As Goes January So Goes the YearI have written and talked about this statistical superstition born out of trading almanacs of the "January Effect" which proposes that the month of January's direction (a green bar or a red bar) will determine the final close of the year as a whole. I plugged the data into a spreadsheet this year mid-January to get the updated statistic and for the last 97 years this adage has held true 68% of the time. Like all statistics when studying markets "nothing is 100%" but it is safe to say "more often than not" this is true.
The January 2025 Monthly open is -3.03% from the Friday close... SPY is going to open -2.19% as of writing this morning. We still have a whole week of trading days left in January to see how 2025 will MOST PROBABLY play out.
There's a lot of "reasons" talk this morning about some Chinese AI being the culprit of the selloff. I never take heed of the need for the media to publish digestible stories to give such reasons: they are never tradable prior to the event they claim and each is a one-off so knowing the "reason" (if even true) is totally worthless for making money.
The more logical answer according to price which is far more actionable to traders is the failed breakout last Friday. While SPY made a new All Time High the Weekly itself failed to close to confirm it. Not following through on such a move is a clear bearish signal going into a weekend. Now THAT is a much better "reason" to be focused on this week (and every time it happens in the future).
