Jeff Hirsch: October’s Typical Performance

Jeff Hirsch (Sep 26, 2015) - October’s typical performance appears in the chart at left over the recent 21-year span 1994 to 2014. On average, early month weakness has proven to be an excellent buying opportunity, especially for NASDAQ (purple line) as early losses were quickly recouped leading to an average gain of over 3% from early month lows to the close.
Since 1991, October, the first month of the fourth quarter has improved substantially, climbing to fourth best DJIA month with an average gain of 1.6%. It’s the third best S&P 500 month (+1.6%) and second best for NASDAQ (+2.3%). Russell 2000 has not seen as much improvement with October climbing to just #8.