Weekend Reading

Financial experts like to claim that the stock market is efficient and unbeatable. However, Wall Street has repeatedly proven otherwise, particularly with the “Halloween effect” - a pattern where significant stock market gains occur from Halloween until May, defying logic and the efficient market hypothesis. There have been a few exceptions, including 2020 and 2021 during the pandemic, but historical data analysis by finance professors Cherry Zhang and Ben Jacobsen confirms this phenomenon. Their research shows consistently higher average stock market returns during the winter months compared to the summer months across various markets worldwide. The cause of this effect remains unclear, with theories ranging from subconscious investor behavior influenced by seasonal changes to historical events like the 1929 Wall Street crash.