While maybe not as relentless as the move higher in rates over the last two months, selling in equities has been pretty consistent.  In the year-to-date chart of the S&P 500 tracking ETF (SPY) below, we show the last 50 trading days in gray to point out that there have been an extremely large number of days during this span where the day’s intraday low was lower than the prior day’s low.  We highlighted this trend in a Chart of the Day last week, but it has remained pronounced since then. In total, 33 of the last 50 trading days have seen SPY make a lower low relative to the prior day’s intraday low, and if SPY falls below $420.18 today, it would be a record 34 days in a trailing 50-trading day period where the ETF made a lower low relative to the prior day’s low.

The chart below shows the number of days over a rolling 50-day period where SPY made lower lows, and at a level of 33, the current period is tied with three others (March 2022, October 2008, and March 2008) for the most since SPY’s inception in 1993.  You don’t need us to tell you that none of these periods were positive for the market.  What makes the current period unique is that the magnitude of the decline during this period has been relatively mild at less than 10%.  During each of the three other periods, SPY was down at least 10% from a 52-week high and as much as 45% (October 2008).

This morning we received two of the latest updates on labor market demand with the release of the August JOLTS report in addition to postings data from Indeed through the end of September.  The JOLTS report came in well above expectations (9.61 million versus 8.83 expected) indicating a solid rebound in labor market demand headed out of the summer.  In spite of that positive reading, the overall trend of lower openings remains in place and is echoed by Indeed’s data.  As shown below, the more timely and higher frequency postings data has also been trending lower since the end of 2021. That being said, the summer has seen those declines decelerating with postings only slightly lower over the past three months. Modeling the JOLTS number on the less lagged Indeed data would predict that postings would remain around these levels next month. In tonight’s Closer, we will provide a full rundown of the latest JOLTS report.

In addition to national reads on job postings, the Indeed data also provides geographic breakdowns by US metro, and in the table below, we highlight the 25 MSAs (metropolitan statistical area) that have seen the best and worst postings growth relative to pre-pandemic baselines as well as how far they have fallen from their respective peaks (we highlight when each of those peaks were as well). Many of those with the highest number of openings relative to pre-pandemic are also those with smaller populations.  Conversely, many of the largest metros have seen job postings fall off the most. There have also been a growing number of cities where postings are now below pre-pandemic levels.  San Francisco is the worst of these with postings down nearly 20% from baseline.