Stock Trader's Almanac 2013

Now in its 46^th annual edition, the STOCK TRADER’S ALMANAC 2013 (Wiley; October 2012; $50.00; 978-1-118-15987-3; Hardcover and Ebook) is packed with loads of new features. This latest edition contains key seasonal and cyclical updates including, “The Third Year Of Decades,” “Post-Presidential Election Year Cycles and Perspectives,” “Market Behavior after Sitting President Wins & Losses,” “Post-Election Performance by Party,” “Post-Election Years: Paying the Piper,” “Market Fares Better Under Democrats, Dollar Holds Up Better Under Republicans” and “Republican Congress & Democratic President Best for The Market.”

With the market making  new recovery highs in the latter months of an election and looking extended, Editor-in-chief Jeffrey A. Hirsch is concerned the stock market is setting up for disappointment in post-election year 2013. Hirsch explained that “the post-election year is the worst performing year of the 4-year cycle and current action is reminiscent of some ominous points in the last secular bear market that ran from 1966 to 1982.”  The market was rallying in late 1972 just before it peaked in early January 1973 at the beginning of that nasty 2-year bear. A bull market high was reached in September 1976. The market soured as Carter was likely to be elected and rallied briefly after he won and the incumbent was ousted, but then fell into a deeper decline right after New Year’s Day for the entire year of 1977. In 1981, the market topped in April as Regan began implementing his tax cutting and deficit reduction initiatives and remained in decline until the end of the secular bear in August 1982.

Hirsch went to say that “while we ride the Fed’s latest round of QE and prepare for the seasonal and election driven Q4 rally we are increasingly cautious about the market’s prospects next year. Yearend 2012 or early 2013 may end up proving to be an opportune time to exit the market.”

This must-have investment tool has 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. 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.

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. In fact, every down January for the S&P 500 since 1950 has been followed by a new or continuing bear market, a 10% correction or a flat year.  S&P 500 gains in January’s first five days preceded full-year gains 84.6% of the time, 11 of the last 15 post-presidential yeas followed first five days’ direction.

The Best Six Months Switching Strategy: The stock market tends to make almost all its gains during just six particular months of the year. In most years, the rest of the time traders would be better off putting their money in T-bills and going fishing. STA has upped the ante on this old favorite by combining the benefits of the Best Six Months and the four-year cycle, nearly tripling the Best Six Months results with four trades every four years. The almanac provides detailed instructions on how to implement trading strategies based on the Best Months Switching Strategies and some simple techniques for determining what to trade when implementing this strategy, including a sampling of tradable mutual funds and ETFs.

Four-Year Presidential Election/Stock Market Cycle: Our presidential elections every four years affect the economy and the stock market – just as the moon affects the tides. There have been no losses in the third (pre-election) year of a president’s term since war-torn 1939 as presidents prime the pump to keep themselves or their party in the White House. Markets are likely to come under pressure in 2013 as whoever the president is will have tall orders to remedy the economy, the deficit, and the dysfunctional government.

Other products from the Hirsch Organization include COMMODITY TRADER’S ALMANAC 2013 (Wiley; October 2012; $50.00; 978-1-1181-5986-6; Hardcover; Ebook), and 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 eight major commodity groupings: energy; metals; grains; softs; meats; currencies; plus 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. CTA also focuses on highly-correlated exchange traded fund (ETF) and stocks to trade the most consistent commodity and futures seasonalities, using a few simple technical timing techniques detailed throughout the annual tome.

In addition to access to the annual STA print edition, a subscription to the digital product ALMANAC INVESTOR provides twice weekly e-mail alerts that feature stock market forecasting, indicators, and seasonal patterns, alerting users to the best/worst trading days, market changes, stock and ETF recommendations and updates, financial commentary, overall market sentiment; monthly enewsletters that provide a guide to market patterns, cycles, fundamental developments, strategies and stock selection, and updates and expands the strategies outlined in the Stock Trader’s Almanac; and access to handy research and portfolio tracking tools that enable subscribers to do their own research and update market indicators and strategies.

The Stock Trader’s Almanac Blog (http://blog.stocktradersalmanac.com/) provides daily trading sentiment and keeps Almanac followers up to date on indicators, hot-topics, market happenings, speaking, news, and media coverage. 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.

See the Additional Material tab for the Almanac's "2013 Outlook" and "Post-Election-Year Markets" summary.