Bracing for a bearish trend in October

FILM adaptions of Stephen King’s horror stories do it best. In the darkness of the cinema, the audience waits for the inevitable terrifying moment. The longer the film goes, the more nervous they become. Ready to be scared, they can only wait, seemingly forever, with bated breath until finally – horror.

This is a Stephen King-horror market. September was supposed to deliver horror, but it has not. Now, investors wait for the true and inevitable horror of October when a bear trend has historically shaken markets.

By almost any measure, the US market rise appears unstoppable. Technical indicators have been flashing over-bought for weeks, but this is the nature of these oscillator-style indicators. They show a mathematical peak that is created by numerical calculation rather than by reference to the broader range of market factors.