February's Fate: Will Stock Markets Fall, Flounder, or Flourish Amid Fresh Fears?

Historically, February is not great for the stock market.

One writer noted, "...February is, on average, the second-worst month, trailing only September for the lowest monthly average return over the last 100 years."¹  

The back half of February in post-election years has notoriously struggled. Here is Matt Cerminaro with the chart²:

Though it's impossible to predict the future, we shouldn't be surprised if volatility increases not only from seasonality but from a President who loves being in the news. In his last administration, policy uncertainty brought rising volatility.³

To be fair though, as Callie Cox shows us, even with all the tariff talk the biggest tariff news days in the first administration didn't always mean really bad things for stocks.⁴

And there's this... the Philadelphia Eagles just won the Super Bowl, and a professional sports team winning in Philly is real bad for stocks.

That above chart is meant for the jocund among us.

Calm down everyone! Remember correlation is not causation.

Who knows? Negative stock market seasonality may flip and flourish.

Valentine's Day was Friday, and we could all use some stock market love in view of the above data. Ryan Detrick points out that when the S&P 500 has been up greater than 3% year-to-date by the holiday, like it has been 32 other times since the 1950s, the market has been positive about 94% of the time for the rest of the year.⁵

What you need to remember is that no matter what stocks perform this month, the growth of $1 in the S&P 500 has returned well through MANY negative events and MANY Februarys.⁶

Sources:

1. History Says February Is a Terrible Month for the Stock Market. Here's How It's Shaping Up (and What Investors Can Do About It).
2. Matt Cerminaro. Posted via LinkedIn on 2/12/25: Here
3. Chart from Blake Millard. Email 2/12/25.
4. Published on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/callie-cox-553a1a28_new-optimisticallie-tiktok-tariffs-activity-7289631361085173761-FYi7/
5. Published on X on February, 13, 2025: https://x.com/RyanDetrick/status/1890147246962085949
6. Sam Ro utilizing the work of Michael Batnick: SPECIAL EDITION: Telling the story of how the stock market usually goes up, year 2 📈🎂