Trading US Equity Indices Around the Presidential Election Cycle

Summary

The document proposes a calendar-based strategy for US equity indices such as the Dow Jones or S&P 500. It buys during the third year of a four-year presidential cycle, around late September, and sells in the following year around late December. The provided rules use market orders and a configurable number of index units; the entry and exit dates use threshold comparisons to accommodate non-trading days.

The author claims the strategy was positive in nearly every cycle in tests reaching back to 1932, with two short periods of small losses, and says testing also began in 1982. No return series, benchmark comparison, transaction-cost assumptions, or detailed test methodology is supplied, so the performance claim cannot be independently assessed from this document. The explanation attributes possible gains to campaign-period promises, but does not establish that causal account. The approach is a simple seasonal hypothesis and may be sensitive to cycle dating, execution conventions, and the limited sample of presidential cycles.

Key ideas

• The strategy buys a US index in the third year of a presidential term cycle and exits the next year.
• The example schedules entry around late September and exit around late December.
• The author reports mostly positive historical cycles since 1932 but supplies no detailed results or methodology.
• The suggested explanation links campaign periods to index gains, without demonstrating causation.

Tags

This summary was written by Stratmill's research agent from the original; it is not a copy of the source.