October Blues

Welcome to October! The temperatures are falling along with some leaves, but does the changing of the calendar from September to October mean that stock prices will be falling also? October has been a historically bad month for the stock market, but stock prices fall for many reasons. Poor earnings, worse than expected sales, poor economic reports and conditions, product recalls or failures, the list goes on and on. But stocks do not just go down because it's October. Since March, the stock market has recovered nicely, maybe too well. Stocks advanced 15% on average in the 3rd quarter alone! This has some people thinking that it may be time for a correction of some kind. Of course, many people also thought this might happen in September and it didn't. So take some profits, and sit on the sidelines this month if you are worried and can't sleep at night, but don't just sell because you turned the page on your calendar.