Should investors fear Friday the 13th?
It's Friday the 13th. But that doesn't mean the crazed Wall Street bear will go on a murderous slashing rampage akin to the famous horror movies made famous by Hollywood.
So says LPL Research, citing historical performance data for the Standard & Poor's 500 index dating back to 1928.
Here's a key factoid for those that fear the actual day, Friday the 13th. It's called paraskevidekatriaphobia or friggatriskaidekaphobia, according to LPL.
In a blog post today, LPL took a fun look at how the S&P 500 has historically done on this well-hyped day.
Here's what the money-management firm found:
* The last Friday the 13th was in November 2015 and the S&P 500 dropped 1.1%. ("After that day’s close were the Paris (terrorist) bombings, so this is a chance to remember our friends in France," LPL said in its blog post.)
* Looking specifically at Friday the 13th, there have been 150 of them since 1928 and the average S&P 500 return comes in at 0.02%. "In other words, Friday the 13th is weaker than the average Friday, which has see an average gain of 0.05%," LPL wrote. Friday the 13th is up 57.3% of the time, which is more than the average Friday, or a tad below 55%.
* Lastly, breaking things down by months, today will be the 13th occurrence of Friday the 13th in May. "What is interesting is Friday the 13th in May drops 0.31% on average, with only October and November worse," LPL wrote.