The Halloween signal

Speaking of the market, I've just transferred my pension fund out of cash and into an All-share tracker. I now own roughly 0.00000028% of the market.
I didn't do this because I've a view on valuations, interest rates or corporate profits; I leave futurology to the snake oil salesmen. I did it because Halloween is as a good a buy signal as there is; indeed, pretty much every sector, at least in the US, does better in the winter than summer. And I believe in following rules, not judgment.
The rule hasn't done too badly lately. Sure, since I sold in May the All-share has returned 2.6%. But the half-point excess over cash is, for my taste, a poor reward for the loss I'd have suffered in May.

Comments

[dave heasman]

I went back in on the weekend 8/9 Sept. Your advice* gained me £1200. If I'd taken it earlier it'd have been £2K. Thank you.

*not "advice" in the FSA meaning, of course.

[james higham]

If you'd moved on May 1st, the other great arcane festival, what would have happened?

[cityunslicker]

Bizarre this year that there was no Septmber sell-off though.

[JF Citing Robert Colby]

You might want to have a look at the daily posts of Robert Colby of Colby Research, Trading Education.

[Richard Hancock]

Is my maths wrong? I calculate 0.00000028% of £1,821bn to be £5,098.8. (I'm using the market cap for the FTSE All-Share, as published in this week's Investors Chronicle.)

[Piyush Pant]

It's obviously better to maximise new investment when the market is at its cheapest so I am assuming you move your existing investments to cash every May but make sure new contributions from May to November continue being invested in the ftse tracker... if not you're probably missing out significantly on long term returns.In fact if you really believe in this the best thing would be to keep new contributions in cash between November and April and invest them in the tracker only between May and November.