2 Calendar Trends Point To 2015 Being A Bull Year For Stocks

Why 2015 may also be a good year for stocks

by Bob Pisani

With the midterm elections over, much discussion is now moving toward what 2015 stocks may look like. That's right, we are already moving beyond the seasonally strong November and December issues. Seasonal trends have become a favorite of traders, even though some of them are not working recently.

For this, let me turn to an old friend: the Stock Trader's Almanac, 2015 edition, the venerable yearly production of Jeff and Yale Hirsch. It's chock full of the usual market stats, but since 2015 is a presidential pre-election year here's one stat that jumped out at me: the DJIA (DIA) has not had a loss in a pre-election year since 1939.

Think about that. Since 1939, no losses in a pre-election year, which is exactly where we are heading in 2015. That's a lot of history.

Here's another stat that was interesting: the worst two quarters of the four-year presidential cycle are the ones we have just left-the second and third quarter of the midterm year. The Dow was up 1.2 percent in the second quarter compared to the first. It was up 2.2 percent in the third quarter compared to Q2.

Historically, those are the worst two quarters.

Wait, it gets even weirder. 2015 is the fifth year of the decade, obviously. The fifth year is the best year of the decennial period by a long shot. The Dow and its predecessors are up an average of 28.3 percent in decennial years in the past 130 years. There has only been one losing year ending in "5" in 13 decades.

There are of course economic issues, and for the United States, it's still relative, Goldilocks. Things are good, not great.



Courtesy of CNBC.com



