Just looked at some historical S&P 500 data and noticed something interesting about how the market behaves throughout the year. Turns out there's actually a pretty clear pattern if you go back to 1928.

So the index has been profitable in about 9 out of 12 months historically. That's way better odds than people think. But here's the weird part - September has always been rough for stocks. Like, legitimately the worst month on average. Then October bounces back hard, probably because everyone gets excited about holiday shopping season.

There's also this old saying about selling in May and taking off for summer, but honestly the data doesn't back that up. June through August are actually solid months, and July has been the single best month of the year on average.

What really got me thinking though - if you look at longer holding periods, the odds flip completely. Hold for 20 years? The S&P 500 has literally never had a negative return over any rolling 20-year period since 1928. Never. That's wild. The month-by-month noise disappears when you zoom out. Makes you realize why people say time in the market beats timing the market. Those seasonal stock market trends by month matter way less than just staying invested long-term.