{"id":23927,"date":"2025-05-08T07:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-08T11:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/?p=23927"},"modified":"2025-05-06T16:17:00","modified_gmt":"2025-05-06T20:17:00","slug":"sell-stocks-in-may-and-buy-bonds-before-you-go-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/sell-stocks-in-may-and-buy-bonds-before-you-go-away\/","title":{"rendered":"Sell Stocks in May and Buy Bonds Before You Go Away"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Managing Editor\u2019s Note: <\/strong>Today, we\u2019re hearing from our contributing editor Mike Burnick in his weekly Thursday feature.<\/p>\n

Mike has over 30 years in the investment and financial services industry \u2013 from operating as a stockbroker, trader, and research analyst, to running a mutual fund as a registered investment advisor and portfolio manager, to being Research Director for the Sovereign Society, specializing in global ETF and options investing.<\/p>\n

And he\u2019s been senior analyst at TradeSmith for three years, running Constant Cash Flow, Infinite Income Loop, <\/em>and Inside TradeSmith<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s Mike\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Sell Stocks in May and\u2026 Buy Bonds Before You Go Away<\/h2>\n

BY MIKE BURNICK, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, MARKET MINUTE<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I can\u2019t tell you how many times I\u2019ve heard the old Wall Street adage to, \u201csell in May and go away<\/em>\u201d over the past week.<\/p>\n

And while I find it a bit annoying, (like the Santa Claus rally in December), there is a bit of truth to this timeless maxim.<\/p>\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n

As you can see above, stocks do tend to perform worse both in terms of historical returns and success rate (% positive<\/em>) from May through October. This compares to much higher average returns and success rates from November through April.<\/p>\n

And the difference in results holds true whether stocks are in a bull market (green bars) or a bear market (red).<\/p>\n

On the other hand, Treasury bonds tend to experience just the opposite trend, with gains typical during the period from May to September, as you can see here.<\/p>\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n

In fact, our own TradeSmith cycles and seasonality indicators back up this claim. I analyzed returns of the iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (TLT) over the past 23 years of its existence.<\/p>\n

And sure enough, as you can see below, there has been a consistently bullish period for TLT from May 9 through August 31 over the years.<\/p>\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n

Here are the detailed stats on this possible seasonal trade:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • 82% Accuracy Rate over 23 years<\/li>\n
  • +6.51% Median Return (+4.95% average return)<\/li>\n
  • +16.71% Annualized Return<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Mike Burnick\u2019s Bottom Line<\/em><\/strong>: Those stats aren\u2019t too shabby from boring old bonds. And that\u2019s especially true during a multimonth period over the summer when stocks tend to struggle. Perhaps the adage should be modified to \u201csell stocks in May and buy bonds before you go away!\u201d<\/p>\n

    Good investing,<\/p>\n

    \"Signature\"<\/p>\n

    Mike Burnick
    Contributing Editor, Market Minute<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Treasury bonds tend to perform well during the summer months when stocks typically lag.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"0","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"service":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"publication":[10],"person":[155],"newsletter-type":[],"ticker":[],"class_list":["post-23927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-market-minute","publication-market-minute","person-mike-burnick"],"acf":[],"ai_tts_audio_outdated":false,"ai_tts_legacy_post":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/100"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23927"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23927\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23934,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23927\/revisions\/23934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23927"},{"taxonomy":"publication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publication?post=23927"},{"taxonomy":"person","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/person?post=23927"},{"taxonomy":"newsletter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newsletter-type?post=23927"},{"taxonomy":"ticker","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ticker?post=23927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}