September's (rocky) stock market history:
Bottom Line: We are riding into September on a five month winning streak amid a wave of record earnings reports and near record stock prices. That's the optimistic news. As it turns out September hasn't been a friend to investors generally over the years but then again that's true of August generally and yet it was another winning month for stocks. Since 1950 September has been the worst month of the year for stock market performance but it really hasn't been that bad...
- Going back to 1950, September has produced negative outcomes 57% of the time and average return...it's a loss of .67%.
So should you throw in the towel on this rally? That's been a losing proposition for investors for quite awhile now. While a correction is more likely in September than any other month of the year - we just heard the economy grew at 3% last quarter. And that was without tax and healthcare reform. If there's movement on meaningful tax reform, it could provide a whole other positive catalyst for the market. But that's an if. Whatever happens or doesn't happen this month shouldn't be based on the hyped stories about the sky falling because it's September. Most importantly never let your money & emotions cross paths. That's when mistakes happen.