October Surprise?
Hello everyone! Welcome to the October 2024 edition of the boodle blog! If you are new to boodle, we thank you for joining us, and if you're a previous client, we thank you for your business. Boodle was created for average people who are curious about investing and want to learn as they earn. At boodle, we believe that the person best able to manage your money is you, and we serve as your guide through this financial landscape.
September 2024 is now in the record books and this year is proving to be one of the best years ever to be invested in the stock market. We will go over September results with you, and then we will turn our attention to what we might expect for boodle investors in the month of October.
September was a month that was expected to be a bit bumpy in the market, but it actually turned out to be rewarding for us and our members.The big news in September turned out to be the 50 basis point (half a percent) rate cut that the Federal Reserve Chairman announced at their September 18th meeting. The forecast called for 25 basis points, but Fed Chairman Jerome Powell stated that inflation was receding at such a pace, that a 50 basis point cut was the prudent move to make. The Fed also signaled the possibility of two more rate cuts before the end of the year.
Here at boodle we welcome these cuts as this is viewed, in our opinion, as a bullish move for investors. Normally in a presidential election year, the Fed would hold off on rate cuts because they don't want the appearance of being seen as having an influence on the election.
The unemployment rate for September will be released this Friday, and we suspect that it will have changed little from the August rate of 4.2%. Tensions continue to boil over in the Middle East as the war between Israel, Hamas, and Lebanon escalated. Don't forget that October 7 marks the 1 year anniversary since Israel was attacked by Hamas which is what led to this war. We do not anticipate any escalation that would see the US play a larger role, but if the nation of Iran attacks, then we would change our view.
For the month of September, the DOW added 1.85% and its ytd total sits at 12.31%. The S&P 500 gained 2.02% for the month and this Index ytd performance is 20.81%. The NASDAQ added 2.68% for the month, and leads the 3 indexes with a ytd return of 21.17%.
As we often say, these returns are incredibly strong, and we are happy that you are sharing in this amazing stock market. For October boodle expects more gains, but we ask all of our fellow "boodlers" to exercise caution, trim back on any individual securities that have shown substantial gains, and adhere to your own personal asset allocation and your own dollar-cost-averaging strategy. We at Boodle are always here to help you if needed. You can reach out to us on this site by going to the "Contact Us" page, and sending us your questions. We promise to get back to you as soon as possible. That's it for now, enjoy the month of October and we hope to see you back here in November as we tick off the final 2 months of what has been an extraordinarily good year to be a boodle investor! Enjoy your day.