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October High
Turns out, if you’re a fan of #1 hits, October has been the #1 performer in monthly stock market performance over the past 20 years, according to the Bespoke Investment Group.
Looking ahead, time will tell how the 10th month of this year will perform but talking heads continue to guess upward.
Navellier’s Marketmail recent newsletter points out that one of the reasons for the overall stock markets good performance this year has been due to buybacks.
How so?
When a company decides to actually buy back its publicly traded shares, that literally reduces the number of shares available for investors to purchase. As a result, if the stock is a popular one, the more people wanting to purchase shares of the company, the higher its per share price goes.
Popularity pays.
If the stock is not in hot demand, there are still fewer shares available which is kinda often always a good thing for a corporation’s coffers.
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Market Quick Glance
A downer of a week for all four indices followed here.
Below are the weekly and 1-year index performance results for the four major indices—DJIA, S&P 500, NASDAQ and the Russell 2000— including the dates each reached new highs. Data is according to CNBC.com and based on prices at the close of business on Friday, Sept. 28, 2018.
–DJIA 7.04% YTD down from previous week’s return of 8.19%.
- 1 yr Rtn 18.22% down from the previous week 19.61 %
Most recent DJIA a new ALL-TIME CLOSING HIGH was reached on Sept. 21, 2018 of 26,796.16. The previous high was reached on January 26, 2018 of 26,616.71.
-S&P 500 8.99 % YTD down from last week’s 9.58%
- 1 yr. Rtn 16.09% down from last week’s 17.08%
The S&P 500 reached a BRAND NEW CLOSING ALL-TIME HIGH on Sept. 21, 2018 of 2,940.91. The previous closing high was reached on August 29, 2018 of 2,916.50.
-NASDAQ 16.56% YTD up from last week’s 15.70%
- 1yr Rtn 24.68% up a tad from last week’s 24.36%
Nasdaq reached a BRAND NEW 52-week CLOSING HIGH on August 30, 2018 of 8,1333.30. The previous high was reached on August 24, 2018 of 7,949.71.
-Russell 2000 10.49% YTD down from last week’s 11.51%
- 1yr Rtn 13.96% way down from last week’s 18.57%
The Russell 2000 reached a BRAND NEW 52-week ALL-TIME HIGH on August 31, 2018 of 1,742.09. The previous high was reached on August 24, 2018 of 1,726.97.
-Mutual funds
At the close of business on Thursday, Sept. 27,2018, the average total return for funds that fall under the U.S. Diversified Equity Funds heading was 8.70%. That’s down a bit from two weeks ago when the average was week’s 8.96%, according to Lipper.
Taking a longer look back, the average return for the past 52 weeks was 14.83%. Look out two years—9/22/16 through 9/27/18—the total return for this entire group was 15.17%; for the past three years it was 13.29% and over the past five years, 10.10%.
In other words, the look back is a positive two-digit one.
The same can’t be said for funds that fall under the broad Sector Equity Funds heading. Average total returns there range from: y-t-d of 2.32%; 52 weeks, 6.56%; 2 years, 6.51%; three years, 8.44% and five years, 5.34%.
Visit www.allaboutfunds.com for more information about how various equity and fixed-income funds have rewarded investors over the short-and long-term, based upon Lipper data. Short-term meaning weekly and monthly performance returns; longer-term includes quarterly, year-to-date, 1-yr, 2-yr, 3-yr and 5-yr returns.
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Gas Up
AAA reports that gas prices in September were the highest they’ve been in four years. Yikes!
Nationally, that translates to average gas prices at the pump of $3.39 in 2014 to $2.85 in 2018.
Here in Florida, the average price per gallon last month was $2.77. That looks pretty cheap compared to what it was four years ago—$3.32 per gallon.
Looking ahead, with the price of oil going up up and up, don’t expect our gas prices to go down down down anytime soon.
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