03/24/2026
🚨 Spring is, statistically, the best season for the S&P 500.
40 years of data confirm it. And it has just begun.
📊 Average S&P 500 returns by season (since 1985):
🌸 Spring: +3.5% — positive 76% of the time ✅
🍂 Autumn: +3.0% — positive 75% of the time
❄️ Winter: +2.8% — positive 74% of the time
☀️ Summer: +0.6% — positive 60% of the time
⚡️ Four decades of history. And spring always comes out on top: highest average return and highest percentage of positive years.
Summer, on the other hand, is the underperformer of the seasons—less than half the return of any other time of the year.
💡 Why does this pattern work?
First-quarter earnings season kicks off in April and often brings positive catalysts.
Institutional flows reposition after the fiscal year-end. And investor sentiment tends to improve with the natural calendar cycle.
This isn’t magic—it’s human behavior systematized in data.
🎯 That said, 2026 is not just any year.
Elevated geopolitics, oil above $100, the VIX in a tension zone, and the S&P 500 about 6% below its highs.
Seasonality is supportive—but the macro backdrop is less so.
Will history prevail, or will the macro environment win?
Over the past 40 years, spring has won 76% of the time.
📊
