Over the last 36 years whose first five days resulted in a stock market increase, 31 of those years experienced an overall good year for stocks. While that’s a good track record, it’s not an infallible indicator. There are three trading days left in 2008, a lost cause for the stock market.
This method has an 86% success ratio. Will you make any investing decisions based on the market’s performance during the first five trading days of January?
Published or updated December 29, 2008. If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the RSS feed or receive daily emails. Follow @flexo on Twitter and visit our Facebook page for more updates.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
You calculated a success ratio based on years where the first five days showed growth. Did you also calculate the correlation/ratio for years where the first five days showed a (strong) decrease?
Jasper: That’s a good question, I’ll see if I can put the numbers together.
Most definitely not! Relying on this kind of thing is baaaad news. Same as all the junk sports announcers always use: “Teams never come back when they’re down 0-3 in a best of seven series.”
Until it actually happens (see Red Sox). I would urge readers to try to ignore they even heard this.
@ Flexo
I hope you’re right on this because today was definitely a good start. Nice way to start off the year.
Well the five days have gone by and where are we 8952 started and ened at 8750 LOOKS like we are going to have a DOWN year onthe stock market
No one is talking about this. Everyone is IGNORING THE FACTS.