Top Tweets Today: 18/09/2015

Even though there was slight relief at the beginning of the Fed's announcement yesterday I'm afraid it's been all red following through into today. The big issue seems to be the strength of the US economy which the Fed doesn't think is fit and able enough to absorb its first interest rate hike in over 9 years. However having highlighted this earlier, delaying the first hike would create further unrest as investors mull around on the date of when it's expected to be hiked generating even more volatility.

While counterfactuals are hard, @FederalReserve committed to #volatility suppression will take little comfort from today's #markets reaction

— Mohamed A. El-Erian (@elerianm) September 18, 2015

There's not many months left till the end of the year and if one had to look back over the past year they'd get the sense that 2015 hasn't shot off fireworks as we've seen in previous years. When looking for statistical analysis that puts things into perspective, I always enjoy material from Ryan Detrick. In this particular set of stats, he has broken down the average performance of the S&P 500 since 1950 into how the returns evolve over each month.

Not surprising to see that we are heading into a pretty bleak period which is expected by most come this time of year with the last rally known as the Christmas Rally. I don't know if Santa's bag of goods is going to cover this year's expected returns.

Here's what the average year since 1950 looks like. $SPY pic.twitter.com/rgOo30ZTuP

— Ryan Detrick, CMT (@RyanDetrick) September 18, 2015

Anyone who is interested entering the field of finance might like to read Barry Ritholtz's list on how to break into and succeed in the finance sector. I think there's a misconception that because large amount of money find its way into the sector it's easy to make a living which is anything but true. Any job requires hours of dedication to hone on your craft plus an added touch of honesty given the personal nature of the business.

RT @ritholtz: For today's conversation with @MichaelKitces at FinTech http://t.co/JE2im3SZh1 pic.twitter.com/afKUWOkKNw

— Steve Burns (@SJosephBurns) September 18, 2015 

Great analysis by chartist Andrew Thrasher showing the initial breakout of a tight symmetrical triangle identified earlier in the week. Things looked all ready to go at the beginning of yesterday but have shrunk back considerably. The way it things stand at the moment there's not a lot of technical damage done but if we were to continue dropping there could be cause for concern with a potential to shake out optimistic bulls.

Here's an updated chart of the consolidation and support/resistance for the S&P 500 pic.twitter.com/xAWNGGzdsX

— Andrew Thrasher, CMT (@AndrewThrasher) September 18, 2015