Thursday, May 6, 2010

Sell In May & ???

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On April 30th Itz posted the following...

As the old stock market adage states, “Sell in May and go away,” emphasizing that the worst part of the year for stock performance is the months between May and November. To be sure, a $10,000 investment in the Dow Jones purchased in November and sold in April grows to $480,000, while the same strategy employed between May through October shows a loss of $328 (study: between 1950 – 2003) . . . thus, “sell in May and go away.” Itz is not suggesting to sell, however one must take this into consideration and hedge accordingly.

One of the most used adages in investing with years of data to back it up. But another interesting set of data is the 2003 to 2009 period, albeit a short time period, it does present some interesting results.
Let us look at the last seven years -
For 2009, "Sell in May" certainly didn't work, since the S&P 500 gained 18.7% from May 1 to October 31, 2009 and it added another 14.5% in the six months ending April 30, 2010. But what about the NEXT six months?
Itz has been looking for a pullback and on a shorter term period been cautious, but longer term remains bullish. Hedge accordingly.

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