August was an interesting month on many fronts (the EUR, China, deteriorating internals, etc), but one in particular that stands out to me is the outperformance of small caps vs large caps domestically. This we can see in the ratio chart below of IWM vs SPY.

For the month, small caps outperformed large caps by almost 3%. Although you may not think 3% is  significant, it does show a more "risk-on" or "performance-chasing"  approach and this may help equities overall as we head into the beginning of a new month which is typically bullish.

This relative outperformance of small caps to large caps has happened before, most recently in June/July, but these moves have been counter-trend as the overall trend is down/bearish. So this may be another short term push - watch for it to end soon after the beginning of the month inflows...