The Santa Claus Rally
There is always much anticipation about what Santa might leave under the tree for deserving boys and girls. Much of that decision can depend on the state of the economy. Like many other cyclical trends, that seem to influence the stock market year-in and year-out, the fabled "Santa Claus rally" has provided a year-end boost to investors for years.
But, this year, there are those saying "bah-humbug." They say that the constant printing of money, and the uncertainty caused by geopolitical events, may provide a lump of coal instead. New tensions between Russia and Turkey already impacted financial markets. China and Brazil continue to accumulate debt. France and Belgium have been under a high terror alert. Pundits believe that the specter of inflation, outside the U.S., looks like it is rearing its ugly head. They say that emerging markets show little growth potential right now.
There are other prognosticators who feel much more positive that the brief rally will repeat again this year. It has caused stock prices, during the
month of December, to be up slightly higher than other months on average. The real time period for the oft-repeating trend in prices is really much shorter; occurring during the last five trading days of December and the first two days of the new year. The short rally was first identified in 1972.
Since 1969, the S & P 500 index has registered an average 1.4 percent gain. There have been only four years, in the past 21, where the trend has failed to appear. An interesting side note is that the average rise in stock prices has been greater in July than December by a slight margin.