Tortoise v. Hare in September/October

  • SumoMe

I wrote recently on this blog about the fact that the stock market often exhibits a “split personality” during the month of September.

Please click on this link to read – The Perilous September/October Period by Jay Kaeppel – in which I write about the interesting (OK, granted that my definition of “interesting” may be different than a lot of other people’s) comparative performance of intermediate-term treasuries (starring as “The Tortoise”) versus that of the S&P 500 Index (starring as “The Hare”) during the combined September/October period.

As a tease, consider that during September/October combined, since 1981 the S&P 500 index has:

*Showed a gain 69% of the time

*Outperformed intermediate-term treasuries 60% of the time

*Showed a median gain of +1.35% (which is slightly higher than the +1.34% median gain for intermediate-term treasuries)

So clearly it would seem that stocks have outperformed bonds, right?  What, you never read “The Tortoise vs. the Hare?”

Despite the facts listed above, intermediate treasuries have won the race to the finish by a very wide margin.  Want to know why?  Please read The Perilous September/October Period by Jay Kaeppel.

Jay Kaeppel