John Hancock: Weekly Market Recap Week Ended October 1st

September setback

The S&P 500 saw its string of seven consecutive monthly gains snapped, as the index fell 4.8% in September—its biggest monthly decline since March 2020. Despite the pullback, the S&P 500 finished the third quarter with a small overall gain of 0.2% after rising 2.3% in July and 2.9% in August.  

Value tops growth

U.S. large-cap value stocks outperformed their growth counterparts by a wide margin, as a value index sustained a weekly loss of just 0.8% relative to a growth benchmark’s 3.5% drop. The latest weekly result restores value’s performance lead over the growth equity style on a year-to-date basis.

Earnings optimism

Wall Street analysts have been lifting their expectations for third-quarter results heading into earnings season, which opens in mid-October. Over the past three months, analysts raised their average earnings-per-share estimate for companies in the S&P 500 by 2.9%, according to FactSet. However, while analysts increased their estimates in July and August, they trimmed them in September.

Jobs ahead

A monthly jobs report for September that’s scheduled to be released on Friday will show whether August’s slowdown in jobs growth was a temporary setback or the start of a longer trend. In August, U.S. payroll growth slowed sharply, as the economy generated 235,000 new jobs, trailing gains of nearly 1.1 million in July and 962,000 in June. 

Source: https://wmr.jhinvestments.com/