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The Little Book of Stock Market Cycles: How to Take Advantage of Time-Proven Market Patterns

The Little Book of Stock Market Cycles: How to Take Advantage of Time-Proven Market Patterns

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by Jeffrey Hirsch
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Release Date: August 2012
ISBN: 9781118283493
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Book Description

Jeffrey Hirsch discusses how to capture market-beating returns by following specific stock market cycles

While predicting the direction of the stock market at any given point is difficult, it's a fact that the market exhibits well-defined and sometimes predictable patterns. While cycles do not repeat exactly all of the time, statistical evidence suggests that cyclical tendencies are very strong and should not be ignored by investors. The Little Book of Stock Market Cycles will show you how to profit from these recurring stock market patterns and cycles.

Written by Jeffrey Hirsch, President of the Hirsch Organization and Editor-in-Chief of the Stock Trader's Almanac, this reliable resource explains why these cycles occur, provides the historical evidence behind them, and shows you how to capture consistent profits from them moving forward. In addition to describing his most widely followed cycles and patters, Hirsch also discusses both longer term boom-bust economic cycles and shorter term tendencies involving the best days, weeks, and months of the year to trade the market.

  • The methods found here follow everything from presidential election cycles to the "Santa Claus" effect

  • Written by Jeffrey Hirsch, the pre-eminent authority on market cycles and seasonal patterns

  • The strategies explored are easy-to-implement, and based on research that has proven profitable over the course of time

For investors looking to beat the buy-and-hold philosophy, The Little Book of Stock Market Cycles will provide simple, actionable ideas that have stood the test of time and consistently outperformed the market.

Table of Contents

  1. Cover
  2. Contents
  3. Title
  4. Copyright
  5. Dedication
  6. Foreword
  7. Introduction
  8. Chapter One: Cutting through the Bull
    1. Describing the Markets
    2. Talking in Seculars
    3. Let’s Shoot Some Bull
    4. Seeing What Tomorrow Brings
  9. Chapter Two: War and Peace
    1. Creatures of Habit
    2. War: What Is It Good For?
    3. To Boldly Go Where the Dow Has Never Gone
  10. Chapter Three: A Century of Booms and Busts
    1. As the Century Turns
    2. World War I
    3. The Roaring Twenties
    4. And Then Depression Set In
    5. World War II
    6. The Consumer Boom
    7. The Vietnam War Heats Up Inflation
    8. That 1970s Stagflation
    9. The Information Revolution
    10. The Greatest Boom
    11. Lather, Rinse, Repeat
  11. Chapter Four: The Coming Boom
    1. Dot-com Bust versus 1929 Crash
    2. The Global War on Terror
    3. Bubblicious Housing
    4. Four Horsemen of the Economy
    5. The Colt of the Economy
    6. We’re Not There Yet
    7. Five Years to Go
  12. Chapter Five: Your Portfolio Gets Political
    1. How the Government Manipulates the Economy to Stay in Power
    2. Post-Election-Year Syndrome: Paying the Piper
    3. Midterm Election Years: Where Bottom Pickers Find Paradise
    4. Preelection Years: No Dow Losers Since 1939
    5. Election Year Perspectives and Observations
  13. Chapter Six: Open Season for Stocks
    1. The “Best Six Months” Trading Strategy
    2. Times They Are a Changing
    3. Fourth-Quarter Market Magic
    4. Two Market Phenomena in Perfect Harmony
    5. Seasonally Well Adjusted
  14. Chapter Seven: Aura of the Witch
    1. Financial Incantations
    2. Seasons of the Witch
    3. Manic Monday and Freaky Friday
    4. Witches’ Brew
  15. Chapter Eight: Autumn Planting
    1. August Annals
    2. September Scenarios
    3. October Occasions
    4. Sowing the Seeds of Gains
  16. Chapter Nine: Winter of Content
    1. Navigating November
    2. December Delivers
    3. Wall Street’s Only Free Lunch
    4. When Santa Fails to Call
    5. January Jubilee
    6. Best Three Months
  17. Chapter Ten: Spring Harvest
    1. February Findings
    2. March Madness
    3. April Action
  18. Chapter Eleven: Summer Doldrums
    1. May Matters
    2. June Juju
    3. July Jolt
  19. Chapter Twelve: Celebrate Good Times
    1. Santa Claus Comes to Town
    2. Martin Luther King Jr. Day
    3. Negative Presidents’ Day
    4. The Luck of the Irish
    5. A “Better” Good Friday
    6. Memorial Day and the Stock Market
    7. Few Fireworks on Independence Day
    8. Trading the Labor Day Markets
    9. Sell Rosh Hashanah, Buy Yom Kippur, Sell Passover
    10. Trading the Thanksgiving Market
  20. Chapter Thirteen: Don’t Sell on Friday
    1. Most Gains Occur on Monday and Tuesday
    2. Monday, Most Favored S&P 500 Day
    3. Bear Hurts Monday and Friday
    4. NASDAQ Strong Like Bull
    5. Traders Take Lunch, Too
  21. Chapter Fourteen: Picking the Ripe Trade
    1. A Chance for the Individual Trader
    2. For Everything There Is a Season
    3. It’s All about the Timing
    4. Taking a Good, Hard Look at the Indicators
    5. Have Sound Trading Discipline
  22. Acknowledgments
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