October 2, 2018

Here it comes, the scary month of October. Many investors have bad memories of this month, mainly because it has had some spectacular crashes. In particular, 1929, 1987, and 2008 are a few of the years that saw October scar investors for a long, long time.

Here’s some good news: Over the past 20 years, the S&P 500 Index has shown a higher average return in October than in any other month. And the good news continues. This is a midterm year and, sure enough, midterm years have actually been quite strong for stocks. “Incredibly, since 1982, the scary month of October has seen stocks fall only once during a midterm year. Not to mention it has been the best month overall going clear back to 1950 for all midterm years,” explained Senior Market Strategist Ryan Detrick.

October has been up 3.3% on average during a midterm year, ranking it as the best-performing month–ahead of the usually bullish months of November and December.

Best quarter for the S&P 500 in nearly five years. Investors endured a flurry of trade headlines and emerging-market turmoil in the third quarter. Despite those and other headwinds, U.S. stocks were surprisingly resilient in what has historically been their most volatile quarter. The S&P 500 rose 7.2% during the quarter (7.7% including dividends), its biggest quarterly gain since the fourth quarter of 2013, its best performance in a third quarter since 2010, and the 11th gain in the past 12 quarters.

NAFTA 2.0 is here. The U.S., Mexico and Canada have finally negotiated a revised NAFTA, now called the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). Text of the USMCA, which outlines trade conditions for the U.S.’s two biggest export markets, will now enter a 60-day review period as Congress takes a look at the draft. The draft is on track to be reviewed in time for Mexico President Enrique Peña Nieto to sign it before leaving office on December 1. Stocks around the world have increased on the positive trade headlines