S&P 500 Average Day of the Week Change

The S&P 500 is now up just over 20% since the start of the fourth quarter.  Below we take a look at how the index has gotten there on a day to day basis by highlighting the average change by day of the week.  As shown, every day of the week has averaged a gain except for Monday, which has averaged a pretty big decline of 0.23%.  Take away Mondays, and the index would be quite a bit higher.  Thursdays have averaged the best returns since last October with a gain of 0.43%, while Tuesdays and Fridays are just about even at 0.33% and 0.32%, respectively.  Although today was a strong day, Wednesday's overall since October have been the second worst day of the week with an average gain of 0.12%.

So how do day of the week returns break down since the bull market began in March 2009?  As shown below, over this longer time period (almost three years now), the S&P 500 has averaged gains on Monday through Thursday before declining by an average of 0.04% on Fridays.

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