Oh what a month it was! April was not a kind month to the Cubs, and we’re not just talking about the baseball team. While March raised the hopes of Cubs fans and market bears alike, reality set in during April. Just to reassure you, baseball’s bears, the Cubs, actually won more than a couple of games this month, which is more than we can say for the market’s bears. During the month of April, the Dow only finished in the red three times, which turned out to be the best winning percentage (85% of days during the month were up) since at least 1955. With a total gain of 5.74%, it was also the Dow’s best monthly gain since December 2003.
Listed below are the months since 1920 where down days made up 20% or less of the total days in the month (or where 80% or more of all days were up). We also looked at how the index performs in the following one and three months. As the results show, history favors the bulls. In the following month, the Dow was up eight out of eleven times (73%) for an average gain of 1.8%. Over the next three months, the average return has been 1.6%, with positive returns in seven out of eleven periods (64%).
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