Top 5 Stock Gains for October 2026: PTC, Accenture, Hasbro, Crown Castle and Equifax Lead the S&P 500

Every month on Master in Finance, we break down the five best-performing stocks in the S&P 500 and, more importantly, why they moved. Two weeks ago I published a mid-month check-in because the first half of October was packed with news. Since then, third-quarter earnings season has reshuffled the leaderboard. Three names from that early list fell away, and three new ones forced their way in.

The returns below run from the September 30 close through the October 26, 2026 close, using month-to-date data from Top Stocks YTD (sourced from Yahoo Finance) and cross-checked against StockTitan's October 2026 rankings. There are still a few trading days left, so I will confirm final numbers in our November recap.

Here is the backdrop that makes these five stand out. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) gained just 0.94% for the month through the latest close, according to StockTitan. Across 4,416 U.S.-listed companies, only 51% were higher and the median stock moved +0.1%. Energy led on a median basis (+7.4%) while basic materials lagged badly (-7.0%). In other words, October was a flat month for the average stock, and each of our winners gained more than 30 times what the index did.

The October 2026 Leaderboard

Rank	Company	Ticker	October Gain (MTD)	2026 YTD	Main Catalyst
1	PTC Inc.	PTC	+38.45%	+11.50%	$22.6 billion all-cash buyout by Schneider Electric
2	Accenture	ACN	+35.91%	-5.95%	Fiscal Q4 beat and record $100M+ bookings
3	Hasbro	HAS	+34.53%	+47.13%	Magic: The Gathering tops $600M in a quarter
4	Crown Castle	CCI	+31.24%	+2.28%	SpaceX spectrum deal and tower leasing hopes
5	Equifax	EFX	+30.11%	-16.96%	Q3 mortgage revenue beat and an analyst upgrade

Source: Top Stocks YTD, data as of October 27, 2026 (Oct 26 close). Price returns, split adjusted.

One thing I noticed right away: three of these five stocks are still down for the year or barely positive. October was less about momentum and more about beaten-down companies getting a fresh look.

1. PTC Inc. (PTC): +38.45%

What happened: PTC kept its crown from our mid-month list for the simplest reason in investing. Someone agreed to buy it. On October 5, Schneider Electric announced it would acquire the industrial software maker for $205 per share in cash, which values PTC's equity at about $22.6 billion and its enterprise value at about $23.7 billion, per The Next Web. That price is a 42.3% premium to PTC's October 2 close of $144.03, and it is Schneider's largest acquisition to date.

PTC makes computer-aided design (CAD) and product lifecycle management (PLM) software used by more than 30,000 manufacturers. Schneider already owns AVEVA, which covers how factories operate. PTC adds how products are designed and built. Schneider CEO Olivier Blum framed it as "an important step forward in our ambition to lead the new era of Energy and Industrial Intelligence."

The other side of the trade: Schneider shares fell close to 10% in Paris on the announcement, wiping out almost €15 billion in market value, according to The Tech Capital. The deal will be funded with roughly €5 to €6 billion of new equity and €16 to €17 billion of new debt. Acquirers often fall when they pay a big premium, and this was a textbook example.

What we are watching: PTC closed near $194.25, about 5.5% below the $205 offer. That gap is the merger arbitrage spread, and it exists because the deal is not expected to close until the third quarter of 2027 and still needs shareholder and regulatory approval. For current holders, the big move is done. The remaining upside is small unless a rival bidder appears.

2. Accenture (ACN): +35.91%

What happened: Accenture opened October with a bang. On October 1, the consulting giant reported fiscal fourth-quarter results and jumped 17.16% to $214.84 in a single session, the strongest gain in the S&P 500 that day, per ChartMill. It kept climbing the rest of the month.

The numbers that mattered, according to Finviz:

Adjusted EPS of $3.29 versus a consensus of $3.19
Quarterly revenue of $18.7 billion, with fiscal 2026 revenue reaching $74.2 billion
New bookings of $22.2 billion, roughly 1.2 times revenue (a book-to-bill ratio above 1 signals future work is outpacing current billing)
A record 141 client bookings of $100 million or more
A plan to return at least $9.5 billion to shareholders in fiscal 2027

CEO Julie Sweet said the firm "exceeded our fourth-quarter revenue guidance range" and capped "another year of broad-based growth."

Why it matters: this was a valuation re-rating. At the end of June, Accenture traded at just 10.0 times trailing earnings, its lowest quarter-end multiple since fiscal 2016, according to Trefis. By mid-October it was back to about 16.6 times, still well below the S&P 500's 22.7 times. Investors had priced in the fear that AI would hollow out consulting. Instead, consulting revenue grew 7% in local currency in Q4, up from just 1% in Q3.

What we are watching: fiscal 2027 guidance calls for 3% to 6% local-currency growth, and management flagged lower pricing in many parts of the business. The fiscal Q1 2027 report will show whether that 7% consulting quarter was a turning point or a one-off.

3. Hasbro (HAS): +34.53%

What happened: Hasbro is the only stock on this list that was already a big 2026 winner before October, and it got stronger. On October 20, the toy and games company reported third-quarter results that topped estimates, and shares jumped about 11% that day, per TIKR.

The star was Magic: The Gathering, which crossed $600 million in quarterly revenue for the first time. Magic revenue rose 34% to $616.1 million, driven by The Hobbit set (already the fourth best-selling Magic set ever) and Reality Fracture, according to ICv2. Hasbro also:

Raised 2026 revenue growth guidance to 7% to 9% in constant currency, up from 5% to 7%
Doubled its 2026 share repurchase target to at least $200 million
Reported a 49% operating margin in its Wizards of the Coast and Digital Gaming segment

"Inspiring a lifetime of play is our superpower, and this quarter showed what it can do," CEO Chris Cocks said in the company's SEC filing.

Why it matters: Hasbro is no longer really valued as a toy company. It is increasingly valued as a high-margin intellectual property (IP) business powered by trading cards. Cocks said trading cards have become the No. 1 category in toys and games, calling it a generational structural shift.

What we are watching: quality of earnings. The quarter included about $55 million of tariff refunds, and roughly $40 million of Magic sales were pulled forward from Q4 into Q3. Hasbro's own filing warns that its sales and profits are increasingly concentrated in Magic. The Star Trek set in November is the next test.

4. Crown Castle (CCI): +31.24%

What happened: Crown Castle got two boosts this month, both tied to SpaceX. First, SpaceX agreed to buy a nationwide block of 800 MHz low-band spectrum from Grain Management for about $8 billion in cash. Elon Musk called it "the last critical piece of the spectrum puzzle" for full phone coverage, as reported by IBTimes.

Then, after Crown Castle's third-quarter report on October 21, Bloomberg reported that SpaceX was negotiating access to at least 80,000 U.S. cell sites to become a fourth national wireless carrier. Crown Castle shares jumped about 12% on that news.

The quarter itself was solid too. Adjusted funds from operations (AFFO), the key cash flow metric for REITs, came in at $1.24 per share, up 11% year over year and above the $1.16 estimate. Management also nudged its full-year site rental revenue outlook up by $20 million to a $3.875 billion midpoint, according to the company's 8-K filing.

Why towers win: Crown Castle owns about 40,000 towers, and roughly 75% of its revenue comes from Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T. A fourth national carrier means more tenants per tower, which is the core economics of the tower business. Each new tenant adds revenue at almost no extra cost.

What we are watching: SpaceX has not announced any tower agreements yet. Crown Castle's CEO said new leasing this year will land at the bottom of its range. Morningstar still describes Crown Castle as a stable, slow-growing operator, per Kapitalmarktexperten. Right now this rally is built on expectations, not signed leases.

5. Equifax (EFX): +30.11%

What happened: Equifax is the comeback story of the month. The credit bureau started October near $137 and climbed to about $176 by October 20, a roughly 29% move in three weeks, according to StocksToTrade.

The big catalyst was its October 20 third-quarter report. Shares soared 10.7% that day as revenue rose 10% to $1.69 billion and mortgage revenue jumped 15% despite a much weaker mortgage market, per TIKR. Two days later, Argus upgraded the stock to Buy with a $200 price target, adding another 6%.

Why it matters: this rally happened even though Equifax cut its 2026 revenue guidance to about $6.66 billion at the midpoint and issued fourth-quarter guidance below expectations. With 30-year mortgage rates above 7%, loan volumes are weak. So why the jump? Valuation. Before earnings, Equifax traded at about 17.7 times forward earnings, far below its five-year average, and its adjusted EPS guidance of $8.50 held steady. When expectations are low, "less bad than feared" can move a stock a lot.

Peer TransUnion gained about 30% in October too, which tells me this was partly a sector-wide rebound in credit data stocks.

What we are watching: whether mortgage weakness drags into 2027. Equifax is still down nearly 17% for the year, so October repaired some damage but not all of it.

Who Dropped Off Since Mid-Month

Comparing this list to our October 13 snapshot is a lesson in itself:

SBA Communications (SBAC), Everpure (P) and Humana (HUM) fell out of the top five after leading in early October.
Fair Isaac (FICO) was the No. 2 S&P 500 performer in mid-October with a gain near 30%, then fell 13.09% in a single session on October 26, per ChartMill.
Accenture, Hasbro and Equifax all earned their spots through earnings reports in the second half of the month.

Honorable Mentions

These names just missed the cut, based on Top Stocks YTD data:

CDW Corporation (CDW): +27.36%
Roper Technologies (ROP): +26.72%, including a 9.52% jump on October 22 after Q3 results
APA Corporation (APA): +24.99%, riding October's energy strength
Lockheed Martin (LMT): +24.73%
Intuit (INTU): +23.85%, a bounce for a stock still down about 48% this year

What October's List Tells Us

Three lessons stand out to me this month.

First, low expectations are a powerful catalyst. Accenture, Crown Castle and Equifax all entered October with negative or flat year-to-date returns. None of them reported spectacular growth. They simply did better than a pessimistic market expected. As Benjamin Graham famously put it, "In the short run, the market is a voting machine but in the long run, it is a weighing machine." October was a month when the voting swung hard.

Second, earnings season decides everything. Four of our five winners had a specific, dated earnings or deal event behind the move. Broad themes like AI help explain the backdrop, but the biggest gains came from concrete numbers.

Third, leaders rotate fast. In just two weeks, three of our mid-month leaders were replaced. FICO went from near the top to a 13% one-day drop. If you had chased the October 13 list, your results would look very different from this one.

What This Means If You Own an Index Fund

I get this question every month: "Should I care about any of this if I own an S&P 500 fund?" My honest answer is only a little.

The S&P 500 is market-cap weighted, so the largest companies drive the index. PTC (about $21 billion), Equifax (about $21 billion), Hasbro (about $17 billion) and Crown Castle (about $37 billion) are relatively small members. Even Accenture, at roughly $151 billion, is a fraction of the index. That is why SPY gained less than 1% while these five gained 30% or more.

Here is how I explain it to friends. If you owned $10,000 of an S&P 500 index fund, your stake in PTC was likely worth only a few dollars. Its buyout was fantastic for PTC shareholders, but for index investors it was a rounding error.

What matters more for index investors is breadth. The S&P 500 is up about 12.14% year to date, while the median member is up only 9.41%, according to Top Stocks YTD. A handful of big winners, led by Moderna's 574% gain, are doing much of the lifting. That is a reminder of why we personally keep the core of our portfolio in broad index funds, and why I write these lists to understand markets rather than to trade them.

What Comes Next

October has three trading days left, and big reports from Seagate, Teradyne, GE Vernova and Apple land between now and early November. PTC reports on November 4, and Everpure follows on November 18. Any of those could shake up next month's list.

We will publish the final October numbers alongside our November recap. Until then, you can catch up on how September's winners and August's winners have held up.

This article is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Do your own research or consult a licensed financial professional before investing.