Dow’s Return by Day of the Week/Month

Here’s the Dow’s average return by day of the week/month. You can tell I’ve been busy with my spreadsheets.

There are a total of 156 different day-week combinations. (Friday the 13th isn’t so bad.) There was a brief trading session on Saturdays up to the 1950s.

The Dow’s best day is Wednesday the 4th which barely beats out Wednesday the 1st. The worst day is Monday the 25th.

Days Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
1st 0.070% 0.098% 0.274% 0.053% 0.215% 0.160%
2nd 0.085% 0.142% 0.096% 0.177% 0.248% 0.122%
3rd 0.087% 0.010% 0.159% -0.073% 0.243% 0.136%
4th -0.078% 0.036% 0.274% -0.052% 0.074% 0.129%
5th 0.092% 0.134% 0.033% 0.014% 0.060% 0.135%
6th -0.018% 0.216% 0.128% 0.096% 0.096% 0.051%
7th -0.051% -0.145% 0.012% -0.061% -0.069% 0.100%
8th -0.146% 0.017% 0.053% 0.056% 0.016% -0.226%
9th -0.146% -0.176% -0.064% 0.017% -0.018% 0.115%
10th 0.006% -0.047% -0.048% 0.064% 0.048% 0.238%
11th -0.018% 0.074% -0.046% 0.064% 0.030% -0.141%
12th 0.002% -0.119% 0.015% -0.151% 0.003% -0.439%
13th -0.035% -0.021% 0.012% 0.012% 0.057% 0.082%
14th 0.028% 0.049% -0.091% -0.004% 0.128% 0.142%
15th -0.103% 0.042% 0.145% 0.002% 0.073% 0.157%
16th -0.124% 0.253% -0.013% 0.190% 0.066% 0.046%
17th -0.139% 0.175% 0.040% 0.157% -0.004% -0.047%
18th -0.254% 0.129% -0.019% 0.055% -0.087% 0.129%
19th -0.248% -0.095% -0.056% -0.025% -0.062% 0.048%
20th -0.125% 0.135% -0.012% -0.044% 0.039% 0.102%
21st -0.134% -0.046% 0.066% -0.024% 0.022% -0.103%
22nd -0.119% -0.022% -0.079% 0.015% 0.021% 0.030%
23rd -0.161% -0.112% 0.068% -0.045% 0.052% -0.015%
24th -0.118% 0.088% 0.119% -0.151% 0.018% 0.110%
25th -0.318% -0.010% 0.099% -0.048% 0.011% -0.080%
26th -0.158% 0.149% 0.115% 0.003% 0.132% 0.086%
27th -0.179% -0.037% 0.106% 0.149% -0.118% 0.147%
28th -0.130% 0.084% -0.034% 0.091% 0.117% -0.074%
29th -0.147% 0.011% 0.023% 0.085% 0.168% 0.218%
30th -0.054% 0.209% 0.089% -0.048% 0.157% 0.189%
31st -0.018% 0.030% 0.043% 0.033% 0.068% 0.096%

One small footnote. Saturday the 12th really isn’t that bad. It includes December 12, 1914 when the Dow switched to a new index. The market shut down at the advent of World War 1. The Dow folks then started a new index and back-dated it to 1914. As a result, the new index is not continuous with the previous index. In my data, it’s listed as a big drop even though it never really happened.

Posted by on January 20th, 2021 at 2:58 pm


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