You see, most people don\u2019t abandon good intentions at random. They do it on a schedule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That idea first caught the attention of a Wharton professor named Katy<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Milkman in the early 2010s. She wasn\u2019t interested in motivational speeches or willpower. She focused on something narrower \u2013 and stranger. Not why<\/em> people decide to change, but when<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What she found was remarkably consistent. Decisions to diet, exercise, save, or invest didn\u2019t spread evenly across the year. They clustered tightly around a handful of dates: Mondays, the first day of the month, birthdays, and \u2013 above all \u2013 January 1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To test the pattern, Milkman and her colleagues looked at gym check-ins, Google searches, and enrollment records for self-improvement courses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right after these so-called \u201cfresh start\u201d dates, effort surged. Diets began. Savings plans were opened. Gym attendance spiked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then, just as reliably, it faded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The insight wasn\u2019t that people lack willpower. It was that human behavior runs on a calendar. Motivation rises and falls on a schedule, whether we notice it or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Once you see that, an even more interesting question follows: If individual decisions surge and retreat at predictable moments, what happens when millions of people make those shifts at once?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Markets, after all, are nothing more than the sum of those decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s a question my team and I at TradeSmith set out to answer in 2024 with the help of thousands of lines of computer code and quintillions (billions of billions!) of market data points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you don\u2019t know us already, TradeSmith is the creator of a leading financial technology platform, based in Baltimore, Maryland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today, we help more than 134,000 people around the world monitor more than $29 billion in assets. And\u00a0Forbes<\/em>,\u00a0The Wall Street Journal<\/em>, and\u00a0The Economist<\/em>\u00a0have profiled our breakthroughs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019ve built tools to help everyday investors track portfolios, manage risk, and spot opportunities. We\u2019ve even created, tested, and released a popular AI-trading model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We were confident we\u2019d find some seasonality patterns in how stocks trade. But what we discovered surprised even us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It turns out that thousands of stocks showed historically reliable windows \u2013 specific times of the year when they tended to rise, and others when they tended to stall or fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We call them \u201cgreen days.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And based on these green days, we built a trading system designed to act on them \u2013 pinpointing bullish seasonal windows on roughly 5,000 stocks, down to the day. In backtests, those trades succeeded with an 83% historical accuracy rate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n First, it helps to understand that seasonality isn\u2019t some new invention. It has shaped markets for a long time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Commodity traders have always tracked planting and harvest cycles. Energy markets move with heating and cooling demand. Gold has long shown seasonal strength tied to jewelry demand and annual buying patterns in India and China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stock investors, too, have noticed calendar effects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The January Effect. Quarter-end rebalancing. Even the old saying \u201cSell in May and go away.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n What\u2019s changed isn\u2019t that seasonality suddenly appeared. It\u2019s that we can now measure it precisely \u2013 across individual stocks, over decades of data, and down to specific days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Take Target (TGT).<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n For all the volatility surrounding the retailer in recent years, one pattern has held with striking consistency. Between June 22 and July 21, Target stock has risen an average of 5.2%, climbing 100% of the time over the past 15 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n That pattern held again in 2025, when the stock gained 10.3% during its seasonal window \u2013 long after pandemic-era distortions faded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Home Depot (HD)<\/a> shows a similar rhythm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Between June 15 and July 27, the stock has risen 93% of the time over the past 15 years, with an average gain of 4.7%. In 2025, it followed the same script, rising 6.7% in just over a month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These aren\u2019t one-off coincidences. They\u2019re examples of a broader phenomenon that only becomes visible when you analyze markets through the lens of timing rather than narrative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Using our Seasonality tool, we\u2019ve tested this approach across thousands of stocks, indexes like the S&P 500 and Nasdaq, and even currencies and commodities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Over an 18-year backtest, seasonal trades generated 857% total growth \u2013 more than double the S&P 500\u2019s return over the same period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Even in 2007, the weakest year in the test, the strategy produced a positive return, with gains of more than double the S&P 500 over the same time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s why we\u2019ve made a version of our Seasonality software available for you to explore now.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n We\u2019ve unlocked access so you can see the seasonal \u201cgreen days\u201d for thousands of stocks yourself ahead of our Prediction 2026<\/em><\/strong> event.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n It kicks off Tuesday, January 20, at 10 a.m. Eastern<\/strong>. And I hope you\u2019ll join me. I\u2019ll be getting into more detail about the fast-approaching seasonality patterns you need to be aware of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ll also walk you through how we uncovered these patterns, why they persist even in chaotic markets, and how you can use them to guide real-world trading decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Knowing when the windows are opening and closing likely matters more to your wealth than any single resolution you\u2019ve made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first date you\u2019ll want to circle on your calendar is Jan. 28. If seasonality patterns hold this year, it could open up the most lucrative trading opportunity in decades.<\/p>\n\n\nClosing the Gap With Wall Street Elites<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Traders Have Always Tracked Cycles<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nCircle These Dates on Your Calendar<\/h2>\n\n\n\n