Free Weekly Stock Market Commentary 9/19/2025

By Lawrence G. McMillan

The Fed lowered rates by a quarter of a percent on Wednesday, and the market liked it. Many people had been expecting a "sell on the news" after that, but instead $SPX has plowed ahead to new all-time highs in a strong fashion. The $SPX chart remains very bullish. There is support at 6500 (the August highs), 6340-6360 (the August lows) and 6200 (the July lows). Those are all marked with horizontal red lines on the $SPX chart in Figure 1.

Any move below 6500 would be disappointing now that $SPX has made its move higher, but even if that occurred it would not necessarily disturb the bullish pattern of the $SPX chart.

Breadth has been poor, for the most part, although it was strong on September 18th, and that is enough keep the breadth oscillator signals in doubt. Prior to that, those oscillators had been ready to generate new sell signals, but that is not the case now.

Equity-only put-call ratios continue to be bullish for stocks, as they are still dropping. They will remain in this bullish mode until they roll over and begin to rise.

Implied volatility has been very bullish for stocks, and it remains that way. $VIX made a modest attempt at rising prior to the FOMC, but it only got up to about 17 at its intraday high. Once FOMC was out of the way, $VIX was right back down to 15 and below. This keeps the trend of $VIX buy signal (buy signal for stocks, that is) in place.

So, we continue to view the market positively, mostly because of the strong $SPX chart, but also because of the number of bullish indicators still in place. We will take any new signals that arise, and we most certainly continue to encourage rolling deeply in-the- money calls up to higher strikes.