June’s Quad Witching Options Expiration – A Volatility Haven The second Quadruple Witching Week of the year brings on some volatile trading with losses frequently exceeding gains. NASDAQ has the weakest record on the first trading day of the week, down 23 times in 42 years. Quad-Witching Friday is usually better, S&P 500 has been up 12 of the last 21 years, but down 6 of the last 8. Full-week performance is choppy as well, littered with greater than 1% moves in both directions. The week after June’s Quad-Witching Day is horrendous. This week has experienced DJIA losses in 28 of the last 34 years with an average performance of –0.83%. S&P 500 and NASDAQ have fared better during the week after over the same 34-year span. S&P 500 averaged –0.49%. NASDAQ has averaged +0.03%. Sizable gains in 2021 and 2022 during the week after improved historical average performance notably.
View From The Top: 1999 vs. Now Tue, Jun 18, 2024 Breadth has been the topic of the week with the market cap weighted S&P 500 pushing to new highs, leaving behind cumulative AD lines and equal-weight measures of the same index. This means the index's largest stocks are providing an outsized boost to performance, so in the charts below we take a look at the weighting of those largest stocks over the years. As shown below, the combined market cap of what are currently the 30 largest stocks in the S&P 500 account for almost 53% of the index. Looking back to the comparable point of the year 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 years ago, it has been common for the 30 largest stocks to account for around 40% of the S&P 500's total market cap. However, the current reading is over 10 percentage points higher than even June 1999 when the 30 largest accounted for 42.18%. As we have mentioned in the past, even though one stock may be a giant at one point in time, it is not guaranteed to hold its dominance. In the chart below we show the number of stocks that currently rank as one of the top 30 largest S&P 500 members and also ranked in the top 30 in years past. As shown, only around half of the current mega-caps were also mega-caps of a decade ago. Setting the calendar back a quarter century, a third of the 30 largest S&P 500 stocks were also in the top 30 in 1999. Below we show the 30 S&P 500 members that currently have the largest market caps. Of these, there are only a couple, Tesla (TSLA) and Johnson and Johnson (JNJ), that have provided a negative return in the past year. Granted, TSLA has also been a ten bagger over the past five years. The only other stock that boasts such an outstanding gain is, of course, NVIDIA (NVDA). Below is a look at the 30 largest stocks in the S&P 500 as it stood twenty-five years ago in June 1999. As previously mentioned, there are ten stocks in the current top 30 that were in the top 30 in June 1999 (highlighted in grey below). At the top of the list is the familiar face of Microsoft (MSFT) with an inflation adjusted market cap (in 2024 prices) of $816 bn back then. Like TSLA and NVDA now, MSFT had also been a ten bagger over the previous five years. However, one difference between 1999 and now is that stocks with such large gains had much more company back then. Whereas currently there are only two of the 30 largest stocks that are up 1,000%+ in the last five years, in 1999 there were five: MSFT, Cisco (CSCO), WorldCom, Time Warner, and Dell (DELL). Again, only one of those is still a mega-cap today while others like WorldCom had more dramatic falls from grace following bankruptcies only a few years later. In comparing 1999 to today, currently the S&P 500 is in fact more concentrated at the top. Just the top three stocks today—MSFT, AAPL, and NVDIA—account for over 20% of total S&P 500 market cap compared to around 9% for the comparable three—MSFT, GE, and Exxon—in 1999.
Nearing 10x Sales for Large-Cap Tech Thu, Jun 20, 2024 In today's Chart of the Day we took a look at valuations across the Tech sector and how things stand relative to historical extremes. (It's an eye-opening read, so make sure to check it out if you haven't seen it yet.) Below is a quick look at trailing 12-month price to sales ratios (P/S) over the last five years for the large-cap S&P 500 and small-cap Russell 2,000 along with each index's respective Technology sector. As shown, the Russell 2,000's price to sales ratio is just 1.25x, which is slightly below its average P/S ratio over the last five years. The Russell 2,000 Technology sector's price to sales ratio is higher at 2.8x, but that's still below the 2.9x P/S ratio for the S&P 500 as a whole. Incredibly, the S&P 500 Tech sector's price to sales ratio has pushed all the way up to 9.8x, which is well above its high at the peak in late 2021. A 9.8x multiple is attractive if you're looking at price to earnings (P/E), but for Tech stocks to be trading at 9.8x annual sales, that's just a remarkably high number. (As mentioned, we've got further coverage of this topic in today's Chart of the Day if you'd like to read more of our thoughts.) Below is a look at the stocks in the large-cap Russell 1,000 that have seen the biggest increase in their price to sales (P/S) ratios since the current bull market began on 10/12/22. As shown, NVIDIA (NVDA) has seen its share price rise more than 1,000% during this bull market, but its P/S ratio has made 32 turns higher from 9.7x up to 41.9x! That's by far the biggest jump of any stock in the index. Of the 30 stocks shown, the average P/S ratio has risen 9.6 points from 8.6x up to 18.2x, and most stocks on the list are Tech stocks.
Semis (SMH) Smoked Mon, Jun 24, 2024 The theme of the past couple of weeks has been the S&P 500 pressing higher in spite of weak breadth. Today, the script has flipped, as the S&P 500 is down only a few basis points even though breadth is strongly positive with advancers outnumbering decliners better than 3 to 1. The decliners are being led by a key area of the market: the semis. With the likes of NVIDIA (NVDA) down 5% on the day (and down 14% since last Tuesday's high), the semiconductor ETF (SMH) is testing the uptrend that has been in place since its April lows. Since its closing high last Tuesday, SMH is down 7.2%. As shown above, although it's a significant decline, it's only a small dent in what has been an incredible rally over the past year. In fact, the ETF is still trading in overbought territory relative to its 50-DMA even after its recent decline. That still does not steal from just how large of a drop it has seen. In the chart below, we show the rolling 3-day percent change in the ETF since its inception in 2000. As shown, there was an even larger drop of 9.1% leading to the April bottom, but the current drop still ranks in the 2nd percentile of all 3-day moves on record.
China Struggles Wed, Jun 26, 2024 Nowadays, it doesn't surprise anyone to see Chinese stocks underperforming as the country's stock market has been mired in a long and steady downtrend for several years. Back in February, there was a brief respite from the selling as the Shanghai Composite bounced just over 20% through May. While Chinese stocks met the technical threshold for a bull market based on an intraday basis (based on closing prices, the Shanghai Composite was up just 17.4%), the rally was capped at the knees with a 7.6% decline over the next five weeks. While a decline of less than 8% over five weeks isn't necessarily an extreme move, how Chinese stocks have pulled back stands out. When looking at price charts, trends of lower highs suggest a heavy tape, and by this logic, Chinese stocks have never been heavier. While it's hard to see in the chart above, over the last 20 trading days, the Shanghai Composite's intraday high has been lower than the prior session's intraday high 18 times! China joined the World Trade Organization in December 2001. During that time, there has never been another 20-day period before now where there were as few days where the Shanghai Composite had just two or fewer days that an intraday high was higher than the previous session!
Are We Due For A Little Mean Reversion? I remain bullish on 2024. My 2024 Annual Forecast released on December 21, 2023 is on track, yet the market has already achieved (and slightly surpassed) my Base Case Scenario of average election year gains of 8-15%. While my Best Case Scenario of 15-25% is likely now in play with the market running well above any of the historical seasonal patterns I can concoct, the market may be due for a little reversion to the mean. The charts here illustrate the three most relevant seasonal patterns: All Election Years, election years with a Sitting President Running for reelection and my STA Aggregate Cycle, which is a combo of all years, election years and the 4th year of the decade (years ending in 4). The Midyear Rally I discussed early this week is still in play. But after that around mid-July, I would not be surprised if the market were to pull back toward the mean a bit, maybe 5-8%. There’s plenty on the near-term horizon to spook traders from election campaign and political missteps, to Fedspeak, economic data disappointments and just plain old Summer Doldrums (2024 STA page 50). After going long last October, we have been advising newsletter subscribers over the past few months to take some profits, tighten up stops, generate some cash and hold some short-term bonds paying 5%+ while we wait for the fatter pitch.
July 4th Bullish Pre-Holiday Trade, Bearish After Trading the three days ahead of the July 4th Independence Day holiday has historically been stronger than the days after the holiday. Trading on the day before and after the holiday is often lackluster. Volume tends to decline on either side of the holiday as vacations begin early and/or finish late. Since 1980, DJIA, S&P 500, NASDAQ and Russell 2000 have recorded net losses on the day after. This has become more pronounced in recent years and was the case again last year. However, over the past thirteen years since 2011, trading after Independence Day has softened notably. DJIA has declined ten times in 13 years on the day after. S&P 500 has slipped eight times. Average performance remains fractionally positive. NASDAQ and Russell 2000 have more up days after the 4th but R2K averages losses the two days after the 4th.
The Best of Times, The Worst of Times Tue, Jul 2, 2024 Charles Dickens didn’t have the stock market in mind when he wrote A Tale of Two Cities, but depending on your time horizon, we’re entering what could be classified as one of the best of times (next month) and one of the worst of times (next three months) of the year for equities. Starting with the shorter-term window, based on the last ten years of data, the period from the close on 7/2 out over the next month has historically been a positive time of year. Of the eleven sectors, all but one (Energy) have averaged gains in the month following the close on July 2nd. Taking a longer-term time frame, the three-month period following the close on July 2nd has been one of the weakest times of year for equities! Using the S&P 500 as an example, over the last ten years, the median one-month performance from the close on July 2nd has been a gain of 2.5% with positive returns 80% of the time. Over the following three months, though, the median change is a decline of 0.5% with gains just 50% of the time. A decline of 0.5% may not sound like much, but when you take into account the fact that the first month of those three months includes a median gain of 2.5%, it suggests a good deal of volatility between now and early October. The chart below shows the median one and three-month returns of the S&P 500 and all eleven sectors from the close on July 2nd over the last ten years. For the S&P 500 and all ten sectors, there are some pretty wide divergences, most notably for Materials, Industrials, and Consumer Staples where the swings range from a median gain of at least 1% to a median decline of at least 1%. Two sectors that have stood out from avoiding the weakness are Financials and Technology as they are the only two sectors that have median gains of at least 1% in both the one- and three-month time frames. The most notable aspect of the chart, however, is that besides Energy, which has still been negative over both time frames, no other sector has a better median performance in the three months following the close on July 2nd than the one month following. This is one case where longer holding periods haven’t been an advantage. The next chart shows the consistency of positive returns for the S&P 500 and all eleven sectors. Here again, Energy is the only exception to the trend of consistency over the following three months not being worse than the one month. Additionally, the only sectors that have experienced positive returns more than 50% of the time for both periods are Financials and Technology.
Small Business Capex Tumble Tue, Jul 9, 2024 Early this morning, the National Federation of Independent Businesses released its monthly Small Business Optimism Index. As shown below, that headline reading continues to recover from the more than decade low set back in March. With a move up to 91.5 in June, the index has now risen in each of the past three months and is at the highest level of 2024. In the table below, we show each category of the report as well as the month-over-month change and how those readings rank as a percentile of all periods. As shown, even with recent improvements the headline number still sits in the bottom 13% of its historical range. Most other categories are similarly depressed. Breadth in June leaned positive with only one category falling: job openings hard to fill. Although that one category remains one of the more historically elevated of the report, as we discussed in today's Morning Lineup, across all labor market readings there has been a trend towards weakness. As mentioned before, breadth in this month's report was generally positive with one input to the composite falling, five going unchanged, and four rising month-over-month. Of those gainers, one of the biggest was outlook for expectations for the economy to improve. As shown below, that index remains deeply negative (meaning on net there are more respondents expecting the economy to worsen than improve) and to a larger extent than has been observed throughout most of the survey's history. That said, at -25 it has reached the highest level since July 2021. The survey also questions firms on whether they view now as a good time to expand. Over the past four months, this reading has consistently come in at a lowly 4%. As shown in the second chart below, firms point toward economic conditions as the primary reason for that negative expansion outlook. Political climate is another common reason at 12% of negative responses followed by financials and interest rates at 7%. Given interest rates rank highly in firms negative expansion outlook, below we show various expenditure related series. Cap ex plans are just shy of falling into the bottom quartile of their historical range. Actual capital expenditures is even weaker. That index fell down to the lowest level since the summer of 2022 in June. As for inventories, there are on net 2% more firms that evaluate current levels as too large than too low and as a result, there is also a net 2% of firms that report they plan to decrease inventories in the next three to six months. Finally, we would note that firms are reporting cutbacks on all types of capital expenditures. Equipment remains the most commonly reported capex, but at 35%, that is tied with the February reading for the lowest since the end of 2020.
Soaring NASDAQ Approaching End of Midyear Rally NASDAQ’s Midyear Rally has blasted past historical average performance with two days of trading remaining. As of the close on July 9, yesterday, NASDAQ gained 4.0% since the start of its Midyear Rally on June 26 compared to an average gain of 2.5% since 1985. As this is being written, NASDAQ is up nearly an additional 1% intra-day pushing Midyear Rally gains to nearly 5%. Tech-heavy S&P 500 and Russell 1000 have also benefited, gaining around 2% each since the start of July before today’s gains. DJIA is modestly positive, but Russell 2000 is not. Officially, the Midyear Rally ends on the 9th trading day (Friday, July 12), but with July being the top S&P 500 and NASDAQ month over the last 21 years strength could persist modestly longer this year, perhaps until around July 18. However, with three of five indexes having already logged above average gains the bulk of the rally may likely have already transpired.
Empire Fed Contraction Streak Mon, Jul 15, 2024 In a fairly light data slate this morning, the NY Fed released it's monthly regional manufacturing survey results. The headline reading showed a minor drop down to -6.6. While down 0.6 points month over month, it was a modestly smaller decline than the expected drop to -7.6. Despite that better-than-expected reading, the still negative index would indicate that activity in the region's manufacturing sector continues to contract. As shown in the second chart below, July marks the eighth straight month of negative readings and matches another 8-month streak from late 2015 through March 2016. The NY Fed survey began in 2001, and the only longer streak was 17 months during the Financial Crisis. Under the hood, breadth in this month's report was slightly positive with six indices rising and four declining month-over-month. A small handful of those moves were large as well. For example, unfilled orders moved into contraction after experiencing a significant decline of 12.2 points. Inventories similarly saw a bottom quartile month-over-month drop from expansionary to contractionary readings. Overall, most categories sit in contraction and are at the low end of their historical ranges. As previously mentioned, the headline index has been in contraction for a long time. Playing into that has been a bad run for new orders. As shown below, the new orders index came in at its highest level since last September but is still negative as it has been for the past ten months making it the longest such streak on record. Elsewhere in the report, this month's survey showed mixed results regarding the labor market. For starters, the index reflecting the number of employees is near its weakest levels of the post-pandemic era. However, the average workweek picked up dramatically. The 9.8-point month-over-month increase in July ranks in the top decile of monthly increases leaving the index at its highest level since October. While the current conditions index has perked up, the 6-month expectations index is another story, falling to the lowest level since August 2022. In addition to negative labor market readings, capital expenditure expectations also remain weak and just barely in expansionary territory. Current readings are in the 5th percentile historically. Finally, we would note that the price indices are no longer consistent with rapidly rising inflation. Prices Paid rose to 26.5 which is a point below the historical median. Meanwhile, prices received dropped to 6.1. Outside of last July, that would make for the lowest reading since October 2020.
July Monthly Options Expiration Week – NASDAQ Down 6 Straight Since 1982, the Friday of monthly options expiration week in July has a bearish bias for DJIA declining 23 times in 42 years with two unchanged years, 1991 and 1995. On Friday the average loss is 0.23% for DJIA and 0.24% for S&P 500. NASDAQ’s record is even weaker, down 26 of 42 years with an average loss of 0.38%. DJIA posts the best full-week performance, up 25 of 42 with an average 0.41% gain. However, NASDAQ has been weakest, down 23 times and the last six straight with an average 0.11% loss. The week after monthly options expiration also leans bearish for NASDAQ over the longer-term with an average loss. In recent years the track record had been improving until 2015’s across the board, greater than 2% loss.
Streaky Mon, Jul 22, 2024 As the S&P 500 attempts to rebound today, Friday’s decline capped off a negative week for the market taking the S&P 500 out of short-term overbought levels. That decline ended a streak of more than six weeks (32 trading days) of the S&P 500 closing more than one standard deviation above its 50-day moving average. While that sounds like an impressive streak of overbought readings, last summer, the S&P 500 was in the midst of a 44-day streak of overbought closes. After that streak, it experienced its first correction (10%+ decline) of the bull market that began in October 2022, and coming out of that correction, it had another streak of 33 overbought closes to close out 2023 and then quickly started another streak that lasted until early April when it ended at 53 trading days. As shown in the chart below, the most recent streak before the just-ended one was the longest in at least ten years. Taking a longer-term look at streaks of overbought closes, the 53-day streak that ended in April ranked as the longest since April 1998. The chart below shows historical streaks of overbought closes for the S&P 500 since 1954 which was the first full-year of the five-day trading week in its current form. As shown, there have been many streaks of similar or longer duration. 85 streaks have lasted five or more weeks (25 trading days), and 65 lasted as long or longer than the current streak. The record for the longest streak was 94 trading days in April 1961. Think about that for a minute. 94 trading days works out to more than four months straight of overbought closes. During that stretch, the S&P 500 rallied more than 18%. As we described at the top, the just-ended streak of 32 straight overbought closes was the fourth streak in just over a year (371 days). While extended streaks of overbought closes may not be out of the ordinary, it’s very uncommon to see them in such proximity to each other. Since 1954 there has only been one other period where there were four streaks of at least 30 straight overbought readings in a shorter period (early 1960s) and one other period where there were as many streaks (2017 into early 2018).
Big Decline But No Bad Breadth? Thu, Jul 25, 2024 On Wednesday, the S&P 500 shed 2.3%. As we noted on X, that snapped a 356-trading day stretch without seeing a one-day decline of at least 2%. The major key to this weakness, which we detailed in last night's Closer, was how the Magnificent 7 had a historically bad session given poor reactions to earnings of Tesla (TSLA) and Alphabet (GOOGL). Those declines on earnings were a drag on the rest of the mega-cap space and in turn the broader index. Yesterday was another example of the topic that has consistently been discussed in recent years in which the concentration of the largest stocks in the S&P 500 had an outsized impact on the index's moves regardless of what the rest of the market has done. Delving deeper into yesterday, in the chart below we show all days where the S&P 500 fell at least 2% since 1990 and compare those price moves to each day's daily net advance decline reading (this is the number of stocks that rose on the session minus the number that fell). While it may not come as any surprise, typically when the S&P has fallen 2% or more, the number of declining stocks drastically outnumbers advancers. In fact, on a median basis these days have typically seen a meager 33 stocks finish the day higher versus 465 decliners (median net daily advance decline reading of -432). Looking back on this sample of down days, if overwhelmingly weak breadth is the rule, yesterday was an exception. In spite of the over 2% decline, nearly a third (165) of the S&P 500's members finished Wednesday with a gain. That is a five times stronger daily breadth reading than what has been the norm historically! That also made for a daily net advance/decline reading of -171 which ranks as the fifth strongest of any day since 1990 when the S&P has fallen at least 2%. The most recent examples prior to yesterday in which the market fell on such strong (albeit negative) breadth were all the way back in November and October of 2000. There was another instance of even better breadth on a +2% decline in May of 2000, and in April of that same year, there were even a pair of days when the S&P 500 managed to fall by that much on positive breadth! We haven't seen this kind of price versus breadth action for the S&P 500 since the Dot Com Bubble was bursting.
Historic Readings From the Dallas Fed Mon, Jul 29, 2024 It's a quiet start to the week for economic data with the only US release being the Dallas Fed's Manufacturing Survey for the month of July. Other regional surveys already released this month have been mixed with the reports out of New York and Philadelphia coming out better than expected whereas Richmond was much weaker than expected. The Dallas Fed was more in line with that Richmond report. The headline number was expected to improve rising from last month's contractionary reading of -15.1 up to -14.2. Instead, it fell deeper into contraction at -17.5. Although that reading doesn't make for any sort of new low, it did mark a 27th consecutive month with a contractionary reading. As shown below, there has only been one other streak lasting as long: an identically long streak ending in November 2009. Additionally, while the current conditions index continues to sit in contraction, expectations have surged. General Business Activity Future Expectations rose to 21.6 which is the highest level since November 2021. Taking the spread of current conditions versus expectations, the July reading registered the second lowest reading in the survey's history behind a slightly lower -42.8 in March 2009. In the table below, we show the readings in July and June and how those rank relative to the whole survey history for each category of the report. The headline reading is only in the 17th percentile of all months since the start of the survey in 2004. Weakness is seen throughout most other indices with significant month-over-month declines as well. The only current conditions index that is currently above its historical median is wages and benefits. Similarly, even though the General Business Activity expectations are elevated relative to current conditions, only a handful of expectation indices are in the 50th percentile or better. Granted, breadth this month was strong with all but two expectation categories rising month over month. The single weakest category for current conditions was unfilled orders. That index is contracting rapidly, falling 21.9 points month over month (the third largest MoM decline to date) to -26.6 and in the bottom 2% of readings. It even surpasses the COVID lows for the worst reading since the first quarter of 2009. Shipments are not as depressed, but after a 19.1 point MoM decline, it has turned from expansion to one of the largest contractions of the past couple years. Pivoting over to the employment indices, there were some mixed findings. For starters, the employment index measuring whether businesses are on net hiring or firing rose to the most expansionary reading since September. However, hours worked has cratered. At -13.8, that index is now down to the lowest levels since the spring of 2020 and before that, it was only lower during the depths of the 2008-2009 recession (although the troughs of both those periods was much deeper). In tonight's Closer, we will plug this data into our Five Fed Manufacturing Composite as well as dive into the findings of the special questions segment of the survey.
Last Trading Day of July Leans Bearish Last 21 Years Market volatility has picked up over the last two weeks and the last trading day of July has seen its share over the past two decades. DJIA has been the weakest, down 13 times with an average loss of 0.29%. S&P 500 and NASDAQ have been nearly as weak, both down 12 times with average losses of 0.24% and 0.09% respectively. Much of this weakness was concentrated in the years 2005 to 2015 with the recent trend a seesaw battle, up one year, down the next. With across-the-board gains in 2022 and 2023, it will likely depend on the Fed whether the streak continues this year.
S&P 500 Down 10 of Last 13 on August’s First Trading Day On page 90 of the Stock Trader’s Almanac 2024, it is shown that the first trading days of each month combined have produced an outsized share of the market’s overall gains. However, the first trading day of August does not contribute to this phenomenon ranking second worst of all First Trading Days in the 2024 Almanac. In the upcoming 2025 Almanac August’s first trading day is the worst. In the past 21 years S&P 500 and DJIA have risen just 38.1% (up 8, down 13) of the time on the first trading day of August. A few sizable gains in advancing years have mitigated the damage with average performance remaining modestly positive across all three indices.
Treasury Rally Enters its Fourth Month Fri, Aug 2, 2024 After three months in a row of gains already, long-term US Treasuries have picked up in August right where they left off in July. In just the first two trading days of August, the iShares 20+ Year Treasury ETF (TLT) has already gained close to 3% to its highest level since February 1st riding a seven-day winning streak. Despite the surge in price, TLT is only now just bumping up against a downtrend line that has been in place since its summer peak right around this time last year. Along with the rally in price, the yield on the 10-year Treasury has plummeted for each of the last seven trading days. Going back to 1962, streaks of this length haven't been particularly uncommon. Since 1962, there have been 44 other streaks of at least seven trading days. If the streak continues into next week, it will join more rarified territory. Of the 44 prior streaks, just 18 stretched into an eighth day, and of those, only six lasted nine days.
Hot Julys Often Lead to Market Slides for the Dow In the original research conducted by our illustrious founder and creator of the Stock Trader’s Almanac, the late Yale Hirsch, he defined a “Hot July” market as a gain of 3% or more for the Dow. This week’s carnage notwithstanding, sizable gains on the last trading day of July buoyed DJIA to a 4.4% gain for July 2024. Every DJIA “Hot July” since 1950 was followed by a retreat that averaged 7.0% from July’s close to a subsequent low in the second half of the year. The worst decline was 32.4% in 1987 while the mildest DJIA decline was 0.1% in 1958. Historically, “Hot Julys” have led to better Autumn buys as many of the subsequent lows occurred in September and October. NASDAQ closing down 0.75% for the month and S&P 500 lagging DJIA up just 1.1% underscores our near-term outlook for increased volatility from August to October ahead of this unprecedented presidential election campaign season on the backdrop of a market itching for a Fed rate cut and erratic economic, employment and inflation readings. The week’s action is a case-in-point. As noted in our August Almanac and Outlook over the past two weeks and on our July 31 member’s webinar, notoriously week August is historically much better in election years. However, with the market running hot all year, arguably overbought and way ahead of itself, our cautious stance during the “Worst Four Months” of the year July-October seems the most prudent course of action. Our “Best Months” MACD Seasonal Sell signals on April 2 for DJIA and S&P and June 25 for NASAQ appear to be rather timely at this point.