Stock market investors hate to see summer end, and it’s not because they fear shorter days or the back-to-school rush.Since 1937, the average September performance of the S&P 500 index SPX, +0.06% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.16% is a 1% decline, while the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, -0.13% has seen an average fall of 0.5%, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
Such performance wouldn’t be welcome news for equity market investors, who suffered through a 1.7% August decline for the Dow, a 1.8% loss for the S&P and a 2.6% drop for the Nasdaq.These are the worst August performances for all three benchmarks since 2015. And following an August when the S&P 500 has fallen more than 1.5%, the Dow performs worse, down 1.1% on average, while the Nasdaq has seen an average fall of 0.8%. The S&P 500 does a bit better than the average September following an August decline of 1.5% or more, falling 0.9%.
August has been an even worse month for small-and-mid-cap stocks, as the S&P Mid Cap 400 and S&P Small Cap 600 are on pace for its worst Augusts since 2011, underscoring the struggles of the typical public company that have persisted all year. The equal-weighted Value Line Geometric index VALUG, +0.03%, which tracks the median performance of roughly 1700 publicly listed companies, has fallen more than 15% below its Aug.
It’s not all bad news, however. According to a Friday analysis by LPL Financial, the past 15 times that the S&P 500 lost ground in August, the rest of the year saw positive returns every single time.We Want to Hear from You Join the conversation
Agree. Those indexes have failed to break for several times already. And 'one day', 'everyone' agrees they are too high.
sideways r the main ways