The S&P 500 rose 14% through September and hit a new all-time high in early October

The S&P 500 blasted into the final quarter of 2025 with a nearly spotless record, rising 14% through the end of September and hitting a fresh all-time intraday high by Friday, the third trading day of ￰0￱ kind of start is statistically close to ￰1￱ Bank of America says that every time in history the S&P 500 surged at least 10% by September’s end, it kept rising for the rest of the ￰2￱ except in 2012 when the ￰3￱ slammed by a fiscal cliff and global growth ￰4￱ year, the index gave back 1% in Q4 after gaining 15% in the first nine ￰5￱ far, 2025 doesn’t look anything like 2012. There’s no fiscal cliff, and overseas markets are not in ￰6￱ there is, however, is ￰7￱ S&P 500 is actually coming off back-to-back 20%+ gains in both 2023 and ￰8￱ as of Friday, the benchmark index closed at 6,715.79, barely higher on the day but enough to etch another record into its YTD ￰9￱ project 7,000 by December, ignore shutdown Tom Lee, head of research at Fundstrat Global Advisors, doesn’t see the rally stalling out anytime ￰10￱ told clients this week he expects the S&P 500 to reach 7,000 by December, which would be at least 4% higher than Thursday’s closing ￰11￱ said the ￰12￱ shutdown, which stretched into its third day on Friday, wasn’t a concern for markets: “It’s had little impact on stocks in the past,” he ￰13￱ called the postponed release of the September nonfarm payrolls report a “sidebar issue.” That report was scheduled for Friday but got delayed because of the funding ￰14￱ instead focused on other signals, including a report from the Institute for Supply Management, which showed the services employment index shrank for the fourth straight ￰15￱ slowdown gave traders more confidence that rate cuts from the Federal Reserve are still on the ￰16￱ though the shutdown didn’t move the S&P 500 much this week, Tom did caution that a longer lapse in federal funding could eventually weigh on ￰17￱ also warned that a spike in investor excitement might become a ￰18￱ too many people pile into stocks at once, he said, there could be no one left to buy and push prices higher ￰19￱ could freeze the rally right when people think it’s ￰20￱ and S&P 500 close at record highs, Nasdaq slips While the S&P 500 barely moved Friday, it still finished with a new all-time ￰21￱ Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 238.56 points, or 0.51%, to end at 46,758.28, also hitting a new closing ￰22￱ Nasdaq Composite wasn’t as ￰23￱ dropped 63.54 points, or 0.28%, closing at 22,780.51.

Beneath the surface, there were some sharp ￰24￱ Materials slumped by 2.7% after the chip-equipment maker said Thursday night that it expects a $600 million hit to its 2026 ￰25￱ tech sector took a hit overall, dragging on the Nasdaq’s ￰26￱ stock fell by 1.4%, showing weakness in big-name growth ￰27￱ utilities stocks ran in the opposite direction, up by 1.2% on the day, leading the sector gains inside the S&P ￰28￱ the noise, the full week looked strong across the ￰29￱ Dow added 1.1%, matching the S&P 500’s 1.1% gain, while the Nasdaq closed out the week with a 1.3% ￰30￱ capped off a bullish start to Q4, with the S&P 500 still grinding higher and holding its most perfect track ￰31￱ up to $30,050 in trading rewards when you join Bybit today