Friday the 13th – A Stock Market Oasis?

There are many articles this week about the number-13 and the Friday-the-13th phobias, with their impossible-to-pronounce Greek labels. I thought a look at the record might help us prepare for today’s stock market. Here is what I found…

I examined the daily record for the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) from January 2000 through yesterday’s close. I then split the period into four parts:

A – Fridays – excluding the 13ths

AB – Friday-the-13ths

B – 13ths – other than Fridays

C – All other days

The DJIA closed out the 20^th century and began the 21^st at 11,497. Yesterday, it ended at 10,197, down 1,300 points. The chart below shows how this point change occurred.

Reflecting my comments in “Friday – the Stock Market’s Opposite Day”, Fridays, overall, ran counter to the rest of the weekdays. They produced a loss equal to the DJIA’s decline nearly four times over. Clearly, these were not good days to be in the stock market this decade.

However, there is a respite: Friday-the-13ths. Those 15 days managed to eke out a small gain. In addition, the non-Friday 13ths produced excellent gains.

So, based on this statistical study, we investors have no reason for a 13-type fear. Maybe we should think about a Friday phobia, though.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 13th, 2009 at 1:44 am and is filed under Investment Insights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.