${Html.ActionLink("My MarketWatch", "index", new { controller = "composite", area = "section", page = "my" })} | !{Html.ActionLink("Sign out", "LogOff", new { area = "User", controller = "Account" }, new { id = "signOutLink" })}
Welcome, ${UserDisplayName}
Log in
Become a MarketWatch member today
Mark Hulbert Archives | Email alerts
Nov. 9, 2011, 7:56 a.m. EST
By Mark Hulbert, MarketWatch
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (MarketWatch) "” Holiday shopping on Wall Street?
No, it's not too early to begin thinking about it.
That's because the seasonal pattern that goes by the name of the Santa Claus Rally has become quite well known. And once the existence of a pattern becomes too widely known, it often time shifts into earlier periods.
Consider the relative returns of the Dow Jones Industrial Average /quotes/zigman/627449/delayed DJIA -3.31% in the first half and the second half of December. Over the entire period since 1896, when the Dow was created, the stock market performed markedly better in the second half. Indeed, the market's average gain over the first half of the month was a loss.
Over the most recent decade, however, the market's average gain in the second half of December has been markedly less. In contrast, over recent decades, the first half of the month has experienced a steadily increasing return.
One big reason for this shift, I suspect, is the stock market's much-vaunted efficiency. After all, if you believed that the market was going to rally in the second half of December, and you knew that lots of other investors shared your belief, you wouldn't wait until Dec. 15 to make a year-end stock market bet. You'd instead get a jump start on everyone else and place your bet a day or two in advance.
Gradually, as more and more investors started trying to play this same game, strength in the second half of December would get shifted into the first half.
In fact, there's some evidence that some of December's strength has now shifted into November. Over the Dow's entire history since 1896, for example, December has beaten November by an average of 0.49%. Since 1990, in contrast, this spread has been just 0.01%.
Another reason that traditional year-end strength is now appearing as early as November might be tax selling by mutual funds. Only in recent decades have these funds grown to play such a prominent role in the market, of course. Further, many of the funds have fiscal years that end in October.
In fact, the good people at Lipper told me in response to a request, 21.2% of the 7,313 domestic equity funds in their database have October fiscal year-ends. If fund managers are selling losers before year-end in order to offset gains they would otherwise have to distribute to shareholders, which certainly seems plausible, then November would be the beneficiary.
The bottom line: If you're otherwise hoping to take advantage of a year-end rally, you may want to place your bets now rather than wait until December.
Click here to learn more about the Hulbert Financial Digest.
Mark Hulbert is the founder of Hulbert Financial Digest in Annandale, Va. He has been tracking the advice of more than 160 financial newsletters since 1980.
U.S. stock futures tumble on Italy fears
U.S. stocks fall sharply on Europe's woes
Italy on brink as 10-year bond yield tops 7%
Dollar surges as Italian bond yields spike
European stocks drop on Italian worries
Euro crisis chills Detroit car makers
Voters reject ideological agendas of both parties
Supercommittee gridlock could hit your investments
Private prisons prove that crime does pay
After Great October, What of Market in November?
Looking for Superstar CEO to Save You? Look Within
Gold and the Dot-Coms: Comparing the Bubbles
10 Years Ago, Enron Scandal Changed Wall Street
Mark Hulbert is editor of the Hulbert Financial Digest, which since 1980 has been tracking the performance of hundreds of investment advisors. The HFD... Expand
Mark Hulbert is editor of the Hulbert Financial Digest, which since 1980 has been tracking the performance of hundreds of investment advisors. The HFD became a service of MarketWatch in April 2002. In addition to being a Senior Columnist for MarketWatch, Hulbert writes a monthly column for Barron's.com and a column on investment strategies for the Journal of the American Association of Individual Investors. A frequent guest on television and radio shows, you may have seen Hulbert on CNBC, Wall Street Week, or ABC's World News This Morning. Most recently, Dow Jones and MarketWatch launched a new weekly newsletter based on Hulbert's research, entitled Hulbert on Markets: What's Working Now. Collapse
On the Markets
Might Santa Claus come early this year?
Portfolio Insights by Brett Arends
How to do business in Greece? You don't
Media Web
Joe Paterno's sorry chapter
Indexed Investor
New dividend ETF has yield appeal
Your Portfolio
Supercommittee could hit your investments
Read Full Article »