The month of October was highlighted by a deluge of earnings, Fed hike speculation and presidential debates on the domestic front. The bottom line of the S&P 500 in fact returned to growth after quarters of earnings recession. As per the Earnings Trends report issued on October 26, 2016, earnings growth of the S&P 500 in Q3 is expected to be 1.4% on 1.4% higher revenues.

On the international front, the spotlight was on the ECB as tapering talks flared up and flattened too. Among emerging markets, Brazil hogged attention. The overall impact of these events was soft on bourses. Among the top ETFs, SPY was down 1.5%, DIA was off over 0.6% and QQQ was down over 1.3%.

Let’ take a look at the events in detail what drove the broader market in October.

Banking Earnings Soothe Nerves

Prior to the reporting cycle, all eyes were on banking earnings as their financial health was in question. But the clouds dispersed as big banking companies started reporting ahead of both earnings and revenue estimates in Q3 earnings. The likelihood of a Fed rate hike in the coming days was another tailwind for financial stocks. SPDR S&P Bank ETF (KBE – ETF report) gained about over 4.3% in October.

FBI to Add to Clinton Controversy

Just days before the presidential election, FBI’s probe into democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s emails heightened uncertainty over election results. While the popularity for Clinton has been higher than Trump for a longer period, the race got closer at the eleventh hour.

As a result, Clinton-friendly stocks and ETFs got hit in recent times while republican candidate Trump-friendly investments got a lifeline. Since Trump is viewed as a dampener to Mexican currency and stocks,iShares MSCI Mexico Capped (EWW – ETF report) lost 2.4% in the last five days (as of October 31, 2016).

OPEC Deal Dicey?

While Iran was presumed to be a deterrent to the highly anticipated output cut deal by OPEC in Vienna in late November, Iraq threatened the agreement in October. Recently, Iraq indicated that it would not lower the attained oil output level of 4.7 million barrels per day, especially since the U.S. is ramping up production.