Poets have long lauded spring.
William Wordsworth wrote,
The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.1
Investors can take pleasure too in the reality that past market data since the turn of the millennium shows that this season has been the best season of the year.
Eddy Elfenbein, an ETF manager, said,
Since 2000, March through May averaged +3.4%, while June to August averaged +0.9% and September to November delivered +1.9% and the winter (December to February) was -0.5%. March thru May has done better than the other nine months combined.2
“Ok, Stockman, that’s fine and dandy, but this only covers the last two decades.”
True.
Here is some more good news about just March and April specifically, from Ryan Derrick of Carson Group, that goes back further and factors in presidential election cycles:
March and April are historically two of the strongest months of the year, but they have done even better in pre-election years. Since 1950, the S&P 500 gained 1.1% in March, while April was up 1.5%, but in a pre-election year, those returns went to 1.9% and 3.5%, respectively.3
Past performance is no guarantee of future results, but we will take good news where we can find it after the weight of 2022’s bear market.
Speaking of bears. Mary Oliver’s poem “Spring” is quite wonderful. Here’s a snippet:
Somewhere
a black bear
has just risen from sleep
and is staring
down the mountain.
All night
in the brisk and shallow restlessness
of early spring
I think of her,
her four black fists
flicking the gravel,
her tongue
like a red fire
touching the grass,
the cold water.
There is only one question:
how to love this world.4
I like Oliver’s bear better than Wall Street’s.
Regardless of what your investments do this spring, remember that constant financial media and 24/7 news cycles are only interested in keeping you inside staring at screens clicking away at the present uncertainties and travesties of the world.
If you are tired of managing your own money or know someone who is, send them our way.
Either way, be sure to get outside in the coming months to gaze at the bounty and bloom of Spring.
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Sources:
- Taken from “Lines Written in Early Spring”. Accessed online: https://www.panmacmillan.com/blogs/literary/poems-for-spring
- Tweeted on March 1, 2023. Accessed online: https://twitter.com/EddyElfenbein/status/1631012313951096835
- “The February Hangover is Nearly Over”, February 28, 2023. Accessed online: https://www.carsongroup.com/insights/blog/the-february-hangover-is-nearly-over/
- Taken from “Spring”. Accessed online: https://www.best-poems.net/mary_oliver/spring.html