the stock market dipped monday as investors spent halloween spooked by the federal reserve’s rate hike plans but history says halloween is not typically a spinechilling day for the market the dow jones industrial average fell 03 or 110 points while the sp 500 dipped 06 and the techheavy nasdaq dropped 1 this halloween is a particularly scary one for the market and the economy as the us flirts with a recession and inflation sticks at its highest level in four decades but traders are not always fearful on the holiday on the 16 halloweens when the market was open since 2000 the dow has risen eight times and fallen eight times the dow has gained 01 on average in that span placing stocks’ trickortreat odds at nearly exactly 5050 the worst halloween in that stretch was october 31 2011 when the dow fell 23 amid the european sovereign debt crisis what to watch for monday may be halloween but investors greatest fright this week will likely come wednesday when the fed shares the results of its latest policy meeting another 75point increase to the federal funds rate is all but certain but what the central bank shares about its plans for rate hikes into 2023 will be the market’s primary focus given the strong inverse relationship between the funds rate and stock performance despite monday’s drop the dow is still on pace for its best october in the index’s 126year history up 14 the sp and nasdaq had more pedestrian months with 8 and 4 respective gains jason draho ubs global wealth management head of asset allocation for the americas wrote in a monday note to clients the latest round of quarterly earnings “were better than feared” but said the recent bear market rally “doesn’t look sustainable” given the bond market’s weakness intimating the market’s october surge was more trick than treat there’s a popular investment strategy to buy stocks october 31 and sell may 1 based on a theory that the market typically performs better from november through april than may through october dow on pace for best october ever secondbest month in 30 years forbes why the halloween indicator may work for investors in 2022 forbes