Copy + Paste:
Historically, the first few trading days of January have been among the strongest for stock performance, because this is when individuals and pension plans add big chunks of new money to retirement accounts. Whether people follow their normal pattern and pump money into stocks in January can be a sign of the market’s prospects for the coming weeks, and even for the entire year.
If stocks rise in January, they often finish the year strongly. If stocks are weak during this normally propitious time, stocks tend to do poorly…
…In years when the Dow has risen in the first month of the year, the median rise for the rest of the year is 10.4%. In years when the Dow has fallen, the median rise for the next 11 months is just 0.28%.
Because of the inflows of new cash, January has seen stock advances 62% of the time since 1900, well above the average of 57% for all months.
In fact, November, December and January typically are the market’s strongest three-month stretch, as investors position themselves for the new year. Early December often is soft, possibly because tax-conscious investors are selling losing stocks to generate tax losses that they can balance against taxable gains in other stocks. If things are on a normal footing, that weakness should be over by late December, and stocks should be rising ahead of a strong January…
Link:
As Goes January, So Goes the Year?, E.S. Browning, Wall Street Journal, 1/4/2010. (Read Full Article)