Which Behavioral Patterns Create Investing Opportunities?

You could say there are two kinds of traders: the “sell inMay, go away” crowd and those who see “sell in May” as a potentiallyexploitable market opportunity. If you’re the latter, you’ll find this Investment News article by Isaac Braleysuper-interesting: The Proof Behind “Sell in May, GoAway”.While many human behavioral patterns influence stock-marketmovements, seasonal patterns are most scrutinized by economists – and they’ve found the “sell in May” pattern is both persistent and well-substantiated. Itdates back to Britain in 1694, in fact!Notonly is “sell in May” a statistically verified pattern, the article exploressome of its other characteristics. For instance, “The authors noted that the scale of thesell in May effect is highly correlated to the length of a particular country'saverage summer vacation.” I take this to mean that, in countries like Francewhere practically everyone takes the entire month of August off, “sell in May”is a very pronounced phenomenon, whereas in countries like America with oursuper-short summer vacations, “sell in May” isn’t nearly so pronounced.Whether you’re a “sellin May” type, or plan on trading beach-side with us all summer long, we wishyou great success and a hearty “welcome back!” to springtime.Be Good,Don MontanaroCEO, TradeKing Groupwww.tradeking.comFollow Don on Twitter and hone your skills at TradeKing All-Stars. You can also followTradeKing on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or YouTube.[image: Seating Pattern – Olympic Park –Stratford, London by Natesh Ramasamy on Flickr]Trading has inherent risk dueto system response and access times that may vary due to market conditions,system performance, and other factors. An investor should understand these andadditional risks before trading.Investments involve risk, losses may exceed theprincipal invested, and the past performance of a security, industry, sector,market, or financial product does not guarantee future results or returns.TradeKing provides self-directed investors with discount brokerage services,and does not make recommendations or offer investment, financial, legal or taxadvice. You alone are responsible for evaluating the merits and risks associatedwith the use of TradeKing's systems, services or products. If you haveadditional questions regarding your taxes, please visit IRS.gov or consult a taxprofessional. TradeKing is unable to provide any tax advice.At the time of publication and in the precedingmonth, TradeKing and/or Donato Montanaro did not have ownership greater than 1%in any stocks mentioned; did not have any other actual, material conflict ofinterest known at the time of publication; have not received compensation froma public offering nor from investment banking services related to any companiesmentioned within the past 12 months, nor expect to receive any in the next 3months; nor engaged in market making in the securities mentioned.TradeKing is not affiliated with, does notsponsor, is not sponsored by, does not endorse, and is not endorsed by thecompanies mentioned above or any of their affiliated companies.© 2015 TradeKing Group, Inc. All rightsreserved. Securities offered through TradeKing Securities, LLC, member FINRA and SIPC.