“Sell in May and go away” is probably the most widely cited stock market cliché in history. Every year a barrage of Wall Street commentaries and stories in the financial press floods in about this popular, but overused, stock market adage. Here we take our annual look at this historical seasonal pattern which, as you will see below, has started to lose some of its street cred recently.

What Is Sell in May?

“Sell in May and go away” is the seasonal stock market pattern in which stocks generally produce the best returns from November through April and the worst returns from May through October.

Investors use various analogies to describe the importance of small businesses in the domestic economy. Some refer to the small business sector as the backbone or the lifeblood of the economy.  At this current stage of the cycle, we could say there are rising risks of an acute backache or a draining of that lifeblood. In this edition of the Weekly Market Commentary, we discuss the weakness in small businesses and what that foreshadows in the markets and the economy.  

Overview

As we progress through 2023, investors have at least two corresponding questions: when will a recession start and will the markets ret

Implied volatility, as measured by the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) Volatility Index (VIX), closed yesterday at 16.46, its lowest closing level since mid-November 2021. Today we take a look at possible reasons for the decline in the VIX and what it could mean for short-term stock market returns.

The VIX provides a real-time update of expectations for volatility on the S&P 500 over the next 30 days. The VIX represents implied volatility derived from the aggregate values of a weighted basket of S&P 500 put and call options over a range of strike prices. The VIX is often referred to as the “fear gauge” b

With tax season (mostly) behind us, the U.S. Treasury Department will have a better sense of how much cash it has on hand and when it will run through the extraordinary measures it is currently employing to pay its bills. The Treasury is unable to issue net new debt (it can issue debt to replace maturing debt), so it is currently relying on accounting gimmicks to ensure continued payments. However, that can only work for so long. Right now, estimates for the so-called x-date, or the drop-dead date when Congress has to act, range from early summer to the fall, but the first key hurdle comes around June when there’s an additional influx o