Daily Insights
A rough start. Stocks are searching for direction this morning after a rough start to the fourth quarter. The S&P 500 Index dropped about 3% in the past two trading sessions, the first time the benchmark has dropped 1% on consecutive days to start the fourth quarter. However, it’s important to remember that the S&P 500 is still up about 16% year-to-date, and we still see encouraging signs in economic data. We’ll get more color on the economic front in the September jobs report, which is scheduled to be released October 4.
Fourth quarter thoughts. After a calm September, we expected October to deliver larger swings and more volatility, as we noted on the LPL Research blog yesterday. We’ve also officially kicked off the fourth quarter, which is a historically strong quarter for stocks. In 2018, the S&P 500 lost 14% during the fourth quarter, but we haven’t seen back-to-back lower fourth quarters since the financial crisis, and only twice since World War II. We will dive more into this potentially bullish quarter today on the LPL Research blog.
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