Wall Street Like A Rolling Stone

So how does it feel? To be on your own? With no direction home?

Like a rolling stone?

Wall Street figures to cap off what has been nearly three weeks of a surprisingly determined and constructive move higher with?exactly the kind of taciturn – bordering on milquetoast – trading session that the skeptics expected to see this month.

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Futures have flattened out, picking up the mantle from Thursday’s indifferent trading session, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI)?flattened out with an eight-point loss on the close.

This lethargy, though,?qualified as uncharacteristic. While most market watchers expected September to represent a big challenge – both because the month historically has been?Wall Street’s most disappointing, and because stocks entered the month with valuations so stretched – the action has been surprisingly determined and constructive. Thursday’s skimpy setback proved just the second session in the last 10 to show a loss for the Dow. Though gains for the market averages have been?catwalk-model skinny?for most of those advancing sessions, the bulls clearly maintained their advantage, and haven’t really let the bears break service at any point in the month.

Friday’s session figured to be identified more for what it?it’s missing than for what it offers. There isn’t much in the way of data, robbing the market of what has been the single greatest contributor to its constructive tone. Most economic readings lately have incited?traders to revive the recovery trade. They won’t have those catalysts in a data-free session Friday.

What there?will be is the hint of the kind of volatility that has been notably absent recently. The CBOE Volatility reading – the VIX – slipped to its lows for the ye! ar earli er this week at just below 23,?though there has been a?steady pickup in volume as the month has ambled on.

There could be a jolt more of both volume and volatility in Friday’s session?amid the unwinding of options positions in this?quarterly expiration of derivatives. The last two months, the options windup has contributed?a bullish tone to the market, but there’s a risk the opposite could be the case Friday.

Most of the other capital markets?have taken a jug-handle turn in Friday’s session.?The dollar, which retreated to the lows for the year earlier this week, has bounced fof?its bottom. Treasuries, which rose in price Thursday, have flattened out Friday, though the two-year note continued to?offer a yield south of one percent. Crude has flattened at about $72 a barrel. Even gold has been tamed, though the pricing environment stayed above $1000 an ounce.