The Traders Journal

Some Seasonal Goodies For You To Unwrap

Gatis Roze

Gatis Roze

Author, Tensile Trading: The 10 Essential Stages of Stock Market Mastery

Images (2)Over the past 10 years, the S&P 500 (SPY) has closed higher than it opened in the month of December 78% of the time. 

This week, I culled a basket of half a dozen equities from Investor Business Daily’s IBD 50 list.  All of these particular 6 stocks from the  IBD 50 list have  not only outperformed the S&P 500 in December by significant margins but have also historically risen in December 78 to 100% of the time.  I encourage you to review the calendar probabilities on all of your existing positions.  Now with this seasonality tool making it so easy, there’s no excuse.  Try out the seasonality tool yourself at:

http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/seasonality.php?symbol=gnrc


 

  1. FLEET COR (FLT):  Little over 3 years old but has average gains of 10.7% in every December that it’s traded.  It’s also always outperformed the S&P 500 each December by an average of 9.5%.
  2. GENERAC (GNRC):  Almost 4 years old and has average gains of 6.3% in every December it’s traded.  It’s also outperformed the S&P 500 in December by an average of 4.7% roughly about 67% of the time.
  3. STRATASYS (SSYS):  Over the past 10 years, it has gained an average of 5.0% while closing up 89% of the time in December.  It has also outperformed $SPX 78% of the time by an average of 2.3%.
  4. UNITED RENTALS (URI):  Over the past 10 years, it has gained an average of 7.5% in December while closing up 89% of the time and outperforming $SPX 89% of the time by an average 5.4%.
  5. WINNEBAGO (WGO):  Over the past 11 years, it has gained an average of 14.2% while closing up 80% of the time in December and outperforming $SPX 82% of the time by an average of 10.8%.
  6. ALEXION PHARMACEUTICALS (ALXN):  The past 10 years, it has gained an average of 5.5% while closing up 78% of the time in December and outperforming $SPX 78% of the time by an average of 3.4%.

For this basket of stocks, the calendar probabilities are with you.  The obvious caveat is to watch the present market uptrend to see that it continues to live up to its strong December historical tendencies.  Remember to always keep in mind that it’s not a faulty market methodology if it doesn’t always work.  It’s simply a matter of probabilities and as an investor, you must learn to accept the tails or extreme outcomes of a normal distribution curve.

Trade well; trade with discipline!
-- Gatis Roze

Gatis Roze
About the author: , MBA, CMT, is a veteran full-time stock market investor who has traded his own account since 1989 unburdened by the distraction of clients. He holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, is a past president of the Technical Securities Analysts Association (TSAA), and is a Chartered Market Technician (CMT). After several successful entrepreneurial business ventures, Gatis retired in his early 40s to focus on investing in the financial markets. With consistent success as a stock market trader, he began teaching investments at the post-college level in 2000 and continues to do so today. Learn More