"Ghost month" not to bash on our beloved astrologically sound e-girls, all the power to them [fucking shoot me]; August is usually the slowest month for risk, as it's THE month for vacations & end of summer volatility crush paired with low volume results in pretty ass conditions for trading overall September is when hedge funds/family offices/institutional players return to desks - they'll be looking to offload underperformers [some offload overextended assets as well] usually causing a dip in markets [which is front ran in end of August, materialized at the start of September]. pair that with hedging, also the fact they will be rebalancing those same assets for tax purposes and prepare for EoY/Q4 rotation you have a pretty good recipe for slow/choppy/bearish August+September, almost every year at this point hope that explains the phenomenon markets are not vol crushed/drifting down because there's ghosts in the orderbooks. seek help.