Calendar Effects

The middle of the year might be a time for funds to dress their windows and investors to review and revise portfolios. The 4th of July celebration might engender optimism among U.S. investors. Are there any reliable patterns in daily U.S. stock market returns around mid-year and the 4th of July? To check, we analyze historical behavior of the S&P 500 Index from five trading days before through trading days after both the end of June and the 4th of July. Using daily closing levels of the index for 1950-2019 (70 years), we find that: Keep Reading

A subscriber requested review of a strategy that seeks to exploit “Sell in May” by switching between risk-on assets during November-April and risk-off assets during May-October, with assets specified as follows:

• Risk-on – SPDR S&P 500 (SPY), iShares Russell 2000 Index (IWM) and PowerShares DWA Technical Leaders (PDP).
• Risk-off – iShares Barclays 20+ Year Treas Bond (TLT) and PowerShares S&P 500 Low Volatility (SPLV).

On each portfolio switch date, assets receive equal weight with 0.25% overall penalty for trading frictions. We focus on compound annual growth rate (CAGR), maximum drawdown (MaxDD) measured at 6-month intervals and Sharpe ratio measured at 6-month intervals as key performance statistics. As benchmarks, we consider buying and holding SPY, IWM or TLT and a 60%-40% SPY-TLT portfolio rebalanced frictionlessly at the ends of April and October (60-40). Using April and October dividend-adjusted closes of SPY, IWM, PDP, TLT and SPLV as available during October 2002 (first interval with at least one risk-on and one risk-off asset) through April 2020, and contemporaneous 6-month U.S. Treasury bill (T-bill) yield as the risk-free rate, we find that: Keep Reading

“Turn-of-the-Month Effect Persistence and Robustness” indicates that average absolute returns during the turn-of-the-month (TOTM) are strong for both bull and bear markets. Does a strategy of capturing all bull market returns and TOTM returns only during bear markets perform well? To investigate, we apply four strategies to S&P Depository Receipts (SPY) as a tradable proxy for the stock market:

1. Buy and hold SPY.
2. Hold SPY (cash) when SPY closes above (below) its 200-day simple moving average (SMA200).
3. Hold SPY from the close five trading days before through the close four trading days after the last trading day of each month and cash at all other times (TOTM).
4. Hold SPY when SPY closes above its 200-day SMA and otherwise use the TOTM strategy (SMA200 or TOTM).

We explore sensitivities of these strategies to a range of one-way SPY-cash switching frictions, with baseline 0.1%. Using daily dividend-adjusted SPY from the end of January 1993 through late May 2020 and contemporaneous 3-month Treasury bill (T-bill) yields, we find that: Keep Reading

Does the Turn-of-the-Month Effect, a concentration of positive stock market returns around the turns of calendar months, work across a broad set of asset classes. To investigate, we measure turn-of-the-month (TOTM) returns for the following nine asset class exchange-traded funds (ETF) used in the “Simple Asset Class ETF Momentum Strategy” and the “Simple Asset Class ETF Value Strategy”:

• PowerShares DB Commodity Index Tracking (DBC)
• iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Index (EEM)
• iShares JPMorgan Emerging Markets Bond Fund (EMB) 
• iShares MSCI EAFE Index (EFA)
• SPDR Gold Shares (GLD)
• iShares Russell 2000 Index (IWM)
• iShares iBoxx $ Investment Grade Corporate Bond (LQD)
• SPDR S&P 500 (SPY)
• iShares Barclays 20+ Year Treasury Bond (TLT)
• Vanguard REIT ETF (VNQ)

We define TOTM as the eight-trading day interval from the close five trading days before the first trading day of a month to the close on the fourth trading day of the month. Using daily dividend-adjusted closes for these ETFs from their respective inceptions (ranging from February 1993 for SPY to December 2007 for EMB) through mid-May 2020, we find that: Keep Reading

A reader inquired whether the Turn-of-the-Month Effect, a concentration of positive stock market returns around the turns of calendar months, works for U.S. stock market sectors. To investigate, we measure turn-of-the-month (TOTM) returns for the nine sector exchange-traded funds (ETF) defined by the Select Sector Standard & Poor’s Depository Receipts (SPDR), all of which have traded since December 1998:

• Materials Select Sector SPDR (XLB)
• Energy Select Sector SPDR (XLE)
• Financial Select Sector SPDR (XLF)
• Industrial Select Sector SPDR (XLI)
• Technology Select Sector SPDR (XLK)
• Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR (XLP)
• Utilities Select Sector SPDR (XLU)
• Health Care Select Sector SPDR (XLV)
• Consumer Discretionary Select SPDR (XLY)

We define TOTM as the eight-trading day interval from the close five trading days before the first trading day of a month to the close on the fourth trading day of the month. Using daily dividend-adjusted closes for the sector ETFs and for S&P Depository Receipts (SPY) as a benchmark from December 1998 through mid-May 2020, we find that: Keep Reading

Is the Turn-of-the-Month (TOTM) effect, a concentration of relatively strong stock market returns around the turns of calendar months, persistent over time and robust to different market conditions. Does it exist for all calendar months? Does it persist throughout the U.S. political cycle? Does it work for different equity indexes? To investigate, we define TOTM as the interval from the close five trading days before to the close four trading days after the last trading day of the month (a total of eight trading days, centered on the monthly close). Using daily closes for the S&P 500 Index since January 1928 and for the Russell 2000 Index since mid-September 1987, both through early May 2020, we find that: Keep Reading

Does the Memorial Day holiday signal any unusual U.S. stock market return effects? By its definition, this holiday brings with it any effects from three-day weekends and sometimes the turn of the month. Prior to 1971, the U.S. celebrated Memorial Day on May 30. Effective in 1971, Memorial Day became the last Monday in May. To investigate the possibility of short-term effects on stock market returns around Memorial Day, we analyze the historical behavior of the stock market during the three trading days before and the three trading days after the holiday. Using daily closing levels of the S&P 500 Index for 1950 through 2019 (70 observations), we find that: Keep Reading

Are some calendar months more likely to exhibit stock market continuation or reversal than others, perhaps due to seasonal or fund reporting effects? In other words, is intrinsic (times series or absolute) momentum an artifact of some months or all months? To investigate, we relate U.S. stock index returns for each calendar month to those for the preceding 3, 6 and 12 months. Using monthly closes of the S&P 500 Index since December 1927 and the Russell 2000 Index since September 1987, both through January 2020, we find that: Keep Reading

Has 24-hour trading of equity index futures created a reliable pattern in hour-by-hour returns? In their February 2020 preliminary paper entitled “The Overnight Drift”, Nina Boyarchenko, Lars Larsen and Paul Whelan study round-the-clock U.S. stock market performance decomposing S&P 500 Index futures returns by hour, with focus on dealer inventory management. Using 24-hour high-frequency trades and quotes for S&P 500 futures contracts during January 1998 through December 2018, they find that: Keep Reading

As implied in “Mirror Image Seasonality for Stocks and Treasuries?”, are bonds better than stocks during the “Sell-in-May” months of May through October? Are behaviors of government, corporate investment grade and corporate high-yield bonds over this interval similar? To investigate, we test seasonal behaviors of:

SPDR S&P 500 (SPY)
Vanguard Intermediate-Term Treasury (VFITX)
Fidelity Investment Grade Bond (FBNDX)
Vanguard High-Yield Corporate Bond (VWEHX)

Using dividend-adjusted monthly prices for these funds during January 1993 (limited by SPY) through January 2020, we find that: Keep Reading