Wall Street has spent weeks worrying about AI spending, Big Tech’s earnings gauntlet, and the Fed. History says the next eight sessions have tended to reward investors anyway.
Since 1950, the S&P 500 (^GSPC) has risen in 18 of 19 midterm years from five sessions before Election Day to three sessions after, with a median gain of nearly 3%, as Bluekurtic Market Insights pointed out on X. This year’s window opens at Tuesday’s close, a week before the Nov. 3 vote, and runs through Friday, Nov. 6.
Yahoo Finance reran the numbers and found it’s the best eight-session stretch of a midterm year, with the late October start dates ranking at the top of the calendar. No stretch starting at any other time of year has risen more than 15 times in 19.
It also looks like a midterm effect, not just a calendar one. In the other three years of the presidential cycle, the same window rose only 12 or 13 times out of 19.
This year’s version is packed, with a Fed decision Wednesday, results from Microsoft (MSFT) and Alphabet (GOOGL), and the October jobs report. The S&P 500 sits about 2% below its Oct. 6 record.
The party rarely lasts. The index rose in only 9 of 19 midterm years over the seven sessions after the window, the same hit rate as the week before it.
The longer run is kinder. CFRA’s Sam Stovall noted to Brooke DiPalma on Yahoo Finance’s Market Domination Monday that stocks have never fallen in the 12 months after Oct. 31 of a midterm year, a record of 19 for 19 by Yahoo Finance calculations.
Jim Paulsen, author of the Paulsen Perspectives newsletter, isn’t so sure about this time. He points to tighter conditions over the summer, from higher oil prices to higher bond yields. “I suspect that we’re going to have disappointment about this good buying season coming up,” he also told Yahoo Finance’s Brooke DiPalma Monday.
Bottom line: History favors the bulls the next eight sessions.
Internal AI tools helped analyze interview transcripts, research, and draft this post. Humans reviewed, edited, and fact-checked this post before publication.
Jared Blikre is the global markets and data editor for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on X at @SPYJared or email him at [email protected].
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Source: finance.yahoo.com
