‘Tis the Season to be Overweight (Equities)

While the average and median returns of the stock market are fairly equal across the months of the year, your chances of winning are not.

Here is a figure that calculates the probability the stock market goes up in each month. This is from 1962 to 2019. I did two equal subperiods as well to show this is not a random data error. Note because the stock market has been more bullish recently this is the EXCESSS probability of going up.

You can clearly see the pattern: Stocks are most likely to increase in April and Nov/Dec.

Why? In April everyone is making IRA contributions before the Tax deadline. In Nov and Dec, everyone is trying to make 401k contributions (and related retirement investments) before the December 31st deadline.

Thus, if you like to play the horses so to speak, this is a good time to get overweight the market.