October’s First Trading Day Prone to Volatility, But S&P 500 Up 8 of Last 11

Based upon data in the soon to be available 2024 Stock Trader’s Almanac on page 90, the big gain on 10/3/2022 pushed the first trading day of October into 4th place for DJIA of all monthly first trading days since September 1997 based upon total DJIA points gained.

S&P 500 has been up 15 of the last 26 years and 8 of the last 11 on the first trading day of October. DJIA’s record is slightly softer with 12 declines and NASDAQ’s performance has been the worst of the group, down 13 times with an average loss of 0.15%. Impressive gains occurred in 2002, 2003 and 2022 while sizable declines happened in 1998, 2000 (NASDAQ), 2009, 2011. 2014 and 2019 also stand out for across-the-board losses exceeding 1%.