Monthly + Summer Trends

July/Aug are the traditional summer rally months in the US
US does better than UK over the summer generally.

June is the second worst month of the year for the US market
June has a 2:1 down: up record for the Dow
Exceptions were during the 1980s+ 1990s bull markets

May has seen DOW declines 55% of the time or has led
to declines in June or July.
The recent years have seen fewer declines though.

April has been the best month for the DOW up nearly 2:1
+ averaging 1.8% rise for the month.
April generally reverses the March trend - 2/3 of the time.
The first 2 weeks are generally better than the final 2 weeks in April
though both see rises - 1.2 % + 0.3% respectively.
The S&P behaves similarly - with a fraction less gains.

March is usually either neutral or slightlyhigher, often
leads into a market Top either in April or May.

The Dow in the month of March rose 36 times and declined 21 times.
There have been fewer declines in recent years.
The S&P 500 is similar - March is the fifth best performing month.

Nasdaq does worse in March:
Itranked as the third-from-the-bottom month since 1971
even though it had 22 ups and 14 downs.

February is the 2nd worst Month for the S&P 500
which averages a 1.7 % decline.
The DOW does a bit better - averages a 0.22 % gain +
tends to follow major trend.


The worst 6 months are from 1st May to 31 Oct for the US Markets
However there has been a memorial week rally c 80% of the time in
last 25 years. Some recommend Gold as an antidote to market weakness during this time.

Oil Services - OIH typically rally to may then decline over summer- most years
see...http://energy.seekingalpha.com/article/36685


A list of the Strongest Summer Performers on the S&P 500 over last 4 yrs
http://usmarket.seekingalpha.com/article/36719
GILD + HUM in Healthcare look like best bets to me