U.S. stocks kicked October off on a strong note Monday after the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite closed out their first three-quarter losing streak since the 2008 Global Financial Crisis and the Dow logged its first such span of losses since 2015.
The benchmark S&P 500 index soared 2.6%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped roughly 765 points, or around 2.7%, notching its best day in more than two months. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite advanced 2.3%.
Sizable moves in energy markets kicked off the week, with oil prices swinging higher as reports surfaced that OPEC+ is considering a big production cut of more than one billion barrels per day. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil surged and settled above $83 per barrel.
Also, in the U.K., sterling edged higher after Prime Minister Liz Truss U-turned on a tax-cut plan that had spurred market tumult and an intervention from the Bank of England last week.
On the corporate front, shares of Credit Suisse (CS) pared losses from an earlier drop, closing up 2.3%. Over the weekend, the global investment bank’s CEO issued a memo attempting to calm major investors about the institution’s financial health – an effort that backfired and instead raised questions about the bank’s stability.
Credit Suisse also said last week that it was exploring potential sales of assets and certain business units as part of a strategic plan set to be revealed at the end of the month.
Tesla (TSLA) plunged 8.6% Monday after the electric vehicle giant reported Sunday that it delivered 343,830 cars in the third quarter, a fresh record that came even as the company grappled with the shutdown of its China factory. Still, the figure came in below Wall Street expectations, which ranged from 358,000 to 371,000 vehicles.
Investors are reeling from a brutal month and quarter that saw all three major averages enter a bear market. In September, the S&P 500 recorded a 9.3% loss, its worst monthly decline since the onset of the pandemic in March 2020. The Dow erased more than 8% and the Nasdaq Composite more than 10%. For the quarter, the indexes shed roughly 5.3%, 4.1%, and 6.7%, respectively.
As Wall Street turned the page, some strategists looked ahead to October, which has been deemed a “bear-market killer” based on historically strong returns, especially in midterm election years. Every time the S&P 500 has dropped 7% or more in September, stocks have done well in October, Carson Group’s Ryan Detrick noted.
A high-stakes earnings season likely to be wrought by slashed forecasts and worsening fundamentals tied to inflation and rising interest rates, however, makes this time different.
“The focus will be on earnings because we’re going from a moderation shock, with higher interest rates, to a growth shock,” Luca Paolini, chief strategist at Pictet Asset Management, told Yahoo Finance Live in a recent interview. “This is where we feel more worried, and next earnings season is going to be really critical.”
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Alexandra Semenova is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter @alexandraandnyc
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