April Ain’t the Cruelest Month

From Gary Alexander:

The market’s best month begins on Friday – no fooling. April is the best-performing month in market history, rising by an average 2% since 1950 (as measured by the Dow Jones Industrials).

The story gets even better in recent years. Over the last 50 years, the Dow has gained an average 2.02% in April (#2 is December – up only 1.51%). Over the last 20 years, the Dow has averaged 2.65% gains in April – 85 basis points above December’s second-best 1.80%. And over the last five years, April has grown every year, netting an average gain of 4.25% in the Dow and S&P.

As spring flowers unfold, so do stocks: April 1999 was the first month to gain over 1000 Dow points. Then, the Dow gained 856 points two years later, in April 2001 and 708 points in April 2007. The broader market indexes have done even better: In April 2009, the Russell 2000 rose by an astonishing 15.3% (double the Dow’s gain) and in April 2001, NASDAQ rose 15%.

The best month ever, in percent terms, was April of 1933 (FDR’s first full month in office) at +40.2%. Since 1950, we’ve seen 42 rising Aprils and 19 downers, including a 3.8% drop in 2005, but we haven’t seen a real stinker since April 1970 (-9%), but how about April of 2011?

Posted by on April 2nd, 2011 at 8:17 am


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