October is behind us, and it wasn’t a great month for market bulls.  The S&P 500-tracking SPY ETF was down 1.71%, and the average stock in the index was down even more at -2.39%.  Mid-caps did worse than large-caps, and small-caps did worse than mid-caps.  The Russell 2,000 ETF — IWM — finished October down 4.9%.

Looking at S&P 500 sectors, Financials (XLF) and Utilities (XLU) were the only two that gained in October, while Health Care (XLV) took a big hit with a drop of 6.28%.  Consumer Discretionary (XLY), Energy (XLE), Telecom (IYZ), and Materials (XLB) were all down more than 2%.

Outside of the US, Brazil (EWZ) continued its epic 2016 run with a gain of 11.67% in October.  EWZ is now up 82% year-to-date.  Aside from Brazil, Mexico (EWW) saw the next biggest gain at +4.36%, followed by Spain (EWP), Italy (EWI), and Japan (EWJ).  The UK (EWU) fell the most of the country ETFs in our matrix with a drop of 5.68%.

The broad commodities ETF — DBC — ended pretty much flat for the month, which leaves it up 12.65% year-to-date.  Oil (USO) and natural gas (UNG) fell marginally in October, while gold (GLD) and silver (SLV) fell 3.39% and 7.20%, respectively.  Finally, the 20+ Year Treasury ETF (TLT) saw a big drop in October as interest rates rose.  For the month, TLT fell 4.75%, leaving it down 5.71% in the second half but still up 8.62% on the year.