Greetings!
Today’s edition brings a thoughtful mix of market perspective, meaningful wellness insight, and—back by popular demand—some encouraging news on the economic front.
In Wealth Advisory, we take a closer look at familiar market sayings like “sell in May.” These patterns can be tempting, even convincing at times, but the deeper question is whether they actually hold up. This piece walks through how easily we can mistake randomness for strategy—and why long-term discipline, not calendar-based decisions, remains the more reliable path forward.
In Wellness Navigator, Christine offers a refreshing and much-needed perspective: joy as essential medicine. Drawing from her time at Jazz Fest, she reminds us that connection, purpose, and genuine enjoyment aren’t indulgences—they’re foundational to how we think, feel, and function. It’s a timely prompt to ask whether we’re truly living the lives we’re working so hard to build.
And in Etcetera, we’re pleased to welcome back guest contributors Brian S. Wesbury and Robert Stein, who highlight some surprisingly positive developments in global trade. While headlines often lean negative, the year-over-year improvement in trade deficits—and the underlying shifts driving it—offer a more constructive view of where things stand today.
The goal, as always, is to help you stay grounded, informed, and moving in the right direction.
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And if it challenges your thinking just a bit, all the better.
Enjoy the read.
Wealth Advisory: What Investors Should Know About Seasonal Patterns Like “Sell in May”
The human brain is remarkably adept at identifying patterns, an ability that has proven useful across many areas of life. Yet this same tendency can lead us in the wrong direction when no genuine pattern exists — such as when we perceive recognizable shapes in clouds or ink blots. In investing, this distinction matters greatly, as some patterns carry real significance, such as the long-term relationship between financial markets and economic fundamentals, while others may simply reflect coincidence. Learning to separate meaningful investing principles from mere curiosities is a demanding but essential part of building lasting financial success.
It comes as little surprise that investors have catalogued numerous calendar- and event-based patterns over the years, including “sell in May and go away,” the January Effect, the Santa Claus rally, the Super Bowl indicator, and others. Even a series of coin flips will occasionally produce several heads or tails in a row by pure chance. Understanding which patterns reflect genuine market behavior and which are simply random noise is the key challenge for any thoughtful investor.
Many well-known seasonal patterns have evolved considerably over time
There is no shortage of market patterns to examine, but reviewing seasonal trends as a whole offers valuable perspective. The chart above divides S&P 500 performance into two distinct eras — from 1928 to 1999 and from 2000 to the present. During the 20th century, certain months did indeed produce negative average returns, while others were notably strong. For example, May and September saw average declines of 0.1% and 1%, respectively, while December and January posted meaningful gains on average. These differences make it tempting to wonder whether investors could simply participate in the market during historically favorable months and step aside during weaker ones.
These observations gave rise to concepts such as “sell in May,” the notion that the six-month stretch leading up to May tends to produce better returns than the other half of the year. However, since 2000, many of the historically weaker months have actually generated positive average returns, reversing the earlier pattern. This shift may reflect changed investor behavior following the pattern’s identification, some structural evolution in markets or regulation, or the possibility that the pattern never reflected a true underlying dynamic to begin with.
What should investors take away from this? The simplest explanation is often the most compelling. This dynamic is frequently described as being “fooled by randomness” — mistaking noise for signal. Because stock market returns are inherently difficult to forecast, any historical period will naturally contain stretches that appear better or worse than others. This does not necessarily imply an underlying cause, nor does it mean such differences will persist. Just as we can perceive objects in clouds, it is entirely possible to identify seemingly meaningful patterns in a completely random dataset.
In statistics and economics, researchers rely on the concept of “statistical significance” to help differentiate between patterns that may be genuine and those that are coincidental. It is equally important to distinguish causation from correlation — that is, whether something specific to a given calendar month is actually driving these patterns, or whether notable events simply happened to occur during those months. For investors, these distinctions are critical, because a pattern that arose by chance or that was unique to a specific historical period may be intellectually interesting but provides little actionable guidance for the future.
Small cap stocks tell a similar story as markets have matured
Small cap stocks have also exhibited distinctive seasonal tendencies over the years, though the same principles apply. In fact, the foundational 20th-century research on the January Effect — the idea that stock prices tend to rise in January on average — focused primarily on smaller companies.
Academics have explored a range of possible explanations for this effect, including tax loss harvesting, in which investors sell stocks for tax purposes toward year-end and repurchase them in January; households deploying holiday bonuses in January; and window dressing, where portfolio managers sell certain holdings in December and buy them back in January to avoid their appearance in annual reports. Regardless of the cause, the January Effect has largely faded in the period since that original research was conducted.
One trend that does stand out across both large and small cap data since 2000 is that September has tended to be a challenging month. At first glance, this might appear to reflect a genuine seasonal pattern. However, it is heavily influenced by a handful of extreme events, including the dot-com bust, the 2008 financial crisis, and the 2022 bear market driven by inflation. These outliers occurred not because of the calendar month, but because of deeper market and economic forces at work.
Focusing on long-run trends offers a more reliable foundation for investors
This is precisely why enduring investing principles are grounded not in surface-level patterns, but in the fundamental drivers of long-term market returns. The reason the S&P 500 has historically performed well through wars, recessions, financial crises, pandemics, and countless periods of uncertainty is not simply that markets tend to rise over time.
Rather, it is because business cycles stimulate corporate investment and consumer spending, which in turn fuel corporate earnings and ultimately support both the stock market and investor portfolios. The chart above illustrates this underlying trend over the past century. Maintaining a diversified allocation across asset classes such as stocks and bonds has not only kept pace with inflation over the long run, but has substantially exceeded it.
The past offers no guarantee of future results, short-term periods can be difficult, and any given month in any given year may produce positive or negative returns. The impulse to time the market — whether through trading short-term price movements or following seasonal rules of thumb — is entirely understandable. If a few simple patterns reliably worked, investing would be far easier than maintaining discipline, saving consistently, and adhering to a long-term financial plan. Yet the difficulty of doing those things is precisely what makes them so valuable over time.
The bottom line? Seasonal patterns like “sell in May” have shifted considerably over time. Rather than chasing surface-level trends, investors are better served by staying positioned for the long-term market and economic forces that improve the likelihood of lasting financial success.
Wellness Navigator and Holistic Brain Coach, Christine Despres, RN, NBC-HWC, CDP
Joy is Medicine. What’s Your Prescription?
I just got back from New Orleans after four days of Jazz Fest. For those of you who don’t know, I went to Tulane for graduate school and spent a few years living there.
New Orleans has a way of tucking itself into your soul. The food, the music, the people, the traditions, the way strangers become family on a street corner, there is nowhere else on earth quite like it. Truly nowhere.
“Laissez les bons temps rouler.” As they say… Let the good times roll! They mean it down there.
Jazz Fest gathers four hundred thousand people over ten days. All ages, all backgrounds, all cultures, united around music, food, art and tradition. The groove, the vibe, the smiling happy people all dancing to their own beat.
Special moments with friends, an incredible lineup across every genre you can imagine, traditional foods I didn’t think twice about indulging in, and the kind of shared experience that bonds people in a way that’s hard to explain if you haven’t lived it. That is the power of connection. And your brain notices and feels every bit of it.
We spend a lot of time optimizing. Tracking sleep, counting steps, reading labels. And all of that matters. But somewhere in the optimization we forgot to ask a more important question: are we actually enjoying the life we’re working so hard to protect?
May is both Women’s Health Month and Mental Health Awareness Month. And the research is clear: joy, connection, purpose, and belonging are not soft extras. They are biological necessities.
When you experience genuine positive emotion your brain releases dopamine and serotonin. Cortisol drops. Inflammation decreases. Social connection builds cognitive reserve, your brain’s ability to stay resilient as it ages. Women who feel isolated and chronically stressed are at significantly higher risk for cognitive decline. That is not my opinion. That is neuroscience.
So here is your prescription. Find your people. Stay curious. Stay engaged. Whether it’s music, art, travel, books, your garden, pickleball, volunteering, your grandchildren, your faith community or a street corner in New Orleans.
Whatever lights you up, make time for it. Protect it the way you value your sleep and your vegetables.
Joy is not a reward for when everything else is handled. It is part of the medicine all along the way.
If this resonates, I’d love to see you at my free virtual Brain Boost session on
Wednesday May 6th at 10am ET.
This month we’re talking about exactly this: the brain science behind joy, connection and what it actually means to live a life filled with joyspan. Details and registration are at the link below.
Sign up here> BRAIN BOOST SESSIONS
Laissez les bons temps rouler, friends.
Christine
https://www.thewellnessnavigator.com/
The Trade Deficit in Goods and Services Came in at $60.3 Billion in March
Brian S. Wesbury, Chief Economist
Robert Stein, Deputy Chief Economist
Date: 5/5/2026
The trade deficit in goods and services came in at $60.3 billion in March, slightly smaller than the consensus expected $61.0 billion.
Exports rose by $6.2 billion, led by crude oil, other petroleum products, and fuel oil. Imports rose by $8.7 billion, led by autos and computer accessories.
In the last year, exports are up 13.3% while imports are down 9.0%.
Compared to a year ago, the monthly trade deficit is $75.5 billion smaller; after adjusting for inflation, the “real” trade deficit in goods is $58.7 billion smaller than a year ago. The “real” change is the trade indicator most important for measuring real GDP.
Implications: The trade deficit widened slightly to $60.3 billion in March, continuing its break of volatility that dominated trade reports for much of last year. Despite the small movement in the deficit, there was plenty of activity behind the scenes: exports rose by $6.2 billion, led by crude oil and other petroleum products, as domestic producers moved to fill the void left by the war-driven closure of oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz. The increase in exports was more than offset by a $8.7 billion increase in imports, led by autos and computer accessories. We like to focus on total volume of trade, exports plus imports, as it shows the extent of business and consumer interaction across the border. That measure increased by $14.9 billion in March but remains roughly flat from a year ago. While total trade volumes have seen little change over the past year, the mix has improved for domestic producers, with exports rising 13.3% and imports falling 9.0% over the past year. Meanwhile, the landscape of global trade continues to evolve. China, once the dominant exporter to the U.S., has slipped to a fourth place behind Mexico, Canada, and now Taiwan, with exports to the U.S. down 40.7% in the first three months of 2026 compared to the same period last year. Accelerated demand for high tech equipment to fuel the massive AI investment stands out in the data with imports from Taiwan up 97.9% over the same period. Also in today’s report, the dollar value of U.S. petroleum exports once again exceeded imports, with the U.S. posting its largest petroleum surplus on record in March, marking the 49th consecutive month of America being a net exporter of petroleum products. Keep in mind petroleum products include refined products like gasoline, diesel, and propane – all of which the U.S. exports in large volumes. When looking at crude oil alone however, the U.S. remains a net importer (although not as much as in prior decades), largely due to domestic refinement capabilities. In other recent news, cars and light trucks were sold at a 15.9 million annual rate in April, down 1.5% from March and 7.1% below the level from a year ago.
That’s all for today.
Thanks as always for reading.
Have a great week,
