We had quite a turnaround in the S&P500 last month over what we saw in August

Overall I'd say you're just plain unlucky if you did not manage to make money in stocks last month. The average stock in the S&P500 returned 2.3% in September. Not only that, but that return came with little fanfare. Volatility was down from August, and significantly lower than average return. Remember the old song about the monkey throwing darts at the newspaper? In August the monkey made lots of money.

And if our stock picking monkey happened to dart any of these 10 best performing stocks last month, he did even better.

Alas, as with every month in every market, it's still possible to lose money. Even in the best of times there are companies, and even whole sectors, where invested dollars shrivel and shrink. Such was the case with the S&P500's lowest performing stocks in September 2007. Consumer Discretionary stocks such as the twin Depots - Office and Home - lagged the overall market by a considerable margin.

Hopefully you didn't have any of September's S&P500 dogs in your portfolio. I wish I could say I didn't have any of them myself. Fortunately my exposure wasn't too great and overall I ended up with a decent return. I have my fingers crossed that October yields some better picks.