Mr. Octobers chilling trail of past Wall Street carnage makes investors cringe every time the calendar flips to the 10th month, Reuters reports. Most notably, 1929 and 1987 creep to memorys fore, and many investors stay out of the market altogether in October.
But analysis from
"If October does not seriously undermine confidence, the fourth quarter could see a mild positive, capping what is already a handily above-average year for equity funds investors," Lipper told Reuters, its parent company.
Feelings about the past crashes can be misleading, too. Since World War II, nine bear markets have ended in October, including one in 1998 that resulted in a 60 % jump in global equities.
Though its true that past analyses have proven that May-to-October trading produces losses compared to trading between November and April, the stock traders almanac says that between 1950 and 2001, investors who bought stocks in October and held them until April made money.
The U.S. markets have gained more than European ones to begin October 2003, but both the pan-European FTSE Eurotop 300 and London FTSE 100, among others, are up more than 2.5 % to begin the month.
And its still early.
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The staff of Money Management Executive ("MME") has prepared these capsule summaries based on reports published by the news sources to which they are attributed. Those news sources are not associated with MME, and have not prepared, sponsored, endorsed, or approved these summaries.
