Market Performance on the Last and First Day of the Month
Tuesday, February 28, 2012 at 05:51PM The next two trading days are the last day of February and the first day of March. Below we highlight how the S&P 500 has performed on the first and last day of every month since the bull market began in March 2009.
As shown, the S&P has averaged a decline of 0.19% (median -0.10%) on the last day of the month during the current bull market, with positive returns 40% of the time. The S&P 500 has averaged a gain of 0.33% (median 0.65%) on the first day of the month, with positive returns 65.7% of the time.
While the trend of down last days of the month and up first days of the month reversed for most of 2011, we've seen two down last days and two up first days so far this year.
Below is a chart that shows what your performance would be if you owned the S&P 500 on just the first day or last day of every month since the bull market began. As shown, you'd be up 11.62% since March 2009 if you only owned the S&P on the first day of every month. If you owned the S&P on just the last day of every month, you'd be down 6.67%.
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