fell hard with a strong dollar that got much stronger after the slate of economic data at 8:30 AM EDT. I described it this morning as “a touch warm and indicative of a healthy economy.” Maybe I was a bit too conservative?

However, I did say, “good news bad action” for S&Ps. Stock index futures fell for a 3rd day on rising volume and a dip in openinterest.

In hourly data, S&P volume in the 1st hour was the highest for the month, exceeding the extreme volume on Sept. 17 when the FOMC cut rates. High volume on down days usually means sellers are taking liquidity.

But in stock indexes, the opposite is true for the entire month, if not since the April lows. Buyers are jamming the market higher. This is a uniform dynamic. In the chart below, it’s obvious except on Tuesday and Wednesday; there were no buyers at all. So what’s happening?

In April, buyers were truly aggressive, hoovering any and all offers at any price. We trade. We learn. The new post-April crash market became a repeatable pattern: buy the opening hard and let the market breathe. Buy the last hour hard and go home with a credit every night. The last leg up has been potholed with some respectable selling.

I mentioned the key level for Dec S&Ps yesterday is the Sept. 17 6611.00 FOMC Low. Prices came perilously close to that number today, and someone bought a lot of futures in a market we know is already heavily long. Are these buyers as eager at 6700 as they were at 5900? Are they the same buyers? Three sessions to quarter end.

After the close, the Comex increased Margins by 6.25% for gold and 6.67% for silver Increase is effective on 9/26/2025. September (spot) silver settled at $45.00 (chart below monthly continuous data).