Episode summary
Dylan Jovine | Bloomberg Reports Why Stock Gains Surge in April
Summary
Dylan Jovine argues that April is historically one of the strongest months for stocks, citing Bloomberg data showing the MSCI World Index has been positive 75% of the time in April over the last 25 years. He says the same dataset shows April has averaged about 2% gains, making it the strongest month on average in the modern market era.
He frames that seasonality as partly psychological and partly structural. Jovine points to the old “sell in May and go away” saying, then counters that the historical pattern is more nuanced because April, July and November have tended to be the better months, while May, June, August and September have been weaker. He also revisits Jesse Livermore’s description of October panics to show how historical market patterns can become embedded in investor behavior.
Jovine says April can benefit from tax-related selling pressure easing, fresh capital entering the market, pension contributions and institutional repositioning. His broader point is that markets are shaped not only by fundamentals but also by recurring human emotions, with spring tending to support optimism and autumn tending to dampen it.
Key takeaways
- Dylan Jovine says Bloomberg data shows the MSCI World Index has been positive 75% of the time in April over the last 25 years.
- He says April has averaged about 2% gains and is the strongest month on average in the modern market period.
- Jovine argues that April, July and November have been the best historical months, while May, June, August and September have been weaker.
- He says April strength may reflect easing tax-related selling pressure, pension contributions and institutional repositioning.
- Jovine uses Jesse Livermore’s October panic history to argue that seasonality is partly a human-psychology effect.
Notable quotes
“over the last 25 years, the MSCI World Index has posted positive returns 75% of the time in April”
“And over this entire 25-year period that this report goes back, the market has written on average 2%, which is actually the strongest of any month in the US”
“You could see why they say that, because May comes in at about 0.2% positive return”
“So, the point that I'm trying to make is here that seasonality favors the bulls”
“Remember, we're humans. You don't graduate above being human”
How the episode opens
Good morning. This is Dylan Jovine with Behind the Markets, happy Friday. Today is Friday, April 10th.
TGIF. April has been historically one of the best months for the stock market. I was just going over some data provided by Bloomberg, and over the last 25 years, the MSCI World Index has posted positive returns 75% of the time in April.
In other words, 75% of Aprils are positive. And over this entire 25-year period that this report goes back, the market has written on average 2%, which is actually the strongest of any month in the US. And this is particularly driven by US stocks, which has a 70% rating and weight in this index.
And it's funny, when you look at it, when I started working on Wall Street, I remember reading a book called Reminiscences of a Stock Operator. It's written by Edwin Lefèvre on the life of Jesse Livermore, this great stock operator in the '20s, like I'm the boy plunger, terrific. Was worth $100 million in the '20s, shorted the market in 1929, just a great speculator.
He talks about trading. It's an autobiography, really. It's a biography written as an autobiography.
Anyway, and he talked about why bank panics happened in October. And he always said, basically, before the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, basically, the financial system was a lot less flexible. In the 1800s, basically, all through then, farmers needed to withdraw massive amounts of capital during harvest time, which you're thinking late summer, autumn.
So, they're withdrawing this capital, that would leave like a lot of New York banks really exposed for cash crunches. So, well, if there was any pressure that October, while these New York banks had light cash, you'd see these market crashes. And that is what started our fear of October.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- market seasonality
- april stock gains
- investor psychology
- tax-related selling pressure
- sentiment shift
Companies and tickers mentioned
- Bloomberg
Watch the episode
Watch “Dylan Jovine | Bloomberg Reports Why Stock Gains Surge in April” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
More from Behind The Markets Podcast
-
Nvidia CEO Out: 4 Reasons I’m Not Panicking About Nvidia -
The Mag 7 Sell-Off: My 3 Secrets to Picking Stocks -
Morgan Stanley’s AI Winners List Is Full of Bank Stocks -
Anthropic IPO: Why I’m Not Rushing to Buy at $1 Trillion -
Chip Stocks Sell-Off: Why the AI Build-Out Just Went From 3 to 5 Years -
Midterm Election Results: The Stock Market’s Winners and Losers
Behind The Markets Podcast, this episode and its artwork belong to their owners. Octagon is not affiliated with the show; this page is an independent summary.
