VIX Down 12% and the Financial Planning Lesson of September 11. Let’s Talk About It.

This is the One of a Kind Financial Show Daily. I am Mike Milligan, Certified Financial Planner. Every weekday, I take one thing that happened in the market yesterday and turn it into a teachable moment you can use in your practice today or in your conversations with your advisor, whether or not that's me or my team. If you're new here, this show exists for one reason: to help financial professionals get better at explaining, structuring, and delivering written financial plans to real clients. And to help you as individual investors learn the inside of what a great one-of-a-kind financial plan looks like. This is not commentary, not hot takes. It's a daily habit of translation. Educate, coach, plan is my mission. Never miss a moment is my motto. And today is Tuesday, September 8th, 2026. It's a short week, big lessons. Let's go.

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The S&P 500 opens the week at 7,718, the Dow at 53,414, the NASDAQ 26,509, the Russell 2000 at 2,975. Here though is what I think is more valuable information. Year to date, coming out of the summer, now that we're past Labor Day, and after Friday's close, the S&P 500 is up 12.75% year to date. The Dow is up 11.13% year to date. NASDAQ up 14.05%, and Russell 2000 is up 19.89% year to date. The advisor takeaway. Read that last number again. The Russell 2000 is up nearly 20% year to date. If you have a client review this month and you have not been quietly overweighting mega-cap tech in a moderate growth model, the Russell number is your conversation. Small caps have led this year, not the AI trade. That is a fact. Bring it to your review. Surprise your advisor with that if you're a client.

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Last week on the show, we said we'd watch volume as traders returned from summer. Here are the final numbers for August 31st through September 4th. SPY represents the, you know, S&P 500 index, had total weekly volume of 187 million shares plus. QQQ, 153 million shares plus. And the Russell 2000 through the ETF IWM, 96 million shares plus. The daily texture matters more than the total. The SPY volume ran 38.8 million Monday, jumped to 41 million Tuesday, dropped to 29 Wednesday, then spiked to 43.5 million Thursday, the highest single day of the week, before easing to 34.1 million on the pre-holiday Friday. The advisor teach volume is the conviction underneath the price. When a client asks you why the S&P's at a record and you feel uneasy, look at whether the participation rose with the price. Last week it did on Thursday. That is a data point you can use in a client review to say the rally is not just algorithms and index buying. Real participation showed up. Put that in your client-facing note, not as a prediction, just as an observation.

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Here's the piece most weekly recaps missed from last week. The VIX opened the short week at 14.92, spiked to 16.34 on Tuesday, and sold off to 15.20 Wednesday before it closed the week at 14.53. What a roller coaster. The weekly change in volatility index was down 2.61%. But the story there is not the weekly print. The story is the intra-week move. Tuesday's peak to Thursday trough was 12.36% collapse in the fear gauge inside of 48 hours. What that teaches is that when the VIX drops that fast into a holiday weekend, option sellers were pricing risk out of the market. That is the professional community saying we're willing to underwrite more downside protection. Cheaper. Here's the planning application. When a client asks whether or not it's a good time to add protection to a concentrated portfolio, the VIX is one of the inputs. Cheaper VIX means cheaper protection puts, cheaper collars. That is not a recommendation to do that. That is a teaching moment. When the fear gauge drops sharply going into known uncertainty window, like a holiday-shortened week, some of your clients with concentrated stock positions We want to have that conversation. Bring the conversation. Do not wait for the client to bring it to you.

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Over the weekend, an Amazon cargo jet operated by 21 Air LLC crashed at Miami International Airport. 5 lives lost, 5 injured. We pay our respects to the families of the 5 who did not come home. And we hold hope for the full recovery of the 5 who are fighting. This show is called the One of a Kind Financial Show for a reason. Every life is one of a kind. Every moment matters. Never miss a moment.

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This week, I want to walk you through the days that led up to September 11th, 2001. Not to relive it, to remind us what the markets look like the week before an event that changed everything. Friday, September 7th, 2001, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 9,605, the S&P 500 at 1,087, and the NASDAQ at 1,687. The NASDAQ print was under 1,700 for the first time in months after coming off the highs of over 5,000. Before Y2K, or January 1st, 2000. The tape had been weak all summer. The dot-com hangover was in full effect. On Saturday, September 8th, 2001, 25 years ago, Venus Williams successfully defended her US Open title, defeating her sister Serena 6-2, 6-4 at Arthur Ashe Stadium. That same day, Nebraska and Notre Dame, 2 of college football's heavyweights, met in Lincoln. Nebraska took it 27 to 10. Saturday night felt just like any Saturday night. The weekend was still to come on Sunday. I bring this up not to be dramatic. I bring it up because as financial professionals and clients who work with financial professionals, we plan for the moments we can see and we prepare for the moments we cannot. That is the whole job. Every financial plan I've ever written is designed to survive the Tuesday morning nobody can predict. We'll talk more about that on Friday. And that's what one of a kind means. As we close out today, here's the takeaway. We're not chasing returns. We are trying to build a financial plan that is as unique as the clients we deal with. Maybe that's you. Who's listening today. Maybe that's an advisor who has 3 meetings on their book today. Volume on the stock market tells you about conviction. The VIX tells you about the cost of protection. Year-to-date leadership tells you where your clients are underexposed. Every one of those inputs belongs in a written financial plan, not in a phone call. after the market has moved. If you want to sharpen the way you teach these ideas to clients, join us at www.thenumberoneoakcollective.com. If you're an individual and you feel like you're not getting this type of relationship from the advisor you're dealing with, and you want a one-of-a-kind financial plan that I talk about in my Amazon bestselling book, Come to www.theoneoakfinancial.com. You could also text the word ideas to the number 600-700. Estoy aprendiendo. I am learning. That's what the show does for you too. It allows you to learn along with us. I'm Mike Milligan, Certified Financial Planner. My mission is to educate, coach, plan. Never miss a moment. This program is for educational purposes only and does not constitute investment, tax, or legal advice. I am a Certified Financial Planning Professional. All market data referenced is for public— is from publicly available sources as of the trading date noted. Past performance is not indicative of future results. The One of a Kind Financial Plan is a registered trademark of Mike Milligan, LLC. Consult your own licensed financial professional before making financial decisions based on any information discussed on this program.

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