Monthly economic and market review: October 2025

Not so scary after all

October is often thought of as a month of terrifying ghosts and ghouls, scythe-yielding apparitions, shrieking bats and the odd stock market crash. This October, however, turned out to be more of a tasty pumpkin spice than a horror movie slash and slice. The Federal Reserve Bank made good on its second interest rate cut of the year and the third quarter US earnings season got off to a cracking start. At the end of the month, when the last Halloween treat had been dished out, the S&P 500 index was up 2.32% for the month. October’s gain was the sixth consecutive monthly gain for the US benchmark index and the seventh positive month out of the ten months of the year to date. So far this year, the S&P 500 has returned 16.3% with a total market return of 17.5% when dividends are included. Semiconductor chips continued to be in focus in the month as more industry deals were concluded and Advanced Micro Devices (+58.3%), Micron (+33.7%), Intel (+19.2%), Lam Research (+17.6%) and QUALCOMM (+8.7%) were all amongst the biggest gainers in October. These monthly gains only served to cement their status as some the biggest market winners this year - see the tables in the appendix below for some of the larger monthly and year-to-date price movements of stocks drawn from the S&P 500 index and the FTSE/JSE Top 40 index.

At the end of the month, the sectors that outperformed the 2.34% gain of the S&P 500 included Information Technology (+6.23%), Healthcare (+3.58%) and Consumer Discretionary (+2.37%). The underperforming sectors included Utilities (+2.10%), Communication Services (+1.86%), Industrials (+0.47%) and negative returns from Energy (-1.13%), Consumer Staples (-2.32%), Real Estate (-2.63%), Financials (-2.84%), Materials (-5.04%).

S&P 500 (blue, RHS) & FTSE/JSE All Share Index (green, LHS) – last 12 months

Pausing for air

The gold and platinum-mining stocks have run riot this year as the prices of the precious metals soared to new heights. The fantastic performance of the JSE as a whole this year, can single-handedly be ascribed to the triple digit gains of the precious metals counters. While it has certainly felt like one-way traffic skywards for most of the year, the runaway stocks took something of a breather in October as the underlying metals prices also paused after their record-breaking runs. Even after their brief respite, Sibanye Stillwater (+209.3%), Northam Platinum (+197.7%), AngloGold Ashanti (+185.3%), Gold Fields (+174.4%) and Impala Platinum (+112.4%) still top the year-to-date leaderboard with their remarkable gains. While the mining stocks were on a break, the local financials made a little hay while the sun shined. The big five local banks, the two big life insurers and a key short-term insurer were all among the top twenty winners on the JSE for the month.

When October closed, The FTSE/JSE All Share index was up +1.2% for the month for a year-to-date index return of +29.9% and a total return of +33.9%. Looking into the market, in October the Financials gained +7.4%, the Industrials lost -0.4% and the Resources sector lost -4.9%.

A great start to the earnings season

As the month drew to a close, the third quarter US earnings reporting season was at its zenith. Positive earnings surprises were the order of the day and as the season progressed, the forecasted numbers for revenue, net profit margins and earnings for the coming quarters were revised higher. There’ll still be another quarter for this year to come but the outlook is for early double-digit earnings growth in both 2025 and 2026.

Appendix: Market Movers