sell in May and go away

sell in May and go away

English

Alternative forms

• sell in May
• sell in May and stay away
• sell in May then go away

Proverb

sell in May and go away

1. (business, stock market) Stock market securities can be expected to increase in value to a greater degree in the months from November through April than in the months from May through October, and profit-minded investors should manage their portfolios accordingly.
   • 2002 Aug. 23, "Jumping but jumpy," The Economist (retrieved 11 Oct 2015):

     If ever there was a year in which, as the saying goes, “to sell in May and go away”, this was surely it. . . . From the beginning of May, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average stood above 10,000, it slid to a low in July of 7,702.

   • 2009 May 15, Ben Steverman, "Stocks: Sell or Stay in May?," Businessweek (retrieved 11 Oct 2015):

     "Sell in May, and go away" is an old English proverb, but it does have some basis in reality. In the 1980s, Yale Hirsch, founder of the Stock Trader's Almanac, crunched the numbers. . . . From 1950 to 2007, the market from May to October provided an average annual gain of 0.6%, enough to earn $1,021 on $10,000 in those years. But if you had invested only in the "best six months," from November to April, your average gain would have been 7.6%, netting you $531,444 over those 58 years.

   • 2011 April 25, Josh Lipton, "Should You Sell in May and Go Away?," Forbes (retrieved 11 Oct 2015):

     One such truism is this: “Sell in May and go away”, meaning investors are best advised to sell stocks at the beginning of May and return to the equity market at the end of October.

Synonyms

• buy when it snows, sell when it goes

See also

• buy low, sell high