In the past few weeks, have you felt like you were in quicksand? By the markets' volatility causing a lot of uncertainly and P&L swings, does it feel like the harder you try, the worse things get? Do you feel overwhelmed? Well, you are not alone. These are very hard times in the m ... Read more

Historically September has been the worst performing month for the Dow going all the way back to 1900 as shown in the chart below by a wide margin.  In fact outside of February it's the only month in which the Dow has had an average return on the negative side. The past three years t ... Read more

Since at least 1960 there has been a strong correlation between Inflation Rates and the performance of the Dow. If we go back to the 1960-1980 time period notice each time the Inflation Rate rose above 4% this weas followed by a substantial correction in the Dow.  In the Summe ... Read more

Over time several articles have mentioned the January Affect which is based on how the market finishes the month of January. For example if January finishes with a negative return then the market will end down for the year and vice versa. I went back and looked at the Dow for the period from 191 ... Read more

If you look at a historical chart of the Dow going all the way back to the early 1900's on a Log scale there appears to have been two long term upside moves lasting 33 years.  The first one began with the Bear Market low in 1932 and ended in late 1965 (points A to B) in which the Dow gained + ... Read more

So far in 2008 the S&P 500 is down just over 9%.  Since 1960 the S&P 500 has finished with a negative return in January only 17 times as shown by the table below.   When the S&P 500 has finished with a negative January return there have only been 3 years (2003, ... Read more