Tom Bowley Says November Could Be the Market's Best Month, With Seasonal Data Since 1950 and 1980

Bowley opens by reporting that the Fed did not raise rates at its meeting on Wednesday, October 28, 2026. He calls the outcome good news in the sense that the rate hike from the previous meeting is on hold, and says the market will now wait to see what happens at the December meeting, about six weeks away.

He notes that two voting governors dissented, wanting a quarter-point hike, but that the group as a whole agreed to leave rates unchanged. Implied odds, he says, suggested about an 80% chance of a rate hike at the next meeting even though none was announced that day.

After the 2 p.m. announcement the market showed a little volatility but no big move, with some back-and-forth trading, and finished near its daily highs, which Bowley describes as a nice finish. He adds that money rotated somewhat into offensive areas of the market after 2 p.m.

Bowley notes that the market had just entered what he describes as the most bullish time of the year historically, running from the close on October 27 through the close on January 18. He says this has been historically the best time to be in US stocks, with the history dating back to 1950.

On the first day of this window most major indices finished with small gains, and the volatility index fell by about 3.5%.

Bowley says that sometimes after a Fed meeting there are wild swings, but this time there was only some volatility in the first hour after the announcement. The S&P 500 mostly stayed between about 7720 and 7760 for the following two hours, a fairly narrow range.

He points out that technology gained relative to the S&P 500 through much of the last two hours of trading, which he describes as good to see, and says he hopes the rotation continues into November, a month he notes tends to be bullish.

Consumer discretionary showed outflows for the first 45 minutes after the announcement but then saw money rotate solidly back in during the final hour or more. Communication services, industrials and financials stayed close to flat for much of the day, with some back-and-forth after 2 p.m.

Bowley says the Dow Jones Industrial Average appears to have made a nice bottom at the beginning of October and is now trending higher, back above its 20-day moving average. He circles the price oscillator, which is making a bullish centerline crossover, and calls it nice to see momentum strengthening.

Every time the Dow has tested the 20-day moving average over the last couple of weeks, he says, it has held and started to bounce again, so things are at least starting to turn up on a short-term basis.

Bowley says the S&P 500 moved up solidly in April and May, and since then it has mostly been going sideways, with a brief run at the end of July into early August.

He suspects that after an uptrend the next move will follow the prior trend, which is higher.

Bowley describes the Nasdaq 100 as having made a big move up in April and May into early June, and then topping and trading sideways since then. The index had been below its 20-day moving average, and the 20-day and 50-day averages sit almost exactly on top of one another.

Price action has come back up over the last few days, and the index is now sitting almost right on those moving averages. Bowley says that as the market moves into Thursday, next week and November, the first thing he will be watching on the Nasdaq 100 is whether it can move back up through them.

Bowley says S&P 400 midcap momentum declined through the second half of August and throughout September, which is typical when looking at seasonality. He calls the late August to September stretch one of the weakest times, if not the weakest, of the year to be invested, and says it was a rough period for midcaps.

The index has since bottomed and is starting to turn toward the upside, with its price oscillator working back toward the centerline. Bowley says he would like to see the index back above 3700 along with a bullish oscillator crossover of that centerline.

Bowley notes that the Russell 2000 had already moved back above its 20-day moving average. Over the past couple of months, every attempt to get through that average had failed, while this week the index climbed above it and so far is holding, even with the likelihood at that point of another rate hike in about six weeks.

He says money is rotating into small caps right now, which is a good sign, and that he will see whether it continues. He also notes the price oscillator rising from underneath the centerline, and says he would like to see that cross over.

On transportation stocks, he says the sector got above its 50-day moving average on Tuesday but fell back on Wednesday, finishing almost right on the 20-day average. The oscillator has been climbing, so momentum is improving, but he says there is still work to do: getting back above Tuesday's high and breaking above and staying above the 50-day average.

Bowley says that before looking at November seasonality, he wants to point out how he defines the current secular bull market. Many people look back to 2009 and call it a bull market of 17 or 18 years, but he views it differently. He says he needed to see the S&P 500 break out above the double top from 2000 and 2007, which did not happen until April 2013. In his view the secular bull market is the 13 years since that breakout.

He explains that the market also rose from 2003 to 2007 but could not break out and turned around to new lows. When the uptrend began in 2009, there was no way to know whether it would achieve a breakout, and it could have stayed sideways or rolled over again. In his view the new secular bull market was born and confirmed only once the breakout happened.

Bowley shows the S&P 500's monthly performance since 2013 and says that since the secular bull market was confirmed, November has been higher 92% of the time, with an average gain of 3.6%. He calls it far and away the best monthly return of any month.

He says the odds of May rising have been almost as high as November's, which is interesting because many people say to sell in May. May in fact has had the highest percentage chance of the S&P 500 rising since 2013, and the gains across May, June, July and August are visible on his chart. He says the media likes the 'go away in May' theme, and that at least through this secular bull market it is proven wrong.

Looking at the fourth quarter since 2013, Bowley says the average gain has been about 5.4% during this secular bull market, which he calls not bad for three months of the year. He says the market has rallied somewhat in October and that he suspects it will keep pushing higher into November.

Bowley turns to the S&P 500 going back as far as StockCharts allows, 47 years to 1980. Looking at every month since then, he says November is the best. It has gone up about three-quarters of the time, and the average November return is 2.09%.

Only April, at 1.72%, comes close to that average. Bowley says nearly every other month's return is roughly half of November's or less, and that across these 47 years the fourth quarter has averaged about 4.5% gains over the three months.

Bowley says that from the October 27 close to the January 18 close, which his research identifies as the best time to be in stocks, the S&P 500 has risen in 67 of the last 76 years. He says this is not the time of year when the market typically tops and starts to decline.

He says investors who expect a top in this window have not had good odds over the last 76 years dating back to 1950, and that if they are thinking the market will top, they would be more inclined to watch the latter part of December into January, when a top is much more likely than now.

Bowley looks at the 13-year period from 2000 to 2012, when he says the S&P 500 went almost nowhere: it was around 1,500 in 2000 and less than 1,500 in 2012, and was basically flat. He notes that the seasonality in those years was in a completely different market environment from the secular bull market now.

Even so, he says that during that worst period to be in the S&P 500, October, November and December still averaged a gain of about 2.75%, the average over the worst period to be in the market over the last 47 years. He concludes that the fourth quarter has historically always been strong, so anyone with bearish views might want to hold them until later.

Bowley moves on to technology. During this secular bull market, technology has averaged a gain of about 1% in the last quarter of the year, above the S&P 500 on his relative seasonality table. Over the last 13 to 14 years technology has outperformed in the fourth quarter, but other quarters have performed better than the fourth quarter.

He says that even based on history, the rotation seen over the last few months could continue through the fourth quarter, which would not be unusual. He adds that consumer discretionary, over the last three months of the year, tends to roughly perform about the same as the S&P 500.

Bowley says communication services tend to lose ground in the fourth quarter during this secular bull market. Industrials are where he sees strong results: in the fourth quarter they gain more than 1% relative to the S&P 500, and January and February also look favorable. He says the sector is in a sweet spot now for industrials and for financials.

For financials, he calls the fourth-quarter record very clear: it is the best-performing group in the fourth quarter throughout this secular bull market, with average outperformance of about 3.5 percentage points above what the S&P normally earns in that quarter. Much of the rest of the year, he says, is negative for them.

Because StockCharts' earnings beats research has found industrials and financials both tending to do well in November and the fourth quarter, Bowley says he wanted to offer a couple of stocks to watch.

Bowley says AFLAC has gone up every November during this secular bull market, and that he counts 15 years, although the most recent November (2026) has not yet been seen, so the record covers the last 14 years. He says the chart has started strengthening in October and really accelerates in November.

He says that as the calendar flips to October, AFLAC starts strengthening, and that a pullback toward the 20-day moving average right before November could be an interesting trade based on the current technical picture and what is known about seasonality going into November.

Bowley notes that there are 20 stocks in the S&P 1500, covering large, midcap and small-cap companies, that have gone up in November for at least 13 consecutive years, one company up 19 consecutive years and another up 18. StockCharts plans to pass that list along in its upcoming November seasonality report.

Bowley names Illinois Tool Works as an industrial company that loves November. He says its November average gain is 5.1% over the last 14 years, and that it has been up every single year in that month.

He notes that the ITW chart has been strengthening into October, that it now sits almost right on the 20-day moving average, and that it has just seen a golden cross, so the stock is starting to look technically better going into a month in which it has not gone down in the last 14 years.

Bowley then tells viewers that StockCharts will provide a free November seasonality report to anyone who signs up, with no credit card required, via a QR code on screen or a link in the video description, and that the report will be sent that weekend.

Bowley closes by pointing out a short window. From the October 27 close to the November 5 close, a period of roughly ten days or a week and a half, he says the S&P 500 produced an annualized return of more than 67%, the NASDAQ 100 about 80%, and the small-cap Russell 2000 over 90%. He calls this a very bullish period that has just begun.

He signs off by saying he will be back next week to do it all again.