Every year, as the end of summer approaches, monarch butterflies head for Mexico, birds migrate south for the winter, and financial pundits predict that the stock market is about to crash. Is the longstanding popular belief that September and October are the worst months for stocks valid?
Yes and no—mostly no.
Yes, some of the worst days in Wall Street’s history have hit during September and October….
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This article was originally published on The Wall Street Journal.
Further reading
Benjamin Graham, The Intelligent Investor
Jason Zweig, The Devil’s Financial Dictionary
Jason Zweig, Your Money and Your Brain
Jason Zweig, The Little Book of Safe Money
Research papers on seasonality in the stock market and other assets by Lisa Kramer and her colleagues