Remember all those 30 year anniversary stories about the big 87 crash and those pundits worrying about the vulnerability of markets to a repeat now?
It didn’t happen and once again pundits – most of whom if not all missed the GFC – made the mistake of projecting past events onto the current day.
In fact October turned out to be quite a solid month, especially for the Aussie market that has underperformed for so long (compared to Wall Street for example) that it still hasn’t regained the 6.000 point mark it was at in late 2007, just as the GFC was erupting.
The Dow finished up 28 points, or 0.1%, at 23,377, the S&P 500 index ended about 0.1% at 2,575 and Nasdaq ended at its 62nd high for the year to far, up 0.4% to end at 6,727.
For October the Dow rose 4.3%, while the S&P was up 2.2% and the Nasdaq ended up 3.57%.
October was the biggest monthly percentage gain for all three since February, and the seventh straight positive month for both the Dow and the S&P, while the Nasdaq is on track for its fourth straight monthly gain. Nasdaq leads the year – up more than 23%, the Dow is up just on 18% and the S&P 500 has risen 14.4%.
In London the FTSE 100 index rose 0.1% at 7,493.08, extending its monthly gain to 1.6%. That marks its best monthly performance since May. Both Germany’s Dax and France’s CAC 40 added just over 2.5% for the month.
In Asia, the Nikkei stood out with a rise of 6.7% thanks to the re-election of the Abe Government on the 22nd. Shanghai was up just 1.3% and Hong Kong could only manage a gain of 0.26%.
The Australian market ended October with the ASX 200 index jumping 227 points or 4% to 5909 while the All Ordinaries climbed by a similar margin to 5976 points.
The big banks did well – the CBA, Westpac and NAB all adding between 3% and 4%. ANZ rose a more modest 1.1%, but Macquarie jumped 8.2%.
And the big miners also did well, with BHP up 3% in October and Rio Tinto 4.4%. Fortescue Metals Group lagged badly, falling 9.7% thanks to its single exposure to weakening iron ore, Rio and BHP have big exposures to copper – BHP to oil as well.. The single biggest drag on the ASX over the month was LendLease, which lost 9.5% after an earnings forecast cut.
Among the starts were dairy groups like A2 Milk, up 30%, and Blackmores, up 35%. Bega was up a more sedate 7.9%. Fairfax Media shares surged more than 16% in the run up to tomorrow’ annual meeting and Domain spin off.
Myer shares lost 3.9% ahead of its big investor day meeting and no doubt more brawling with Solomon Lew and Premier Investments. Premier shares rose 1.7% last month
And still in the US Apple shares closed at a new all time high this morning of $US169.04 up 1.4%, up from the all-time closing high established Monday. Shares in the world’s most valuable company have gained 46% so far this year, Apple’s market capitalisation reached $US872.1 billion, a record as well.
Apple shares rose 9.7% last month.
Amazon shares jumped 14.97% in October, Alphabet (Google) was up 6%, Netflix, 10.7%, Facebook 5.38% (it reports Thursday morning) and Microsoft was up 11.6%.
Shares of General Electric fell another 1.2% overnight to a 5-year low, closing out their worst monthly performance since the GFC. The shares slumped 16.6% in October, in the wake of disappointing earnings, uncertainty over the company’s direction after several high-level management changes and worries that the dividend will be cut, ahead of an investor day scheduled for November 13. That’s the biggest one-month decline since GE shares plunged 29.8% in February 2009, at the depths of the GFC.
