Jeff Saut on the recent history of the Santa Rally

Of all the hokey stuff that gets trotted out on Wall Street throughout the course of the year, my favorite is the expectation of a Santa Claus Rally each December.

The reason I like it best is because it actually works. 90% of the time, every time, over the last 10 years.

Here’s Jeff Saut (Raymond James) with some stats:

Santa tends to come to Wall Street in most years, which is why one of my mantras is, “It is hard to put stocks down during the ebullient month of December.” While technically the “Santa rally” encompasses the last five trading sessions of the year and the first two sessions of the new year, in the last 20 years, the large and small caps have been positive from November 20th into year’s end 18 times. Of interest is that the Russell 2000 (small caps) has, on average, gained 5.6% over that timeframe, while the Russell 1000 (large caps) has rallied 3.4%. Also of note is that, over the past 27 years, from December 16th through year end, the S&P 500 (SPX/2080.41) has been up 24 times and down only three times.

So…is Santa on his way? Or did we pull it forward this past October 😉

Source:

Santa Rally?
Raymond James – December 1st 2015