Another Santa Claus Rally is officially in the books.
This year the S&P500 rallied 0.80% during the period, which is more than 3 times the historical returns for all the other 7 day periods throughout the year.
Doing some basic math, the odds continue to favor a strong year for stocks in 2023.
There are some people out there who think the Nasdaq is the stock market. There are others who "only buy growth stocks".
I don't know what kind of masochist you need to be to think that way, but both of those are very foolish approaches to life.
The Nasdaq is full of growth stocks. And growth stocks historically underperform and make little progress when interest rates are rising. I'm not sure if you heard, but interest rates have been rising!
Since the Stock Market bottomed in June, the majority of stocks and sectors are up and to the right. It's only the biggest losers that are down, and there aren't that many of them. It's really just those nasdaq / growthy stocks that the masochists are focused on.
From a seasonal perspective, Pre-election years are historically some of the most bullish years we have in the market. Here's what the 4-year cycle looks like as we head into 2023:
One thing I know about this time of the year is that whipsaws thrive.
We call it Whipsaw Hunting Season.
The lack of liquidity, and lack of interest due to other life priorities, creates over-extended and exaggerated moves that otherwise would not be allowed to occur under normal supply and demand conditions.
But since the b-squads are on the desks, you regularly get failed moves this time of the year that result in very fast moves in the opposite direction.
For some great examples see $GDX in December 2016 and check out $TLT in December 2013, among many others.
These were nasty failed moves that ripped the short sellers' faces off into the new year.
We see these sorts of moves born around this time every single season. It's perfectly normal market (human) behavior.
So as we go hunting this year, Tesla really stands out as a potentially great candidate.
Today officially marks the beginning of the Santa Claus Rally.
As we already discussed earlier this month, the SCR period runs during the final 5 trading days of the year and the first 2 of the following year.
So due to the holiday schedule, the 2022 SCR goes from today December 23rd through Wednesday January 4th.
The average performance during these 7 days is 1.33% and is positive 79.2% of the time. This is a big difference from all the other 7 day periods throughout the year, that only average 0.24% returns. They're also positive less than 60% of the time.
So we've found that there's real alpha during this period.
The infamous Santa Claus rally is just around the corner.
And contrary to popular belief, it doesn't start until the end of next week.
The official period for the Santa Claus rally includes the last 5 trading days of the year and the first two of the following year.
Based on the 2022/2023 holiday schedule, that means this year's Santa Claus Rally begins on Friday December 23th and goes through Wednesday January 4th.
These 7 days have historically had a ridiculous track record, averaging over a 1.3% return for the S&P500 and coming in positive almost 80% of the time.
Since 1950, all other 7-day periods throughout the year only average 0.24% returns and were positive less than 60% of the time.
I was in the city yesterday for a few meetings and dropped by Fox Business to have a little chat with Charles Payne.
Charles is one of the few who let me talk about whatever I want. No agenda. Just price action.
I appreciate that.
It was just a short hit. But we talked about the seasonal tailwinds for stocks, how a stronger Dollar means stocks will remain under pressure, and what Financials and Homebuilders are telling us about the market.
