September 2025
Summary
September brought the first U.S. Fed interest rate cut of the year, an outcome that seemed unlikely when 2025 began. Global stocks continued to climb through the end of the third quarter. Against mixed economic data and a looming government shutdown, investors retained their risk appetites with major asset classes finishing higher across the board. Dollar weakness persisted in September, providing a boost to non-USD assets and gold prices reached all-time highs regularly throughout the month.
Equities
U.S. stocks shrugged off soft employment numbers to edge higher for the month. With investor interest in AI beginning to show signs of potential slowing, resilient consumer data, optimism around lower interest rates, and increased M&A activity gave equities enough steam to gain for a fifth consecutive month. Emerging markets were the top performer for September, continuing another impressive streak – EM equities have been positive in each month of 2025 thus far.
Fixed Income
High quality bonds outperformed, and duration paid in September. Treasury yields fell for the first half of the month on rate cut hopes, before correcting slightly higher into the end of the third quarter. The Federal Reserve put through the first interest rate cut of the year on September 17th, approving a 0.25% reduction to the Fed Funds rate, and signaling an expectation for two additional cuts before year-end. The 30-year Treasury yield fell more than 30 basis points from its September high leading into the FOMC announcement. Credit spreads were little changed for the month.
1 – Russell 1000, 2 – Russell 2000, 3 – MSCI EAFE, 4 – MSCI Emerging Markets, 5 – Bloomberg US Agg, 6 – Bloomberg US Long Gov/Credit
7 – Bloomberg US Corporate High Yield, 8 – Bloomberg Gold Subindex, 9 – Bloomberg Commodity
Highland Consulting Associates, Inc. is a registered investment adviser. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer of solicitation for the sale or purchase of specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investments involve risk and unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Be sure to first consult with a qualified financial adviser and/or tax professional before implementing any strategy discussed herein. Past performance is not indicative of future performance.
Disclosure Statements
Source: Bloomberg Index Services Limited. BLOOMBERG® is a trademark and service mark of Bloomberg Finance L.P. and its affiliates (collectively “Bloomberg”). Bloomberg or Bloomberg’s licensors own all proprietary rights in the Bloomberg Indices. Bloomberg does not approve or endorse this material or guarantee the accuracy or completeness of any information herein, nor does Bloomberg make any warranty, express or implied, as to the results to be obtained therefrom, and, to the maximum extent allowed by law, Bloomberg shall not have any liability or responsibility for injury or damages arising in connection therewith.
Source: London Stock Exchange Group plc and its group undertakings (collectively, the “ LSE Group” ). © LSE Group [year]. FTSE Russell is a trading name of certain of the LSE Group companies. “ FTSE®” “ Russell®” , “ FTSE Russell®” are trade mark(s) of the relevant LSE Group companies and are used by any other LSE Group company under license. “ TMX®” is a trade mark of TSX, Inc. and used by the LSE Group under license. All rights in the FTSE Russell indexes or data vest in the relevant LSE Group company which owns the index or the data. Neither LSE Group nor its licensors accept any liability for any errors or omissions in the indexes or data and no party may rely on any indexes or data contained in this communication. No further distribution of data from the LSE Group is permitted without the relevant LSE Group company’s express written consent. The LSE Group does not promote, sponsor or endorse the content of this communication.
Copyright MSCI 2017. Unpublished. All Rights Reserved. This information may only be used for your Internal use, may not be reproduced or redisseminated in any form and may not be used to create any financial instruments or products or any indices. This information is provided on an "as is" basis and the users of this information assumes the entire risk of any use it may make or permit to be made of this information. Neither MSCI, any of its affiliates or any other person involved in or related to compiling, computing or creating this information makes any express or implied warranties or representations with respect to such information, or the results to be obtained by the use thereof, and MSCI, its affiliates and each such other person hereby expressly disclaim all warranties (including, without limitation, all warranties of originality, accuracy, completeness, timeliness, non- infringement, merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose) with respect to this information. Without limiting any of the foregoing, in no event shall MCSI, any of its affiliates or any other person involved in or related to compiling, computing or creating this information have any liability for any direct, indirect, special, incidental, punitive, consequential or any other damages. The MSCI information is the exclusive property of Morgan Stanley Capital International ("MSCI") and many not be reproduced or redisseminated in any form or used to create any financial products or indices without MSCI's express prior written permission. The information is provided "as is" without any express or implied warranties. In no event shall MSCI or any of its affiliates or information providers have any liability of any kind to any persons or entity arising from or related to this information.
