NEW YORK — For stock investors, there was no shortage of drama in October.
Stocks started the month modestly below a record high, only to cascade to their worst slump in two years. But after flirting with a correction, or a 10 percent drop, the U.S. market rebounded and closed at all-time highs on the last day of the month.
All told, U.S. stocks ended October solidly higher, up 2.3 percent. The Dow Jones industrial average capped the rally by rising 195.10 points, or 1.1 percent, to end at 17,390.52 on Friday. The Standard & Poor’s 500 rose 23.40 points, or 1.2 percent, to 2,018.05, and the Nasdaq composite added 64.60 points, or 1.4 percent, to 4,630.74.
Both the Dow and the S&P 500 closed at record highs.
It’s a remarkable turn given the month’s volatility, which at times approached levels from the 2008 financial crisis. Then again, the month has an unfortunate history for unsettling moves, with the stock market crashes of 1929 and 1987 both happening in October.
This October, the market’s seesaw path was driven by fears that Europe’s economy was slipping back into a recession, worries about plunging oil prices and concerns of possible weakness in the U.S. economy. Oh, and don’t forget Ebola. Those anxieties sent the market, for the most part, straight down for two weeks.
The nadir arrived Oct. 15, when the S&P 500 came within a hair’s breadth of going into a correction.
But just after the market came close to going into a correction, it bounced right back. Strong U.S. corporate earnings were the primary driver of the rebound as well as signs that central banks in Japan and Europe were going to do all they could to stop their economies from dragging everyone else down with them.
