SPRINGFIELD — Wall Street saw its best quarter in a year with September — typically the worst month of the year — reporting the best monthly gains since April 2009.

Stocks of local companies were carried along with the tide.

Between July 1 and Sept. 30 financial stocks saw a somewhat volatile quarter — reacting to the mixed messages about both the job and housing market, said Mark Stephenson, founder and financial adviser at Sterling Wealth Management in Springfield.

Those stocks became weak toward the end of the month after Wall Street analyst Meredith Whitney predicted financial services industries will cut up to 80,000 people by the first quarter of 2011, said Henry Sturges, visiting assistant professor of finance and business at Wittenberg University.

Tech stocks and companies with foreign exposure benefited from the weak dollar. Sturges said. Material goods such as oil also do well with a weak dollar, he said.

With midterm elections a month away Stephenson said he doesn’t expect any more appreciation in the stock market while investors wait to see the results. The future of the Bush-era tax credits, whether they will be extended and for whom is also a factor.

“If they increase the tax rates for the highest income tax bracket that’s going to make muni bonds more attractive,” Stephenson said.

The latest concern is whether the flight to the security of Treasury bonds is creating a potential bubble.

“People just need to be very careful with those,” Stephenson said.

Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0347 or kmori@coxohio.com.