August-24th Steve Rhodes on The Tom O'Brien Show - 2026

Welcome back folks. We've got the S&P negative by 16 right now. Nasdaq tech stocks under pressure and right now folks to talk about this market action want to jump over to our man Steve Rhodes. Remember folks you can check out Steve's outstanding program the traders edge 11:00 a.m. live every day right here on Tiger TV and if you head it on over to front page of TFN right under the newsletter tab you'll see mastering probability Steve's daily trading newsletter folks you get updates in the morning and update in the afternoon. You get weekends as well. It's $149 a month. It comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee and this is a great time to try a lot of newsletters folks cuz we have quite a market right now going. Steve Rhodes good afternoon. >> Hi Tommy. How are you today? >> I'm doing great man. How's your Monday going? >> It's going good. Can you believe it's August 23rd 24th? >> It's amazing man. You know Tommy started kindergarten almost 2 weeks ago now Steve. So that was like where I was like woah what is going on man? This is now right and now I know time is flying man for sure. Hey. >> Totally totally and and what we're we're we're flying into the month of September and that's why I brought that up because I have shown this chart I've yeah I've shown this chart before. Uh this is a chart provided to us by the folks at Seasonax. They're really great company at being able to put together the seasonal data just one click to be able to pull up these charts and really really cool tool. So this happens to be the 98-year uh seasonal cycle uh for the S&P 500. The red uh vertical line is where we're at today. So you can see that historically we're approaching the time period which is the first week of September when we typically see some type of high in the market that might move lower into October. The very bottom right-hand portion of the screen Tommy shows month by month over 98 years and what their average performance has been. So we can see just how tough the uh month of September is. We can also see that Mondays are typically downer Mondays, right? You know, you take Monday off, if you if you will. So, so >> It's It's like we come back from the summer, which is a big weekend, you know, same deal or the weekend. Yeah, as you Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, pretty cool. >> No, no, no. So, so what do you So, we've shown this chart here. And so, I started to thinking about it. I I just never want to mislead anyone. So, I decided to look under the covers. When I looked under the covers, I was able to My data goes back to 1970. So, we've got 56 years worth of data. And when I take a look at just simply the month of September, the results, um what percentage of Septembers do we close above the open of September? And what percentage of Septembers do we close below the open of Septembers? Because when Tommy, when I look at this chart here, would you have expected that these would be the results of a coin toss? >> Right. >> I would not have I did not expect that. >> Yeah. >> So, now maybe that that could just be me, but when I when I when I ran the data and I said, "Wait, this is not substantially different than a coin toss." It lessened It lessened It lessened in essence the message of the the seasonal chart. Do you know what I mean? >> Sure. I definitely do. That's basically, you know, there's variance, right? There's There's all stuff that goes in as in that that could just be outside of the normal variance that you're getting of a coin flip in terms of your sample size. Definitely. Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, I So, I started with this and I said, "Okay, let's let's try digging a little bit further." And if we look at each month separately during the last 56 years, when the market Once the market gets past September, so take a look at the bottom here. Once we get past September, this is This is how the each month has performed. So, since I knew how September was performing, I said, "Let me go see how each of the other months are performing." And what was really Now, we've always talked about the Santa Claus rally I've talked about the Santa Claus rally really starting in October and moving through the end of the year. Well, when we take a look at it statistically, look at once we get past September, the chances of the October closing higher are 60%, 67% November, 73% in December. That's That's pretty wild, right? That >> Santa Claus is real, Steve. He is real, man. It's happening. No, that was a question. Some numbers coming in as it just >> Yeah, and and and look, we we have we have 57 years worth of data coming through um July because we're in the month of August. So, that's a So, if folks are looking at the uh chart, people should take a copy of This is really important or this is I think this is very helpful data. It really opened my eyes. If we take a look at the S&P 500 after a positive September. So, after a positive September, look at these percentages here. It's amazing. It's I think it's great. Now, what happens if the S&P has a negative September? There's been 26 times we've had a negative September, 30 times we've had a positive. That's basically our coin toss there. But, even if we have a negative September, we typically have a fairly positive November, December. I'd say October, Tommy, is pretty much kind of another one of those coin tosses, you know. It's a little bit better than a coin toss. But, really the month of November and December, I think this is very helpful to all of our listener to our listener base out there. >> It is and you know, it's pretty cool how it shows, too, in terms of there's quite a market bias to the upside, which makes sense overall, too, you know, in terms of the market, man. These These are we are at in in right now we get some strong equities, the valuations, but you know, the market just boy, you know, when you look at those numbers over a long-term period, there's a lot of value creation, for sure, when you look at them. >> we we we had talked last week about uh I had done the study on the uh equal weighted uh ETF, the QQEW, and how that was showing us >> I have with the equal weighted and the and the NASDAQ 100 making all-time highs when the equal weight was leading. I like that one. Please, go ahead. >> Yeah. So, it just kind of feeds into to to a lot of the stuff. I went to a couple of steps further. I took a look at the S&P 500. So, I wanted to really understand September a little bit further. And so, this was one way for me to take a look at it just simply from a price standpoint because there's something each of us can do Uh here and this is all based upon the S&P price right now. So I don't know what it's going to be eight next Tuesday. But but you can you know you can change this. So if we take a look at September just starting off at the open, the left-hand column here is take a look at when we have Septembers that have a half year a half a percent increase or 38 point move during you know by the end of September. Okay, so this is this is this is by the end of September here. >> Okay. >> versus a 1% would be 77 point move or approximately 1 and 1/2 percent about 115 point move. What's interesting here is when we take a look at a September that only gets maybe maybe 1 and 1/2 percent. All right, that the um the probability of of of moving higher isn't too bad but look at how look at how much stronger it gets Tommy we start getting to a two or two and a half or three or three and a half percent. So my point is that the early percentage is 1 1 and 1/2 percent a little bit better than a coin toss but what the real meaning of this is so we got to track September almost kind of like day by day. Where are we? Are we above the open? What percentage are we above the open? Cuz we start breaching into the 2 and 1/2 and 3% which in today's trading is almost one day's average range. >> It's It's really That's what I've been thinking about for like the last 3 minutes when you talk and these numbers we're doing every day or two man. I mean we got Sandisk and Micron putting numbers up that are on me. Yeah, it's it's pretty staggering. Yeah. >> Yeah, so I I what I really think and and I don't know the answer to it none of us do cuz we don't know what's going to happen tomorrow and the next day and the next day but we can start taking a look at each day in September and kind of keep a a you know a running total. Where are we at? >> Okay. >> Are we up or are we down? Right? Because the the more we start moving towards this three three and a half percent number, boy then then we start talking about where Septembers are not negative. They're substantially positive out there and that's the help That that's that was the importance for me about digging under the covers and really trying to understand what September what that what the what the annual seasonal chart was really showing us. If I take a look at September's performance and I take a look at the January framework, this is where we're at right now, Tommy. You know, just cut right to the chase. We're in this column here where the January low failed. What I mean is that we closed below a January low and then we reclaimed that low and we are well above the January highs. This is the situation where we're in right now. And in this situation the chances of of September finishing higher were 77.8%. Pretty wild. >> All right. >> We'll see we'll see how it turns out, but let's keep track day-by-day, you know, how how is September performing? >> I was going to say we're going to get some appetizers with the video setting the stage on Wednesday, right? And maybe we'll see where we kick off September following those numbers. Steve, I appreciate the breakdown. Folks, you want to see breakdowns like that every single day in mastering probability, check it out right on the front page under the newsletter tab. As I said, couple updates today over the weekend, great service, you get some great webinars in there as well. Steve, great stuff, man. Look forward to the program tomorrow at 11. Thanks so much. >> Thanks, Tommy. You bet. Take care. >> Have a great one. Folks, we'll come right back. >> [music]