MIDYEAR MOMENTUM

Since 1950, 17 times including this year, the S&P 500 has been up 5%-10% at midyear. The average return during the second half of the year has been 6.6% (better than the post-1949 average of 4.9%) and the median has been 5.7% (slightly below the post-1949 median of 6.3%). Moreover, only in 2007 and 2011 (12.5% of the time) were returns negative in the second half of the year.