The Stock Market is perceived as a mystical world that requires an oracle to decipher the signs and predict its future. While stocks fluctuate, they do so in well-defined, often predictable patterns that reoccur too frequently to be the result of random chance. It doesn’t require the talents of a prophet; instead, investors should look to the past. Published every year since 1968, STOCK TRADER’S ALMANAC 2010 (Wiley; October 2009; $39.95; 978-0-470-42218-2; Hardcover) is a must-have investment tool with a wealth of information organized in a calendar format. It alerts readers to little-known market patterns and tendencies that help investors forecast market trends with accuracy and confidence. The data and analyses in the Almanac are relied upon by savvy professionals, from well-known money managers to journalists.

Allowing shrewd investors to maximize profit potential, STA is the ultimate desktop market data bank, showing the market’s likely direction every hour, day, week, and month based on historical precedent.

Created by Jeff Hirsch and the Hirsch Organization, tools and strategies contained in STA include:

The January Barometer: Predicts that stock market performance during the month of January sets the direction for the entire year.

The Best Six Months switching strategy: The stock market tends to make almost all its gains during just six particular months of the year. The rest of the time (most years) traders would be better off putting their money in T-bills and going fishing. STA has upped the ante on this old favorite, unveiling a new strategy that combines the benefits of the Best Six Months and 4-year cycle, nearly tripling the Best Six Months results with four trades every four years.  

Four-Year Presidential Election/Stock Market Cycle: How our presidential elections affect the economy and the stock market.

STA transforms investing into a business framework and makes investing easier by presenting new techniques and tools, providing pertinent statistics on past market performance, and supplying forms necessary for portfolio management.

Other products from the Hirsch Organization include COMMODITY TRADER’S ALMANAC 2010 (Wiley; November 2008; $39.95; 978-0-470-422175; Hardcover) and ALMANAC INVESTOR NEWSLETTER (https://www.stocktradersalmanac.com). Organized in the same format as the Stock Trader’s Almanac, COMMODITY TRADER’S ALMANAC provides essential market-based data and trends for six major commodity groupings: energy; metals; grains; softs; meats; and currencies; plus new for 2010: S&P 500 and 30-Year Treasury Bond futures. Written by Jeffrey A. Hirsch and John L. Person, it contains pertinent statistics on past market performance for all major futures and commodities, from crude oil and coffee to gold and sugar. In addition to access to the annual STA print edition, a subscription to ALMANAC INVESTOR NEWSLETTER also provides monthly newsletters that feature stock market data, indicators, and seasonal patterns; weekly e-mail alerts that warn users about the best/worst trading days, market changes, stock updates, financial commentary, and overall market sentiment; and access to handy research tools that enable subscribers to do their own research and update market indicators and strategies. The Hirsch Organization also publishes books with Wiley under its Almanac Investor Series, including The MAGNET Method of Investing by Jordan Kimmel, Double Your Money in America's Finest Companies by Bill Staton and America's Finest Companies 2010: 19^th Annual Investment Directory (E-Book Only) by Bill Staton with Mary Staton.