Monday, February 2, 2015

Welcome to Everyone's Least Favorite Month

Today is the first trading day of February, and investors might be expecting the market to be like the weather: cold and unforgiving. Over the past 20 years, February has had, on the aggregate, a negative return, with the S&P 500 index losing an average of 0.2 percent.

Only August has been a worse performer over that span, with an average monthly change of -0.9 percent. But the summer is historically a poor time overall for stocks. October through May is the part of the year when stocks make most of their money - and February is the only dud in that bunch.

There are two good things to say about this month. One, the trend has shown signs of turning around, with the last five Februarys all finishing in positive territory. And two, if this month has to be brutal, at least it's short.

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