華爾街的聖誕上衝規律

華爾街的聖誕上衝規律 

            不少人說，聖誕老人帶給人類的不僅僅是孩子喜愛的禮物，還有短期的牛市行情。

馬上就是聖誕節了。美國的股市會不會再次受惠於聖誕老人而繼續上漲呢？

下麵這篇文章試圖回答這個問題。

實際上，股市的上升和下降，與很多因素有關：已經上升了多少，基本麵的改變和股價的改變之間的關係，市場對股票需求的變化等等。

一般來說，在新年開始時，由於很多人會增加在退休基金計劃上的投資，對於股票的需求會有所增加，於是，就有可能拉動股市的價格。

不過，如果從曆史角度看，這種可能性又會有多大呢？

再者，這種曆史角度對於股市投資又到底有多少意義呢？

所謂“曆史角度”，就是基於對曆史數據的統計分析所獲得的結果。這種結果對於具體時段的投資實際上沒有多大的意義。

下麵的文章也說，即使按照曆史數據看，六月份的上漲甚至超過12月聖誕老人帶來的上漲。

不管結果怎麽樣，大家看看開開心也好。

投資製勝的關鍵，一在心態，二在用心。

順便說一句，前天晚上，那位大名鼎鼎的Mad Money家夥Jim Cramer在大吼推薦花旗銀行！你信不信？ 

【附錄】Is a Santa Claus rally coming to town? 

If a market surge occurs this month, it most likely will be tucked under the tree with a 'do not open until Christmas' sign.

By Mark Hulbert, MarketWatch ，12/11/2009 

Will the real Santa Claus rally please stand up?

I ask because, even though lots of advisers refer to something called a Santa Claus rally, there is little agreement on what, exactly, it involves.

A cynic might suspect these advisers are simply exploiting Santa's good name to justify whatever positive forecast they might otherwise have for December. But, surely, advisers wouldn't be so shameless to do that, would they?

Consider the range of meanings that I have found advisers give to the term "Santa Claus rally":

1.      At some point during December, the stock market rallies.

2.      The entire month of December tends to be a good one for the stock market.

3.      The stock market performs particularly well starting around Christmas and lasting until the beginning of the new year.  

And these were the meanings that I gleaned from just a cursory review of the advisers I monitor and of the financial news media. I'm sure more meanings would emerge if I spent more time looking, but you get the idea.

Do any of these definitions have strong support in the historical record?  

Santa's track record

To find out, I examined the Dow Jones Industrial Average ($INDU) back to 1896, when it was created.

It turns out that the first definition -- that the stock market will rally at some point during December -- is true but pointless, since the stock market rallies during every period of the year. There has never been any month of the calendar in which the stock market didn't at some point stage a rally.

Consider next the second definition that some give to a Santa Claus rally: the notion that December as a whole is a particularly strong month for the stock market. At first blush the evidence for this proposition would appear to be strong. The average return for all non-December months since 1896, for example, is 0.5%. For Decembers, the average return is 1.4%.

But there is less here than meets the eye. It turns out that, though December's average is better than that of other months, June and July have even better average returns than December does. When ranked according to average returns, December is in third place.

Furthermore, there is not much consistency to December's return from year to year. In fact, December, on average, was one of the worst-performing months during several of the decades in the early part of the previous century. A year ago, the Dow lost 0.6% during December.

This volatility in December's year-to-year returns greatly reduces, if not eliminates, any statistical confidence one can have that December will be a good month for the stock market. In fact, several years ago, after subjecting the Dow's monthly returns to a number of complex statistical tests, two finance professors concluded that "it seems that there is no consistent monthly pattern in the stock market."  

Wait until Christmas

One of the professors' related findings is that the primary source of December's apparent strength in the historical record comes from the period after Christmas through the end of the year. This period corresponds to two seasonal patterns that have been well-documented in other contexts: the so-called turn-of-the-month and turn-of-the-year effects.

So the third of the three definitions of a Santa Claus rally does have strong historical support. But notice carefully what this means: The Santa Claus rally that really exists does not arrive until Christmas is upon us.

Just like the man himself.