We’ve commented on how the odds are simply against you to turn bearish when the market is up year-to-date heading into the last two months of the year. As of this morning, the S&P 500 is slightly down for the month of November but still up 16.2% year-to-date. I was curious what December has looked like historically when November declined but the S&P 500 was still up year-to-date.
Well, good news. As shown in the table below, December has averaged a 3.4% gain with 96% of all instances positive (23/24). The only instance of a December decline was only -0.9%. That year was 2007, which is interesting since it was right before the Global Financial Crisis. But, as we have pointed out previously, the technical backdrop is not showing anywhere close to the same degree of deterioration that we saw back then.
Source: VGA, data sourced through Bloomberg
From this analog, and more importantly the state of our macro models, we continue to expect a solid finish to 2025 for investors.
Best wishes for a happy holiday season!
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