With the first five days of January officially in the books, the Early Warning System (EWS) pioneered by Yale Hirsch is flashing a positive sign for the rest of January as well as 2015. The theory says that as go the first five trading days of the new year, so goes January. And as goes January, so goes the year.
With help from my friend Carter Worth of Stern Agee (Carter did the heavy lifting and I peppered him with questions), he examined both the first five days as well as January since 1927. If the EWS was positive, there is a 76% chance that the whole year will be positive. If the EWS was negative, then the year was a 50/50 toss up. Any random year has a 67% chance of being up. So right now, history says there is a 76% chance of 2015 being an up year.
Those stats alone seem valuable, but they left a big question unanswered for me. If the EWS was positive and then January was positive, how much did January’s return borrow or steal from the full year? Remember, we really don’t know the full results until January 31 and by that time, the stock market could already be substantially higher and potentially cannibalize the full year results.
After continuing to annoy my old friend Carter, we learned that when January is negative, the rest of the year is actually positive by an average of a paltry 1.6%. However, when January is positive, the rest of the year is also positive by an impressive 8.6%.
Although stocks began the year on a sour note, the bulls rose to life over the third, fourth and fifth days of the year to close the first five days marginally higher. As I type this, January is currently down less than 1%. The next three weeks are obviously key for this historical study in determining the outcome of 2015. After watching the Dow reach my longstanding 18,000 target, I am now patiently waiting for five consecutive closes above 18,000 to set the stage for a run to at least 20,000.
My own 2015 Fearless Forecast is being edited now and one thing is for sure, I do not see a repeat of 2014 in any asset class!
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