Yes, it's the time of the year when you will see this story repeated endlessly in all the newspapers and financial mags.
Along the lines of "Get Set for Santa Claus Rally" "Will we get a Santa Rally this year?" "Is Santa coming to Town?" etc etc
The reason is most financial journalists are pretty lazy. I know, I was one!
The Santa Claus rally story is great as you can cut and paste it from last year, change a few words and there's an article that fills space in just a few minutes. Brilliant! Now off to the pub!
The thrust of all these articles will be along the lines of December and January are the best months to make money - the market goes up in these months etc.
Actually, to be fair this is pretty much true. Kind of. But as far as I remember as I'm too lazy to look it up is that rises tend to happen between about the 15th Dec and the 15th of January.
There's nearly always a hangover. Much of the reason is with the big boys taking a break volumes are thin and shares can spike up on little trading.
So though there is no such thing as a certainty in the market - if you do make money over the holiday period, start banking it by mid January.
By the time we get to February everyone's miserable and shares tend to falter.
My plan is usually to buy some good-looking shares just before Xmas. Then sell them just after. It's worked more years than not but it wouldn't have worked last year because of the mess we were in.
Also, the markets have risen a lot. However a friend of mine who trades a lot on historical trends does tell me that shares often finish the year with a bang in a year that has already been good. Which is definitely this year.
So there you are. You don't have to bother reading any of those articles now...
Just to sum up for lazy readers who were not paying attention. It might be worth buying just before then selling just after the festive period.
Oh, and it also just might be worth shorting for a bit after that - February is usually a stinker!
Phew, that's the end of a nice lazy article! Right, What's on the telly?
Arrrgggh! It's someone in a suit talking about a Santa Claus rally!!