FINANCIAL BLOG

LPL Research provides its Weekly Market Performance for the week of September 29, 2025. Major U.S. averages bucked historical trends for September to deliver a solid monthly advance, simultaneously sealing healthy gains for the third quarter. Stocks kicked off the final quarter of 2025 on a positive note, logging weekly gains on the back of healthcare and technology shares, despite a political standoff in Washington leading to a government shutdown.

U.S. equity markets have bucked the weak September seasonality trend (thus far) and rallied to fresh highs this month, with the S&P 500 holding onto a 2.7% monthly gain as of September 26. The melt-up has been underpinned by the Federal Reserve (Fed) delivering on rate cut expectations without any hawkish surprises, earnings optimism, and continued support of the artificial intelligence (AI) secular growth theme.

LPL Research provides its Weekly Market Performance for the week of September 22, 2025.The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite both closed at record highs on Monday before losing ground the next three sessions. Gains on Friday, after reassuring inflation data helped pare weekly losses, were not enough to bring the major averages back to breakeven (as of 3:00 p.m. ET on Friday).