The Wall Street bronze Bull looks out to an empty Broadway in Lower Manhattan, New York, on Aug. 28, 2011, as Hurricane Irene hits the city and tri-state area with rain and high winds.
Stan Honda | Afp | Getty Images
This report is from today’s CNBC Daily Open, our international markets newsletter. CNBC Daily Open brings investors up to speed on everything they need to know, no matter where they are. Like what you see? You can subscribe here.
What you need to know today
Oil slump boosts markets
All major U.S. indexes rose Monday on soft oil prices while investors awaited Big Tech earnings. Asia-Pacific markets traded mixed Tuesday. Japan’s Nikkei 225 extended gains to a second day, up 0.7% as the country’s jobless rate for September dropped to 2.4% from 2.5% the previous month.
Japan uncertainty
Japan’s economic policy appears uncertain after Monday’s lower house election, in which the ruling Liberal Democratic Party lost its majority. That’s because it’s unclear what the new coalition government will look like, and if current Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba will manage to stay in power.
Chinese IPOs in the U.S. and Hong Kong
There will be more Chinese companies listing in the U.S. and Hong Kong next year, according to analysts. There have been a few high-profile IPOs already this year, such as Chinese autonomous driving company WeRide listing on the Nasdaq and CR Beverage in Hong Kong last week. Heightened investor sentiment, lower interest rates and fewer regulatory issues are behind the increase in IPOs.
HSBC announces share buybacks
HSBC beat expectations for its third-quarter earnings and revenue, the bank said Tuesday. Pre-tax profit rose 10% from a year ago, while quarterly revenue increased 5%. However, net interest margin dipped by 24 basis points. Europe’s largest lender also announced a $3 billion share buyback program, bringing the total amount so far this year to $9 billion.
[PRO] How to trade Japan’s election
After Japan voted on Monday, the Nikkei 225 rose on the results. But that might not herald a long-term trend. Here’s how market strategists think Japanese assets will behave as the dust settles on Japan’s election.
The bottom line
November is one of my favorite months of the year. The weather starts getting chilly as the wet and blustery monsoon, bringing cold November rain, sweeps across Southeast Asia.
Markets also like November, though for completely different reasons. They like heat, and November brings it.
Average returns for the S&P 500 in November across several time periods — since 1950, past 10 years, election years — have been the highest compared with any other month, according to Carson Group data. The last time the S&P fell more than 1% in November was during the global financial crisis of 2008.
That observation’s corroborated by Goldman Sachs, which notes that Oct. 28 marks the beginning of “the best trading period of Q4 for U.S. equities with data going back to 1928,” wrote Scott Rubner, the bank’s managing director for global markets.
Markets did indeed rise yesterday. The S&P added 0.27%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.65% and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.26%. That added to the S&P’s year-to-date gain, which stands at 22.1%.
That strong showing in the earlier part of the year boosts November’s seasonal effect even more, according to Bank of America’s Chief Equity Technical Strategist Stephen Suttmeier.
“When the SPX is up YTD through October, which is the likely scenario for 2024, the index is up 79% of the time for the November-December period on average,” wrote Suttmeier in a Monday note.
Before getting too excited, however, keep in mind analysts are bullish on stocks over a two-month period. The year ahead stretches long and wide: nothing lasts forever, even stocks’ November reign.
— CNBC’s Alex Harring, Pia Singh, Scott Schnipper, Hakyung Kim and Tanaya Macheel contributed to this report.