with the federal reserve meeting this week stocks could be volatile and technical analysts say the s  p 500 looks increasingly set for a retest and possible break of its june low stock charts have seen a lot of damage recently and some technical strategists are becoming more pessimistic in the nearterm in the past week t he s  p 500 declined 48 closing at 3873 in its worst weekly performance since june weve sided with a higher low in the s  p 500 and believe a less intense lower low has become more likely following rollovers in select megacap stocks writes oppenheimers ari wald this weekend the crux of our view is that megacap weakness is masking improving breadth which we think bottomed in june wald now says a dip to 3500 on the s  p 500 is possible that is the 50 bull market retracement his previous expectation of a nearterm low point of 3800 weakness in stocks like alphabet  nvidia and microsoft helped change his view stocks could be volatile again this week with the federal reserve meeting tuesday and wednesday the fed is expected to raise its target fed funds rate by another 75 basis points wednesday and also provide new forecasts on the economy inflation and interest rates a basis point equals 001 of a percentage point significant seasonal headwinds in september suggest the market is vulnerable going into next weeks fomc decision noted wald the analyst however continues to believe the market will bottom in october and then rally in the fourth quarter in line with its typical behavior in midterm election years jonathan krinsky chief market technician at btig said the 3900 level was important and the area on the s  p 500 where the most volume traded over the last three years it closed below that on friday which opens the door down to the june lows krinsky wrote in a note the june low was 3636 krinksy also points to weakness in the charts of big cap tech  apple microsoft  alphabet and amazon they might be giants but some of the biggest marquee names in the market continue to look vulnerable to us here krinsky added in midterm election years the typically negative month of september has been a time of weakness into october mark newton fundstrat global head of technical strategy said the market turned lower right on schedule in the past week confirming seasonal bearishness while one cannot rule out a 12 day bounce attempt given this weeks decline i do not expect much strength until prices have reached support under 3700 in october newton wrote tactically cash remains king and one should be patient until markets reach downside targets and begin to show either volume and breadth divergences or capitulation to buy stocks had been higher heading into last tuesdays report of august consumer inflation the consumer price index for august was up 01 instead of falling 01 as expected by economists that kicked off a new round of higher expectations for federal reserve interest rate hikes in the central banks fight against inflation wald said the market is still trading on the view that the fed needs to pivot from its rate hiking policies in order for stocks to bottom overall while volatility is likely to linger into next months cpi print market conditions are developing to support such a turn in q4 based on our read of the tape he wrote the oppenheimer technical analyst notes that the s  p 500 has typically bottomed around oct 9 before launching into a strong rally into yearend based on the average composite of the last eight midterm election years this suggests the next cpi release oct 13th could act as a potential catalyst should it provide flexibility for fed policy overall we maintain our view that market behavior suggests a base is forming and volatility is at risk to linger until seasonal headwinds become tailwinds wald wrote