MythBusters

Some of the smartest people I know will actually put real money at risk based on alliterative adages, like "Turnaround Tuesday."  There are a couple others that everyone "knows" to be true, specifically that Mondays and the first trading day of the month are always big days.  Presumably because the banks get their welfare checks from the government and immediately use them to gamble on stocks.

I've been meaning to research this for awhile now, so today I went through the historical data of the S&P 500 for the past year to check into the validity of these commonly parroted axioms.

Here are the average gains for each trading day.  Maybe there's something to Turnaround Tuesday!  But why haven't I ever heard of "Thrilling Thursday?"

All	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
0.78	0.90	-0.60	1.40	1.62	0.60

For the Monday trade here's a chart and a four week moving average.

High	Low	Mean	Positive	Negative
24.9	-15.5	0.90	24	23

And the first of the month trade.  This trade actually averages a 5 point gain for the past year, but it sure hasn't been working lately.

High	Low	Mean	Positive	Negative
31.5	-30.3	5.57	8	4