Was I Wrong On October?

The much-vaunted October market "Armageddon" came at least on the last trading day of the month. And ironically, I had written about market behaviour for the tenth month of the year just a couple of weeks ago (read here) and concluded that one should not be dictated by the time of the year when investing.

Picture generated by Meta AI

Yet, what was witnessed over the past week (23 to 30 Oct) saw a bloodbath: Alphabet fell some 12% and Intel around 24%. Though some say this could be the artificial intelligence (AI) bubble bursting, the situation did not seem to say so: Amazon, another hyperscaler, was down by about 3% in the same period, and AMD, Intel's long-time rival, saw a dip of just 2.32%. Hence, at first glance, this is not really a sector-wide wipeout as one may have thought about; the Dow even ended October higher while the Nasdaq fell¹. That said, the chipmakers had a rough Friday: AMD alone shed 10.9% in that single session after rising earlier in the week.

Still, on another front, precious metals are taking a beating, with spot gold and silver slipping below USD 3,900 and USD 50 respectively, a stark contrast to the record highs set back in January.

And not to mention cryptocurrencies; the recent Binance hack, reportedly the largest on record, added to the pressure on Bitcoin and Ethereum, which are down 7.66% and 16.53% respectively over the past month.

Behind all of these lies the macroeconomic factors, like rising inflation due to oil price spikes from the conflict in the Middle East, which may result in a rise of interest rates, among others. These events cause sidestream and downstream effects affecting every asset class, region/country, and sector/industry, positively and negatively.

Looking back at all these happenings, red October does seem to ring a bell. If a lot of people are selling out of them, where are the funds going?

Accordingly, there are signs of fund movements amongst the different sectors/industries. U.S. bonds, with their "dangerously" high yield, saw some influx as an (almost) risk-free place to park the monies, with the 10-year yield easing over the month. A sector rotation is also witnessed, with non-AI related places like energy, the S&P 500's best-performing sector in October², and defensives such as healthcare and consumer staples seeing gains.

The Bedokian's Take

My take would be the same as the last paragraph of the post a fortnight ago: stay invested, stay diversified, and manage the portfolio according to one's investment objectives and rebalancing rules. The above observations had confirmed what I had mentioned back in this post:

Capital, assumed it is limited at the point of time, would either flow to assets that provide the most deemed yield, or to perceived safe assets, or both.

Back to the question: was I wrong on October?

Yes, for this year.

Disclosure

The Bedokian is vested in Alphabet, Amazon, S&P500 via ETF, gold, silver, Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Unless stated otherwise, figures are from Yahoo Finance as of 31 Oct 2026, with stock moves measured from the 23 Oct to the 30 Oct close.

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Disclaimer

1 – DeCambre, Mark. Big Tech's scary October has a twist: Dow on track for biggest monthly lead over Nasdaq since 2022. MarketWatch. 30 Oct 2026. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/amazons-and-intels-stocks-are-set-to-plunge-but-wall-streets-october-winners-may-surprise-you-4d74e4d4 (accessed 31 Oct 2026)

2 – Schwab Center for Financial Research. Monthly Stock Sector Outlook. Charles Schwab. 30 Oct 2026. https://www.schwab.com/learn/story/stock-sector-outlook (accessed 31 Oct 2026)