Summary
October has a bad stock-market reputation that is not entirely earned, but earned it was in 2024. For all Octobers since 1980, the S&P 500 has been up more often (30 times) than it has been down (13 times). And October’s average annual gain of 1.30% would put it in a respectable fifth place among all months, trailing (in ascending order) July, April, December, and November. This year, October began in very rocky fashion, with stocks falling early in the month. The middle weeks of the month were strong, and the S&P 500 set an all-time closing high at 5,864.67 on 10/18/24. Stocks wavered from that high, however, and were unable to hold mid-month gains. CPI data came in uncomfortably warm, and bond yields continues to soar from their post-FOMC lows set in mid-September. Despite a last-gasp rally to the 5,830s on 10/29/24, stocks crashed in the final two trading days of the month. Tech giants such as Alphabet and Microsoft revealed eye-popping capital-spending plans for AI investments, causing investors to wonder when the payoff from this technology was coming. The S&P 500 finished October 2024 down a little over 50 points and about 1% from September’s end. The Nasdaq Composite was slammed on Halloween, losing nearly 2.8
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