October is supposed to be a down month for stocks, and the aggressive three-week slide at the start of the month would make a strong argument. However, recent history says otherwise.
The S&P 500 rose in three of the past four years. With only four days left in the month, can the S&P 500 improve the statistics to four out of five? The answer is in the hands of the Federal Reserve.
Since 2010, October showed positive results in all full years. The single exception was in 2012. Granted, none of the previous years included such an aggressive correction as the one in 2014. But a healthy correction is not necessarily the end of the long-term uptrend the market has displayed since March 2009.
The Fed begins its two-day meeting on Oct. 28 and the market toned down its expectations in terms of the first rate hike and the speed of such increases.
Prospects of the U.S. economy being the best house on the G7 bad block have petered out recently. The U.S. unemployment rate is surprisingly low as production continues to be outsourced and job growth in the financial sector has been impeded by regulation.
Yet let’s see if the Fed will be more dovish than at their previous meeting.